CHASING TWISTERS

They want to believe her. And in part, they do, because this team has never caused them to feel like they did before. They’ve been frustrated and angry, yes, but never in the way that fury rotted their core. Their old team ignored their presence, their mother always turned away, their father punished, and they carried it all with an ever-growing hatred. 

But the Foxes pushed them to be better, as a player and a person. And maybe their hesitance is their fault, for being too harsh in their stance, for forcing their voice to be heard when it was silenced for so long. River knows it’s difficult to be friends with someone who cannot compromise. 

And yet — and yet Glory is still here. Wymack granted them space instead of lecturing them about sportsmanship. In the past year, no one’s looked at them with anger, and they’ve finally stopped looking for it in their eyes. 

It still doesn’t feel powerful enough to use against their father. He looms, an ever-present shadow cast on their life once more. But they want him gone, they want this life that they’ve built without him, they want to be okay, they just want to be okay.

“Glory, I —- God, I want— fuck — ” They’re all staggered breaths and a heaving chest, trying to keep quiet as the sobs cough out. For so long they’ve had hands clamped over their mouth as not to stir ire for being too loud in their distress, that the action of crying so openly feels wrong. Even with Dana, they never sobbed in front of her. She witnessed their tears, but they somehow managed to restrain the worst of sounds. Because it was still giving in, wasn’t it? And they couldn’t do that in front of Dana, not when she had rebuilt her life and they had impeded so suddenly. 

And shame still wraps itself around them, because it’s unfair to Glory too. Rubbing their hands over their face, River wipes the tears away, blinking fast to dry their eyes. It doesn’t work well. They can still feel tears welling as they straighten, and they must look like a wretched mess. With shaky hands, they run them through their hair, choking back another unbidden sob.

“I’m sorry,” they manage to say, and god, they promised they wouldn’t apologize for their actions anymore. But it’s something Glory deserves, because she’s trying, and they can’t deny how grateful they are that she was the one to walk into the locker room. “This —- it’s so much. And I didn’t mean to dump it on you, because it’s so —- so fucked.”

She wants to ask River to promise that they’ll talk to Wymack. She wants to get Wymack on the phone herself, so they can do it right now. But she can’t make this decision for River, can’t act like just because she walked into this locker room at the right or at the wrong time she can tell them what to do. It’s their life. It’s not their father’s; and it’s not hers, either. Even if what she wants to do is help. 

When she’d been running from Justice, the woods had been her fortress. When their father was gone, the house was his domain. If she was in there, then he could get her. But the woods she knew like the back of her hand. No one could make her come down from the trees, no one could climb up to her to catch her. 

The Foxhole Court can be a fortress, too. With its high walls, it’s locked doors, their inner sanctuary. No one should be allowed to come in that they don’t want to—and, with the Foxes’ history, she’s sure that River isn’t the first person to have been confronted by a face in the stands they’d rather not see. Just because no one’s coming for Glory, doesn’t mean that anyone hasn’t come for the rest of them. 

Glory hadn’t been one to cry in front of her siblings, hadn’t been the one to mop their tears up, either. Maybe, if she had been, she’d know what to do now. "Hold on a sec,” she says, softly, leaving River just long enough to grab some paper towels from the bathroom attached to the locker room, dampening some in the sink and leaving some dry, before taking her spot next to them again, holding them out. 

“Oh, there’s gonna be some pompoms now,” Alanna teases. Bold words, because as Glory’s pointed out, the Buckeyes are ahead—and they stay there too, as the game rapidly comes to an end before their eyes. The buzzer sounds and it’s far more unfortunate for the Sundevils than it is for her, but even still. Alanna sighs, falsely overly dramatic, and then shoots Glory a smile. Proof that there aren’t any hard feelings. “Or not. You win.” 

Maybe it’s for the best that she’s lost this the bet anyway. Alanna’s never been the sort of person who can slip into different outfits. Different skins. This is who she wants to be, who she’s always wanted to be—undeniably girly, all bows and bright colors and big smiles. Most days, she still isn’t comfortable in her skin, even like this. A day in Glory’s shoes will be a brand new experience then, and Alanna’s supposed to be tracking those down right now. It’s college. 

On the screen, the Buckeyes and Sundevils line up for their handshake line. It looks about as cordial as any she’s seen at a Fox game—which is to say it looks like a thinly veiled excuse for the Buckeyes to gloat. Alanna turns away from the screen and back to Glory. “So…when should I come over for my makeover?”

She’s sure that she was supposed to spend tonight studying plays instead of making bets, learning what she could learn about the remaining teams in the odds bracket, in the hopes that the Foxes would survive long enough to meet some of them in the semifinals. 

But, just like that, another game is over, and Glory doesn’t think she’s learned much at all, spent too much of it trading quips with Alanna, eating popcorn. It’s why she’s never been too good at school, why she likes Exy: she doesn’t like sitting still, she doesn’t like watching and learning, she likes doing. 

So she shrugs it off as a loss. The game ends, the Buckeyes win. And if they have to face them, well—Casey can tell them much more about what it’s like to play against them than Glory could ever have learned from watching tonight’s game. 

Instead, she just grins at Alanna: “We should make the most of it,” she says, like she’s doing her a favor instead of the other way around. “Next time there’s a Fox party, I’ll do you up.” 

River. Unceasing and relentless. A name they chose for themself, and have been proud of. It’s so easy to imagine a life where this name, their name, will be said longer than the one their parents gave them. And when they first stepped onto Palmetto, when they knocked on Wymack’s door, when they first wore the Foxes jersey on the field, they continuously think of everything that is waiting for them to conquer. That hope has always burned strong and steady, driving them forward through the cards fate dealt them.

And they love hearing this name: River, River, River. A reminder of a beginning.

But they never wanted anyone to say this name the way Glory has. She’s trying, and it’s not her fault at all in the way she says it. They’re eternally grateful for her in this moment. They just — they just never wanted someone to worry, to reach out to them in this way. It hurts, and it shouldn’t. It never, never should hurt.

“In the back of my mind, I know that. I know I don’t have to — to do anything alone. And it’s not as if I wasn’t aware my father could come here for something, because our names are in the press just enough, but I —- I really thought he wouldn’t give a shit after I left.

“But I guess he does, and I —- trying to keep him out makes it feel like he still has fucking power.” It’s a waterfall now,  a rush of words that they don’t want to escape. Their mind is on a loop, a never-ending course of shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! 

But they don’t stop. Their tongue is finally loose, unleashing everything they kept silent since their first introductions to the team. And later, they will chide themself for it, for placing this weight on Glory who doesn’t deserve it all. 

Yet if she doesn’t deserve it, neither do they. They don’t deserve their father rising from their past and trying to inflict his presence on their new life. 

“I know that sitting here, fucking — frozen isn’t that much better. That he still has this damn effect over me, but he doesn’t know that, doesn’t ever need to know that because I left. That should be enough, I shouldn’t — need to do more. I just — I know, I know the logical choice in this, but it doesn’t feel like the right one, it doesn’t feel like I’ve moved on if I have to keep looking over my shoulder to stop him.”

Slowly, they lean forward, elbows on knees and the heels of their hands pressed against their eyes. It’s one breath after another as they try to calm themselves, heartbeat too loud and too fast in their ears. How long have they’ve been trying to calm themself? How long will it be until they can just never have to dwell on the past?

“I worked so fucking hard for this life, Glory,” they murmur. “And with one fucking look, it’s like he’s taken away everything I’ve done.”

Justice had been angry, when Charity left. That was his sister, his full-blooded sister, and one day she was just gone. No one looked for her, but Justice had turned her into a cautionary tale. No one’s come looking for her, either, and she’s sure that she’s become one, too. 

She’d gotten her freedom, but it may have come at the price of tightening the chains around the rest of her siblings. 

She’d say that none of them wanted to leave, but how can she know that? She’d been too busy staying out all night, with her new friends and her new boyfriend, to know any of her siblings’ hearts. She’d been angry with them, for letting her be a scapegoat for Justice’s anger; and they’d been angry with her, too, for being so difficult, for not doing what she was told for all of their sakes. 

It doesn’t seem fair, that she’s gotten away so cleanly when River hasn’t. (But then, the things that haunt her most aren’t ones she can blame on anyone else. Someone she loved is dead. Justice didn’t do that. And she didn’t do it, either, but she feels like she bears some of the blame anyway. She had been there, and she hadn’t done anything to stop it. She didn’t know any better, but she should have.) That their father could just come into this safe place and make River feel like this, hiding and shaking and blaming themself for being hurt by it. By him. 

If she could fight River’s father, she would. But that wouldn’t fix anything, and so she tries to focus on what she can do: comfort River, hopefully; and do whatever she can to make sure that he can’t just show up again, do this to River again. 

When he first came up with the idea, he didn’t think it was something that he’d actually be able to pull off. He wasn’t even sure if it was what he wanted, leaving all this security behind, but Bee helped him realize that it wasn’t an impossible goal. When he signed up for those online courses, he probably should’ve started spreading the word, but he held back out of fear he’d convince everyone he’s leaving, only for him to fuck up and come back next year. 

“I told Betsy,” He shrugs awkwardly. “I was gonna wait and see if it looked like I’d actually pass before telling anyone else, but now it’s March…” He trails off. He’s gone the last five-ish years doing whatever without caring what anyone else thought, but things are different now. Will Wymack feel like signing Brayden on was a waste of time? Will Arlo hate him for leaving early? What will Grant think? 

“So, yeah, thanks. I’d rather tell them myself, you know?” Brayden mutters. He doesn’t know what led him to choose Glory as the first person to confess to. There’s something about her that’s always made her pretty easy to talk to, which is weird because he feels so old and jaded compared to her. 

It’s a sobering reminder: things will change, people will leave. Next year, Grant’s going to be gone, and they’ll have a new Captain. Now, Brayden will be gone, too. People are going to keep graduating, moving on. New freshmen will come, just like Glory has this year. The Foxes will still be the Foxes. 

And yet it’s hard to imagine. There’s a part of her that doesn’t like change: she’d grown up in Owls Bend, where things never really seemed to change much. Not the buildings in town, not the people, not the attitudes. Glory changed, though. And Glory left—and ever since then, it’s felt like things are always moving too quickly, changing too fast, like she can’t keep up, or can’t settle down.

It’s hard to imagine being in Brayden’s shoes in a few years time, or any of the older Foxes: being one of the experienced ones on the team, the ones that younger players—like her now—look up to. When the time comes, she wonders if she’ll feel like she deserves it, or if she’ll still feel like she doesn’t know what she’s doing, doesn’t belong.

“Thanks for tellin’ me,” she says, with a slight smile, her chin propped up on her tucked-up knees. “If you ever wanna—talk about it, or anything, before you tell the rest of the team, you can. You know where to find me.”

Sasha slumps down lazily in her seat, kicking up her heeled boots to rest on the seat in front of her, like she’s at the movies rather than watching some intense Championship game. She pops a piece of popcorn in her mouth as she considers Glory’s offer. It’s not like it’ll require much work on her end. They leave from and return to the same place. “Deal,” Sasha agrees easily with a careless shrug, “But no spilling anything that isn’t water in the Bentley or I’ll end you.” 

She watches the game idly as she tries to come up with something if she wins. It’s hard when she kind of already has everything she could ever want. She glances at Glory from the side of her eye, and looks over her outfit. She has yet to take her shopping like she has with some of the other Foxes who clothes offend her. It’s not like Sasha has a problem with the grunge aesthetic, far from it actually, it’s just that she could elevate it with clothes that aren’t old and falling apart.

“And if the Buckeyes win, you have to let me take you shopping,” Sasha decides with a mischievous grin. “Which sounds like a reward for you, but trust me, it’s all for me. But don’t worry, I’m a great stylist,” She boasts before reaching for another handful of popcorn. 

She’s already planning outfit options in her head, she could get her a nice pair of designer combat boots that’ll last her for years. Maybe, they can even hit up Sephora and pick out a smoky eyeshadow palette and good eyeliner. 

Sometimes it’s enough to make her head spin, how she can share a court and the moniker of Fox with so many of her teammates, and yet have so much of their lives be foreign to her—like Sasha. 

Sasha with her Bentley. Sasha with her money, that she seems willing to spend on Glory—just for a bet, just because something about Glory’s ripped-up hand-me-down clothes offend her.

Glory’s never owned a car, learning how to drive bumping over dirt roads in her father’s old pickup truck, where the inside was always coated with dust because the air conditioning didn’t work, and so they had to keep the windows rolled down in the sticky summers. She’s not sure how many clothes she’s ever owned that weren’t owned by someone else first, whether it was a thrift store or just one of her siblings.

Right now, the only thing that’s coming to mind is that shirt she bought in the airport with Jen. Something tells her Sasha wouldn’t like that one, either, even after Glory and Jen cut ‘em up into matching crop tops. 

She shouldn’t be proud. Or, she’s proud, but that doesn’t keep her from letting her teammates buy her drinks, dress her up for banquets so she doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb any more than she already does. And if Sasha wants to throw her money at her, that’s her prerogative. She’ll take it, and then she’ll keep on being herself.  

But she still stretches her legs in her ripped black tights out, crosses one battered combat boot over another, being difficult for the sake of it and not because she’s actually offended as she drawls: “There something wrong with how I dress?”

Glory doesn’t mean anything by it, but she’s smiling and saying mess you up in a way that sounds like a good thing, and Alanna’s pretty sure she can feel her face heat in response. She’d thrown out makeovers because they’re fun, because girls like Alanna are supposed to love makeovers anyway and she doesn’t mind being a stereotype when its genuine too, but now she thinks about how close she’ll have to lean in to dust Glory’s eyes with gold—or vice versa, for Glory to line Alanna’s with that signature smudged eyeliner.

“Totally,” Alanna manages, pretending she isn’t thinking about that at all. She sticks her hand out for Glory to shake, while the Buckeyes score on the screen in front of them. It officially places them in the lead. Maybe Alanna will end up rocking a new look, if only for a day—or trying to, at least, because she doesn’t have Glory’s casual confidence to pull it off. 

Her team might be losing for now, but Alanna’s an optimist. She cheers for the Foxes, and some would say that means she has a soft spot for the underdog. She also isn’t going to back down from the bet. She’s never been competitive, but Glory seems excited about the terms, and Alanna’s having fun. “I hope you like glitter,” she adds, her best attempt at trash talk. Alanna has a feeling she should stick with the cheers and pep talks. “Or bows. I’d go full Vixen with you.”

She thinks that she’s not supposed to care about her appearance. That it’s not very punk rock of her, or whatever. But she cares about how people see her, she just doesn’t care about being pretty, at least not in a traditional sense. 

It feels like armor: she likes looking like trouble, like she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She likes not looking like anyone’s good little sister, certainly not Justice’s. It makes her feel more like her own person, and not what anybody else tried to mold her into. 

But that’s the point of the bet: Glory and Alanna are worlds apart, and what’s comfortable to them would be uncomfortable to the other one. And it’s worlds more interesting than just five dollars changing hands, some chocolate from the vending machine. And so she gives Alanna’s hand a shake as the Buckeyes score, and she grins: “You better get ready, though, it looks like I’m ahead.”

Maybe this isn’t what she’s meant to be doing. Maybe she should be studying plays, taking notes, preparing for meeting either of these teams later on in the Championships. But this is a little more fun. “Full Vixen? There better not be any pom-poms,” she grumbles, but it’s mostly for show. And, if there are, it’s not like she’s not going to uphold her end of the bargain. When it comes to bets, she doesn’t punk out.

They attempt a smile at the thought of worse places, but it’s flat, strained. They believe her, and are glad that, of all places, sitting on a bench while they’re trying not to implode isn’t something burdensome. Or maybe it is, but they take comfort in the fact that Glory isn’t saying as much.

Yet another part of them is thinking of the after; of how the next moments might as well break this camaraderie. Judgement doesn’t truly exist on a team shaped by people with tragedies littering their lives, but that fear still lingers. They know their last team noticed that purple blossoming on their skin, and they stayed silent. And when they spoke, it was to deny them. 

The Foxes wouldn’t deny River Tate, but that truth is hard to grasp when swallowed by shame.

And then Glory says their name with hesitance, and they hate it. It’s not pity that Glory will give them, but they know the question that will follow, and they never wanted this exposed. It was ridiculous to believe they could have spent their entire career without their past ever being brought to light, but it was something nice. A true beginning. A place where their past remained behind them, the chains long gone. 

And yet, here they sit: a goddamn fool.

                                                                         “ — what happened?”    

A shuddering exhale. Hands clamping to fists, tight and hard, before finally releasing them flat against their legs. The armor of the uniform weighs heavy. Their head tips down again, and they imagine falling, falling, falling. 

That would be easier than this present. 

“My…..my, uh — ” They suck a breath. There are so many ways they could answer. There are so many ways they could say anything else. But with Glory’s eyes on them, it feels cheap to divert. It feels as if she’s not — that they don’t —

It’s been so long since they’ve had so many people they could trust outside of Dana that they don’t know what to do with it.

“My past came roaring back,” they finally whisper. “In, uh, the shape of my father.” They meet her gaze, and swallow, swallow, swallow. “I don’t know why he came. I don’t know what he wants — wanted — here.”

Licking their lips, they run a hand through their hair. “And I —- I don’t want him to still be out there. Waiting.”

Glory’s older sister had ran away. Glory was young when it happened, but as far as she knew, no one reported her missing. That wasn’t her family’s way; Hoskins kept their business to themselves. No one dragged her back home. No one even looked for her. Glory hadn’t been thinking about leaving then, not really, but when it was her time to go, she felt certain: if she left, no one would come looking for her, either. 

It made it easier to go. Knowing that she only had to make the decision once. 

Sitting in the back of a cop car, stubbornly refusing to say anything about herself, with nothing on her that would give up where she belonged and what she was leaving behind, she’d felt her heart in her throat: What if they dragged her back there? What would Justice do to her? What would she even say to her father? How would she ever get the courage to leave again? 

It hadn’t happened then, and it hasn’t happened since. And so she doesn’t bother to even think about it—though she does now, just for a moment. 

The monster in her home wasn’t her father. If she saw him, she doesn’t know what she’d do: she misses him, misses the rest of her siblings that aren’t Justice—but that ache feels so sharp that she doesn’t want to see them again. She just wants to cut that part of herself out of her, the one that longs for home, where it can’t hurt her anymore. 

And that’s Justice’s fault—he’s the monster in her past, like the one that River seems so afraid of now. And it’s easy to be angry now, at this man that she hasn’t seen and doesn’t know, because she and River have that in common. 

   “That can’t be a real question; dare, obviously,” Indigo replied without a moment of hesitation, lips quirking in an eager smile. If she were to be honest, and if she were to be asked in the first place, Indi would put Glory quite high on her list of favorite individuals. 

   It would be exciting to see what Glory throws her way, and Indigo herself is already jumping ahead, thinking of what she could ask or challenge in return. These games were most fun when it felt like no limits existed, other than what the Vixen’s den could allow. 

  At worst, it would be a fun distraction to keep them occupied, pending the game. 

  Once, in boarding school, Indigo had been dared to eat a full cup of dry oats, which she did, and then proceeded to accept the next dare of a teaspoon of cinnamon. A quick glance around the room confirmed that neither of those horrible ingredients were nearby, so she felt fairly safe. 

   But — would Glory play it safe? Indigo’s devilish smile was curious, prompting, ready for a dash of excitement and a bit of a thrill. 

“You’re the one who asked it first,” she points out, with a flicker of a smile behind the rim of her cup. “Besides, a truth can be worse than a dare.” 

They’re Foxes: they’ve all got secrets, got dark spots in their pasts that they prefer not to discuss. Glory does, at least—maybe if Indigo said that she didn’t, then Glory would believe her. She seems so defiant, so loud in it. Glory can fool people, sometimes, into thinking she’s like that, but she isn’t. She’s stubborn, she’s stoic. She keeps to herself. 

Even now, she feels like she’s all bravado. At these parties, when the drinks are flowing, it feels like she’s trying to grasp at a shred of her old carelessness, her old invincibility—but she can’t quite grasp it, because she knows better now. 

Even if sometimes she wishes she didn’t. Wishes that things could just be easy again. 

But even then, she’d always kept to the edges. She never had to be at the center of things, as long as she was a part of them. Not like Indigo. But parties are better with company, and so even if she doesn’t know if it counts as wimping out or not, she says: “I dare you to do a shot with me.”

         She’s always vaguely wondered if she’ll ever be as confident as someone like Glory—but then maybe what she has isn’t exactly confidence. When she has always been made to feel ashamed of the person she was, never exactly what her mom wanted and not what her grandparents wanted either, she was quietly herself now instead of proudly announcing to the world who she was. Maybe one day she could be herself in the easy way that some people could. The loudest she got was wearing her Vixen uniform and her backpack with the pride flags pinned onto it. People like her weren’t made to be loud. They were meant to follow rules and be exactly what their guardians wanted them to be. McKenna didn’t want to be like that though, and she was breaking free of the weight that had been put on her to be perfect.

         To her, people like Glory were amazing. With her bleached hair and tattoos and wildness. She felt tame in comparison, though maybe that wasn’t all a bad thing. She wanted to ask about the tattoos, their meanings, if they had any. With all the changes in her life recently, she wondered if she’d ever feel like something mattered enough to get it tattooed—if anything in her life was truly permanent. Right now, she was a Vixen, a lesbian, a girl who wanted to help people like herself and the Foxes, but all that could change. Would she ever want a reminder of who she was now stuck forever when she was still growing as a person? Or was that the point?

         “Well—I mean. I don’t really want to take anything from you and that seems easier than, you know most anything else.” McKenna didn’t know how to bet. She clearly was in over her head in a situation like this and Glory could probably tell. “It’s college though. That’s the whole point of like… being here. Doing something new.” She’d never dyed her hair before, other than with the chalky stuff that came out after a wash. “I donno what else to even ask for,” she scrunched her nose. “Besides, if I have to walk around as like a highlighter for a bit, I wouldn’t mind.”

It feels a little bit like pity: McKenna not even letting her bet the five dollars she has in her pocket; stacking the deck so that, no matter the outcome of the game, it’s McKenna that loses, and Glory that wins. 

Glory’s never had much, and it’s always been obvious: from the patched-up hand-me-downs she’d grown up in, to the crowds of troublemakers she ran with in Louisville, to the moniker of Fox she wears now. And yet it feels like she has more than she ever has: she’s getting a college education, she has Exy, she has this team. McKenna can’t take that away from her, so anything that Glory might lose in a bet doesn’t really matter. 

At home, she always knew what people saw when they looked at her, all the things they whispered about behind her back. First, just about her family: Gideon Hoskins has more land and children than sense. And then, just about her: Kids like that, they deserve everything they get. She knows now, what they say about the Foxes, but it doesn’t bother her: she wears her Fox Orange jersey, her smudged eyeliner and her tattoos and her ripped clothes like a badge of honor. 

On the screen, the time ticks down, and the Buckeyes score—pulling them into the lead and leaving the Sundevils with little time to make a comeback. “That better be your final answer, ‘cause it looks like we’re runnin’ out of time, “ she says, and then looks at McKenna with a sidelong grin. “I’m going to pick Fox Orange, by the way. Hope you’re feeling the team spirit.” 

A laugh bubbles from his lips, because he knows how ridiculous he probably sounds. He remembers how everyone reacted when Jen left them from the Vixens, like they were out of their mind. He’s not becoming a fucking cheerleader or anything, but he’s still trying to leave before his time. Technically, he’d be staying a sixth year, and that’s part of the problem. He doesn’t want to be in college for six years. 

“I know it doesn’t really make sense,” He agrees with a shrug. He doesn’t really know how to explain himself either. He doesn’t usually talk about this kind of thing with people who aren’t Betsy. “It’s just–if we don’t win after we got this close, I don’t think I’ll have it in me do it all over again, you know?” He sighs, pausing to take a drag from his cigarette. “And if we do win, then I go out on a high note. Would kind of suck if I won this year, but not the last one.” 

Glory’s only a freshmen, and Brayden doesn’t want to make her jaded before she even finishes her first year, but she’s probably stronger than him. She seems to genuinely love the game, which is more than he ever could’ve said for himself. And she confirms she’s happy here, and he’s surprised to find he’s happy for her. 

“Good,” He gives her a short nod and a hint of a smile, “You’re in for a fun four more years then. This team definitely doesn’t get boring.” He wonders what would’ve happened if he grew up oblivious to Exy. It was like that until Landon discovered it was the best thing ever and dragged Brayden into practicing with him. He wants to say he’d be in art school or something, but Exy didn’t cause his addiction, so he probably wouldn’t be better off.

She doesn’t think too much about the future: when the present feels like so much already, it’s the only thing she can focus on, the only thing she has room for. She can’t think about what happens after the Foxes, when she already feels like she knows that she’ll want to keep playing Exy, and she isn’t sure if she’ll be able to. When she can’t imagine a professional team picking her, just like she hadn’t been able to imagine Wymack recruiting her. 

She hasn’t even thought far enough ahead to next year, but Brayden’s words make her do it: what if this, her first year on the Foxes, is the best that she gets? If they don’t make it this far in the Championships next year, or the year after that, and every year that comes after is just fighting and failing to recapture this feeling that she has now?

She thinks about it, but she just as quickly stops. That isn’t going to happen. She isn’t going to let it—and she believes enough in the rest of the Foxes to know that they won’t, either. 

Maybe Brayden doesn’t. Maybe he’s wrong, or maybe Glory is. But he’s got years under his belt, and he’s paid his dues. It’s just strange to think that, after sharing the court with him all year, next year he’ll just be gone, and they’ll be another striker in his place. That, eventually, the only people left on the court with Glory from this first, wonderful year, will be the other freshmen. 

“Have you told Wymack?” She asks, quietly. “Or anyone else on the team?" Maybe it’d be a distraction, during Championships, the kind of thing they can’t afford. But she can’t imagine it’d be better to be blindsided by it, after they’ve won or loss and they’ll never play together again. Maybe there’s no good way to do it. Just ripping the bandaid off, and then living with it. “I won’t say anything to anyone, if you haven’t.” 

It had been a long, long time, since anyone specifically blamed anything on Caleb. The words hadn’t been directed at him since he was a child, but he could still hear his subconscious say that them losing the game was all his fault. While the voice used to sound like his mother’s, drunk and slurring her words, it had progressed to his own voice lately. That enough was to send him running into the comfort of cracker dust and ice cream.

The tapes would show that he let two goals in. Two goals that, had he blocked them, would have lead to a tie and the teams having a shootout to see who won. If he’d only been a little bit better, a little bit faster, they might have won. It’s a stinging feeling, even knowing that they’d still progress on. A victory would only boost their confidence and he couldn’t help secure one. 

A new round of blame settles over him and makes him flinch internally like a hand to the cheek. Glory’s voice doesn’t help, he’s already up in his head and hearing a woman’s voice only served to put him on edge. It was nothing like his mothers: Every word out of Glory’s mouth was sharp, concise, she very clearly knew what was going on. His mother’s had been rougher, words running together and with a few choice words a child shouldn’t have heard mixed in. But it’s enough to send him reeling, hand pulling the sleeve of his shirt down to cover the burn on his arm. 

It’s only for a moment that he allows, catching himself and remembering where he was. Sweetie’s, in Palmetto, hundreds of miles away from the place he’d grown up in. Palmetto meant exy and exy meant that he’d made it out. That was the only thing that mattered. 

There was no time for pity parties in exy. He could mourn their loss or feel guilty over it after they’d won the championships so he did his very, very best, to snap himself back to reality, into feeling like a real person and not a million miles away. 

“It was just an offer, Glory.” He doesn’t match her energy or tone, rolling his eyes. “You don’t have to take it.”

He rolls his fucking eyes at her. It was just an offer. Like this is all fun and games, like this isn’t serious. Like people don’t lose their lives to this shit, like they don’t die. 

The last months she spent in Owls Bend feel like they’d happened to someone else. Like she wasn’t there. She’d already pulled away from her siblings, but she’d pulled away from her friends, too. The parties in the woods had gone on, like nothing had changed, and Glory just couldn’t do it anymore. Everything had changed. In her clear headed moments, she could only think: I have to get out, I can’t stay here. 

And, in her weakest moments, when she couldn’t be stubbornly independent as she always wanted to be: I need help. 

She’d found it on the side of the road. She went from the back of a police car to treatment—just barely enough to get her by—and then on to foster care. She found Exy, and she doesn’t want to think about what might have happened if she hadn’t. Her friends in Louisville hadn’t been all that different from her friends in Owls Bend: they had the same rough edges, and a lot of them had the same habits. It was just Glory that was different, Glory that was determined to turn her gaze away, to leave when she had to, to say no this time. 

She’s made her choices. What she’ll do and what she won’t let herself do again. But even just drinking at Fox parties doesn’t feel easy, doesn’t feel uncomplicated. Every time she has to wonder: Am I going to get bad again? Or: Is someone going to get hurt again? 

Caleb doesn’t know her, but she thinks that shouldn’t matter. That he shouldn’t be this fucking flippant, this fucking careless. Would he have smiled that same smile at Akira? At Brayden? At Casey? 

Brayden pauses to take a drag from his cigarette as he thinks over her question. It used to be that prying questions like that used to make him all defensive and cagey, but he’s chilled out in his old age. It’s not like he’s gearing to tell everyone all about how he used to be a lonely, sad teenage addict, but giving something doesn’t feel like the end of the world anymore. It’s probably has less to do with getting old and more to do with the fact that he’s grown past that person. He has people in his life now that he tells things to, and has realized that sometimes it actually does feel good to talk. 

“It gave me an out,” Brayden shrugs after exhaling the smoke away from her, “I wanted to be anywhere but home, even if it meant playing a sport I didn’t care that much about for five years.” He doesn’t have a specific plan or enough money to really start a post-graduation life, but he’s the most stable he’s ever been, and the thought of graduating now instead of a year from now doesn’t fill him with fear anymore.

“I’ve actually–uh been taking some online classes. So, I can graduate this year, maybe. I dunno if I’ll pull it off, but I figured I’d try,” Brayden admits, and putting it out into the world is nerve wracking enough to make his hands go clammy and his pulse race. He hasn’t been advertising it, because he’ll look like a fucking idiot if he’s back here again next year. 

“What about you? How’d you get here? Or are you one of those who actually followed us and wanted to be part of Wymack’s gang?” He asks. They’re a rare breed, but he knows they exist. He can’t imagine anyone actually watching their games and deciding they want to try and be part of this team.

Once, Glory had needed an out. She’d planned her escape—first, with someone at her side; and then, again, but alone, when she couldn’t stand staying in Owls Bend one more second with the person she loved in the ground, with everyone whispering about how he deserved it, about how she would deserve it, too, if she met the same fate. 

The life she found afterwards wasn’t much: bouncing from foster home to foster home, trying to stay out of trouble just enough to avoid getting send somewhere worse, but she hadn’t thought she’d needed an escape from that, when she’d already fled the worst. If she hadn’t found Exy, if Wymack hadn’t found her, that’s where she’d still be: no longer in foster care, sure, but not in college, not playing sports. Bouncing from couch to couch, probably, Working some dead end jobs. Waiting until she turned 21 and could get a job tending bar.

Maybe that would have been enough, if she hadn’t known that all of this could be hers. But now that it is, that life just sounds so small. 

“You want to leave?” She blurts out, before she thinks about it. She wishes she could take it back, immediately. Brayden sounds unsure, and he just got done telling her about all the shitty years when she wasn’t on the team. But the Foxes are winning now, and Glory’s filled with such love for this team—she can’t imagine wanting to cut this short. She can’t imagine being done. “I mean—if you want to, then you should go for it. Don’t listen to me. I’m just—surprised, I guess.”  

She had no recollection of her mother’s cooking. Of course, Marley assumed that she must’ve done it, her father having been her father long before her disappearance, and she’d certainly never seen him in the kitchen using a knife for it’s intended purpose…but the traditional family meal he had been so obsessed with her taking over the mantle for, she had no memories of. Only the ones that he forced after the fact, but mostly, the hours that she would spend in that damn kitchen. Piecing a meal together from scratch, multiple courses and all, holding her breath while he took the first few bites when it was all done and ready for him, and his associates. Deeming it a good meal if it stayed on the table, comments through full mouths of how she was going to make some man very happy one day. And if not a good meal, Marley would go to bed hungry, no possible way of stomaching her food after having to clean it up off of the floor. 

And yet, she was at ease, in the kitchen. Didn’t use the one in their apartment nearly as much as she’d done back in Virginia, but it was clear that she knew what she was doing. Came to her naturally, multiple things going on at once not even seeming to phase her. She knew exactly how much time was left in the oven for the bread, and that the beans were ready to be drained, and that the first aid kit underneath the sink would solve the problem of her finger and put her right on her way to adding those potatoes to the pot with everything else.

“Chicken, beans, potatoes…” She lists off absentmindedly, unable to keep from chuckling at Glory’s skeptic glance into the pot. “That’s just the chicken broth.” Her eyes cut briefly to the potatoes, and then back to her finger. “I’m okay, thank you, Glory…but do you mind actually just tossing those in for me?” Marley nodded her head towards the pot, reaching with her uninjured hand for the first aid kit, and pulling it out. 

Sometimes, it felt like she had two homes: the one that she remembers fondly, when her father was home and Justice reined himself in, and she would sit around the table with her siblings instead of looking through the window; but then there was where here father was gone, the ones that made the thought of staying there unbearable, the nights where Glory would rather stay out in the cold and the rain rather than be inside that house. She’d always loved her father, and he’d always loved her, always met her wildness with fondness. But he was a hard man to love: he was always leaving; and he always trusted Justice, who was so good at pretending to be responsible, the dutiful older brother, putting his old life on hold to take care of them when their father couldn’t be bothered to.

Sometimes her nostalgia feels poisonous. The things that she remembers and misses are real, but that’s the worst part—because everything else is real too, and it means that she can’t ever have the things that she misses again. 

“Sounds good,” she says to Marley, and she smiles. She and Marley aren’t from the same place, but the smells permeating the kitchen are familiar enough. Homey. Comforting. Palmetto has become home to her, but it usually doesn’t feel like this. She’s got new things that she associates with home now: the smell of the cleaners they use in the locker rooms, and the sweat underneath; the feeling of a racquet in her hand the the court floor under her feet, slamming into her teammates in a joyful, yelling pile when they score, when they win. But this is nice, too. 

She’s happy to be given a task, happy to help: she’s not used to being in a kitchen when someone’s cooking without being put to work. And so she picks up the cutting board with the potatoes and tips them into the bubbling pot, making sure that none of them are left behind. “Anything else I can do to help? I’m probably not as good as you, but I’m no slouch. I’m used to workin’ for my dinner.”

         Growing up, she knew exactly what people thought about her. Poor little McKenna, her mom had her so young and wasn’t ready for the responsibility; her grandparents better watch out, or she’ll end up just the same. Her whole life people expected her to be something, treated her like something she wasn’t. Her mom thought they were friends, her grandparents thought she was a liar, people at school thought she was just the school freak. Everyone thought they knew her without actually figuring out who she was, and it was annoying. Even now, McKenna felt that people expected her to be someone. And sure, maybe she was slightly predictable, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t down to have fun, try something new every so often. She didn’t want to be boring.

         It was funny to think that her only rebellious thing in life was joining a crappy high school cheerleading squad, thinking that they’d accept her, when it was against her grandparent’s wishes. And in a way also applying to Palmetto was an act of rebellion. But unlike some people, it was tame. She didn’t have a really wild streak like some of the Foxes and Vixens. Honestly, that was fine with her some days, but then there were other days where she wished she could be more like them. She wanted to do things without a care in the world and be as confident as some of the people she knew. Instead, she was still fiercely herself, while being quiet about it.

         “No, I suppose not,” she says slowly, as if she is truly contemplating if that’s the worst thing. I’d be a story for when she was older, a reminder of her wild college days that still weren’t that wild. Maybe it’d be fun. She had no idea. Even contemplating this, she thought of her grandparent’s reactions to it and how appalled they’d be over it. The Vixen didn’t care about that anymore. If they didn’t accept her, then they didn’t. As soon as college ended, she’d be on her own. She could be on her own now too if she wanted. What mattered was how she felt about the decisions she made. “But I do want a tattoo. I just don’t know what yet.”

         It didn’t really feel fair to claim a team that was slated to win, though she didn’t care much about that. This was all in good fun, she expected, rather than for an actual gain. And besides, there was always a chance the underdog team could win. After all, there were so many movies about that. “How about…” she thought for a second. “If I win, you can pick a color for me to dye my hair.” If that’s really as wild as she got right now, then she’d take it. At least it’d be a little fun if she ended up with teal hair for a bit.

Glory’s tattoos are small things, black ink scattered from her fingers to the inside of her wrist to her inner arm to her shoulderblade to her hipbone. When she’s bored in class, which is frequently, she doodles on herself, temporary ink to match the more permanent fixtures, but she hasn’t given herself a new tattoo yet—the last one she did is the one that no one really sees, except for flashes when she’s changing in the locker room, the fox paw she did during summer practices. 

It had felt sudden and impulsive, then, but she’d wanted to ink Palmetto into her skin. Everything else on her was a memory, and she wanted something to say: this is where I am now. To make it a part of her, in a way she never had in Louisville. 

“If you win?” She repeats with a raised eyebrow. She’s beginning to think that McKenna doesn’t know how bets work. If, by the terms that McKenna’s agreeing to, Glory gets an opportunity to embarrass her no matter what the outcome of the game is. Because Glory doesn’t fuck around with bets. If that’s what McKenna wants when—(because, even if she ended up with the Sundevils in their wager, she’s not holding her breath for them to pull ahead, even if the game seems close right now)—the Buckeyes win, then Glory isn’t going to go easy on her. It’s gonna be Fox Orange, baby. 

But, still, she offers her one more out: “If you want to dye your hair that bad, I’ll help you do it. No bet required.” 

Their phone weighs heavy in their hand, and god, it’s like it burns hot, but they can’t let go. They don’t know if they should send a quick text to Dana, to inquire if their father has reached out to her too. If he’s found her, cornered her, reminded her that they can’t fucking escape where they come from. 

For the first time in nearly a year, River feels that terror crawl up their throat, and they cannot stop it.

They’re supposed to be unceasing, a force pressing against the world. But as Glory slowly approaches and sits on the nearby bench, they wish to step back and fade into the walls. They wish to become stone, unfeeling and unbothered and incapable of shattering so easily.

Coast is clear, she says, shoots them a smile too, and they finally drop their gaze, eyes squeezing shut. Yet their father’s face in the crowd greets them, and the phone burns, and they can hear their pulse in their ears pounding faster, faster, FASTER —-

“I don’t —- I don’t know,” they stammer, because the silence is suffocating them, and they have to fill the gap. Sinking back down to the bench, they finally release their white-knuckled grip on the phone, leaving it face-down. “I — ” They try to keep their breaths even, slow,  but their heart still slams against their ribs. “I don’t know what I want right now.”

what if he’s actually still there, what if he’s waiting, what does he fucking want?

Swallowing, their words tumble in a rush as they say, “You don’t — have to stay. This — I don’t know. That’s like the third fucking time I said that, but I can’t — nothing else is coming. And I don’t want you to spend all night here after today’s game.”

She thinks back to the end of the game, but she can’t make anything clearer. The Foxes lost. Glory had been on the bench, but River had been on the court. Had something happened then? Or had it been in the handshake line? Glory had gone through it on autopilot, then, like she usually did: quick clasps of hands, murmuring good game under her breath until they didn’t sound like words anymore, too meaningless to feel bitter in her mouth.

River had been gone by the time the handshake line was over, and maybe they’ve been in here ever since. Which seems unfair—did everyone that they shared this locker room with just leave them in here, looking like this? So eager to get out of the court and wipe the taste of a loss out of their mouths? Had Glory? She hadn’t seen them, she hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t been looking, and maybe she should have been. 

Thinking about it makes her feel angry, and she likes that better, better than looking at River as they stumble their words and make themself small—because that just makes her feel helpless.

“That’s okay,” she says, hoping she sounds soothing. “You don’t have to know. But I’m—I’m okay staying. Believe me,” she says, hoping for a small bit of levity, “I’ve spent nights worse places.”