Work Text:
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“I can't be myself
I can't be myself and I don't wanna talk
I'm taking the cure
So I can be quiet whenever I want
So leave me alone.”
***
Misty was not supposed to be there. But she was.
Nobody wanted her there. It wasn’t even mean… at first. Just a few girls wondering aloud why they bothered taking her with them to Nationals, as usual, thinking she couldn’t hear them. But that was fine. She knew it was normal to wonder why she was coming, she didn’t actually play soccer. It was simply an indisputable fact that she wasn’t as useful as the rest of them. Despite this, it’s not as though she spends every waking moment trying to prove her usefulness to the team to justify to both herself and everyone else why she’s not worth ignoring altogether.
Oh wait. She does.
That made all of this so much worse.
She didn’t have to be there. Frankly, she had basically volunteered herself. If they were going to Nationals, why wouldn’t she want to? Why did nobody seem to get this? She was still there for them. Still assisting them. Still attempting to provide moral support. If she didn’t go then… then…
What did it all mean? What was it all for?
It certainly wasn’t to make friends. She didn’t really have any of those.
Her imagined conversations between herself and her ‘teammates’ were frequent. She’d picture herself talking about boys with Mari. Pretending not to notice how all over each other Van and Taissa were. Telling Jackie and Nat they needed to stop sneaking looks at each other if they wanted to keep whatever the heck that was under wraps. Telling Laura Lee she wasn’t a loser for not drinking with the others. That it was okay to be herself, even if that meant being a little different. She’d appreciate it, and maybe even smile back at her in that way she occasionally did at Lottie. Lottie could even appreciatively tease Misty a little bit. Give her a hard time. Cause that’s what you did with friends, right?
Misty could be a reliable, affable, plucky little everywoman to add to their squad. They didn’t have anyone like her yet, someone a little nerdier and a little more soft-spoken- so it wasn’t as though she was redundant. No, that wasn’t it. By all reasonable measures she still should’ve been able to see, for example, what was bothering Shauna- because of course Shauna could talk to her! She was Misty! Helpful, eager, secretive Misty whom she could totally confide in! Heck, maybe she could do her best to talk Shauna and Jackie out of whatever it is they were clearly going through, the resolution to which might prove to be the secret to them all operating as an efficient, well-oiled machine! That way, they would win, everyone would be happy, and everyone would know the lengths she went to in order to help. In order to be essential. To be useful.
It hadn’t been the first time they’d all left and ended up more or less ignoring her. They had an away game once. Six counties over and it required a brief hotel stay, another instance in which she volunteered herself for the sake of general assistance. All she had to do was ask Coach Ben. He was so sweet. He always let her come along. He at least knew she was useful. Useful enough to get the permission slips that required her parents’ signature- signatures that had been easily forged for years, but that was all part of it too. Misty would tell them that the team just included her, as though it was obvious that she tag along with them wherever they went. She was just that essential. One form of approval that became two with a pen and ten minutes of Misty’s copious free time.
She remembered it vividly. They hardly even acknowledged her. Natalie had wondered out loud (probably while high) what ‘they were going to do with Misty’ and that was about it. Of course Natalie would be the one to acknowledge her. She knew what it was like to be ignored, to be thought of as ‘lesser’ just because you weren’t what everyone else was. Natalie may have been a little too into substances for her liking, but at least it made her honest. She didn’t have to put up with all that high school hierarchical bull crap, the real reason that the team wouldn’t talk to her. If they weren’t tethered to some form of stupid social currency, they’d see that she just… she…
She just wanted to have some friends.
Was that really so wrong? Was offering them Gatorade even when they may not have needed it wrong? Was trying to give them tips on mid-fielding techniques during practice wrong? She wasn’t trying to undermine Jackie’s authority or anything. In fact, she wanted to alleviate the burden. Jackie had a hard job. A job Misty never could’ve done because it required things like charisma and intuition- two things Misty had spent a lot of her life being told she did not have despite trying her best to compensate.
Not everyone could be normal, right? The others had to constantly live as though they were atoning for their own faults too, right?
She spent the time in the hotel room before the away game next to the one room they all agreed to meet at later that night. Thankfully, the room to Taissa’s left was unoccupied and, well, Misty had her ways of finding things she shouldn’t have. That and hotel staff were always way more gullible than they seemed, particularly if you were a wide-eyed, adorable little blonde with curls just looking for something she might have left in her hotel room after checking out. It wasn’t her fault that most people who didn’t know her well found her to be rather sympathetic.
Misty pressed her ear to the wall, listening to them converse and tease and all the things she always imagined they did when she pictured them talking to each other. Her imagination was getting better and better at emulating the real thing, it seemed.
There was a knowing, gnawing, nagging part of her that worried about the inevitable moment where she was mentioned unflatteringly. When someone would say ‘what is up with her?’ and they’d all erupt in a chorus of laughter as they acknowledged her failures or shortcomings. The moment on the horizon where the monkey’s paw would curl and her desire to be noticed would be fulfilled at the cost of ever being able to do anything about it at all.
But that moment never came. They never once mentioned her.
Because why the fuck would they?
This was worse. It felt a lot worse.
She pretended to interject, firing off her own responses to questions and prompts from the girls she was eavesdropping on. Her mouth wordlessly echoing her desired contributions to the conversation as she whispered what she wanted to say, occasionally silently laughing with the others throughout the time it took to figure out why what they were saying was actually funny. If it was funny. Misty still wasn’t sure how all that worked. Sometimes she imagined what one of the others would say in response, and she’d add that in too, ultimately making the strange act of proxy reconnaissance a blur between perceived and imagined realities that ceased to exist on separate channels for Misty.
When everyone went to bed, Misty smiled as she slowly walked into the hotel bathroom, turned on the shower, and then sat down in it fully clothed.
The lukewarm water- temperature indifferent due to carelessness on her part- poured over her face. It took a few minutes, but her glasses eventually did fog up and make everything utterly illegible, and that was fine. It wasn’t about what she could see. It was about what she could feel.
When the water splashed against her, it made it impossible to tell what were tears and what weren’t. It washed them away instantly, but it also gave her plausible deniability to yield against herself. She wasn’t crying. It was just the shower. The droplets of water were bigger than tears, so they could just absorb them before they rolled down her face and into the drain. Erasing the evidence it had even happened instantly. Would anyone ask why she was sopping wet? Would she even need to use the ridiculous falsehood? ‘No, I wasn’t crying, I just got out of the shower!’- no. She wouldn’t.
Because Misty was not supposed to be there.
Just like right now. Stranded in the wilderness. There for no reason other than she had put herself there. She wanted the stolen valor of their sportsmanship? Was that really it?
She knew they didn’t need her. She wasn’t delusional. It would’ve been nice to be appreciated, though. She contributed! She wasn’t essential. Of course. She knew that. That was fine. She still couldn’t help but wonder… was even that too much to ask? An iota of gratitude? If they couldn’t pay her back in friendship, couldn’t they at least give her a simple thank you? She still wanted to be realistic, after all. She didn’t want to set herself up for failure. Or expect too much. It just seemed like no matter how low her standards were, she always ended up disappointed. And, honestly, that was the thing. She wanted to feel hope. Hope was wonderful! But the older she got, the more that she found all it was good for was punishment.
In a lot of ways, she was a realist. Life had brute-forced its way through her, and this was the end result. It was why she almost felt at home out here. Everything had been forcibly set back to ‘0’- so to speak. It was almost like the qualities Misty possessed that annoyed or upset people just didn’t matter anymore while stranded. At least, not enough to make a difference.
What was wrong with her?
She had really thrown herself headfirst into a horrific plane crash when she could’ve stayed home, turned on some cartoons, stayed in her pjs, and just ignored all of it.
All for people who probably wouldn’t have pissed on her if she was on fire.
And so it was time to show people just how useful Misty Quigley could be. Because if it couldn’t be on the field, if it couldn’t be off the field, if it couldn’t happen in a normal, casual, everyday circumstance?
Then it was going to happen out here.
Because Misty Quigley was a lot of things.
She was careful. She was distrustful. She was willing to ignore the previous two things just listed because she was so obnoxiously, unfathomably sick of being careful and distrustful. Did they think she liked that? Feeling like every time she opened her meek, mousy little mouth was just her willingly walking into a social minefield? Having to constantly hide behind an obvious projected version of herself? Did they think that was who she really was? Who she wanted to be?
That was what she was afraid of the most. Maybe she’d pretended to be real for so long that she forgot what that meant.
Maybe she didn’t know who she was anymore.
Or maybe she’d never been anybody at all.
She still knew a couple of things. No matter who she was or what she was now. She had her wits. She had her instincts. She had her knowledge.
That was something.
Because Misty Quigley was a lot of things. Things she liked. Things she didn’t. Things she absolutely could not stand.
But she was not useless.
They just had to understand that.
And she’d make them.
The red light blinked.
Misty’s fingers tightened around the stone.
With all her strength, and the combined force of gravity, she smashed the transponder to smithereens.
Because another thing Misty absolutely wasn’t?
Misty Quigley was not weak.
“Well done, little huntress.”