#nightmare affectionately

Captain Evangeline Samos cannot but stay gold. The star of the soccer team, the top of the science classes, the daughter of prestigious families with at least half a dozen college and sport scouts vying for her, likely proud to award themselves brownie points for her japanese-greek origins by recruiting her. Even her art class projects – ambiguous metal sculptures – make it into school exhibitions. She’s so perfect she’s asking for resent.

She doesn’t appear to care about that, of course, as to be expected of any high school queen bee worth her rank. Indeed, she might just see it as preparation for a career in a similarly socially mined field. And thus, I’m glad to be of service to rile her.

Though it shouldn’t rile me so hard, when she’s a year above me. Maybe it’s like my siblings use to say, I’m born to be a thorn in someone’s side. A nightmare, they tease, just what Samos has begun to call me, like a lure I can’t withstand.

If she likes a fight, I grew up on it. What fell into her lap, I had to work for. While she runs and brunches on her Sunday mornings, I look after my impaired Dad as Mom works at the factory. Even her shifts as supervisor aren’t enough to secure college for me. My brother Shade is the first in our family to try and he still complied with the quite average and inexpensive college in the next city.

If I want more, putting my advanced science classes to use for an engineering career, I need the scholarship scouts the captain is so keen to flirt with although she already has every chance in the world at her hand while I’ll need luck to grasp any.

“It could be worse,” Mom would say at times and hug me. I know. I know. Mom immigrated from Mexico as a teen and only gained US-american citizenship as an adult, so my siblings and I could have it easier here from birth. And my parents are proud of me as I am. But there’s no such as wanting too much for me. Can’t I not strive for the best just because?

I curse under my breath as Iral runs offside just when I kick the ball to her; and curse again when the captain loses a vital duel. I’m not demure or silent, not a nice and friendly girl moving smoothly forward without getting seen. I’m raw and full of edges and I’ll use them to climb up – but they make it so hard to enter the soft realms of cliques.

I miss the old team I grew up with and as I struggle to fit in the new, all I’ve got is to give my best, snort and keep running.

Captain Samos, though, does not acquiesce, as if her coolness turned into ice, brittle and stiff. Almost as if she invites me to usurp her place like she told to me last week. I can’t believe the mess she’s making. When she misses a pass and viciously fouls an opponent, the whole team is left aghast and frozen at the shrill whistle from the referee.

She takes the red cart with dignity, throwing back her head and managing to look both subdued and upright as she exits the field and hands Goalkeeper Welle the captain’s ribbon. Her gaze falls on me as we cross. I don’t hear what she whispers but it’s obvious enough – your turn.

I don’t enjoy it, that’s not my place. Yet I make damn sure that we win this match.

Afterwards, the surge of victorious joy stays curbed. It is there, a new level of certainty, of belonging, holding me up and in the team, which, I believe, should leave me euphoric before it settles in like a new normal. I didn’t expect Samos to make me deputy captain, but in this moment, I believe I could be, one day. Still, on the way to the locker room, I brush it aside because my eyes cleave to Evangeline.

She likely received our coach’s scolding already but must be preparing for more – from the teammates. Even if they’re all besties.

Suddenly, my outsider-who-doesn’t-give-a-shit-instincts kick in again. Before I go in to change, I take her by the arm and pull her away, outside.

The late October sky is cold slap without the exertion to warm me but I don’t care. I need this. I need the cold to focus. I need to face her. I –

“Do you want to chide or to gloat?” After coming along easily, Samos’s snap is a lash.

I flinch and let go of her. “I wanted to apologize,” I say.

Her dark eyes burn, from anger or tears I can’t decide. “Now you want to apologize? When I’m down and you’re on the rise?”

Whatever broke loose in her, I feel it as well. “Oh, is that a new feeling for you? Welcome to my life! No matter what you were told, you can’t have everything, Evangeline Samos, so get used to it.”

She sucks in her breath like this hits her harder than anything. She’s taken aback, shocked, enraged, I can’t say, as I can’t say what she’ll do. Hit me, shove me, scream out loud? But then she simply steps back and spins around, as if it – I’m – is not worth it, not worthy to know what she feels. And for me it feels impossible to agree with this, to let her leave as a stranger and never cross the rift between us when I know in my veins the bridge is already there.

I grab her hand and hold her back. She is shivering, I notice, and it’s infective, although mine has another reason than hers. Every time we touch, even by glances, she wakes something in me I no longer wish to ignore and let sleep.

-       “Want to come running with me next week?”

-       “Weird way to ask for a date.”

“I wasn’t joking,” I whisper to her back. Deep down, it was both and that shames me. A hurtful joke as well as a dare that I hoped she’d accept so she could show me what to do.

It was mean, and coward. I swallow and, trembling, my arm moves to embrace her from behind, uncertain how tight or close I may go. “Evangeline,” I whisper, and this time, speaking her first name leaves my tongue bewitched.

I need a moment to try again. “I’d like …” I start but am too exhilarated to continue.

It’s of no consequence, because Evangeline both turns and leans into my feeble embrace, and makes it real by it. No matter her sorry performance in the game, she’s on the offensive now, as she kisses me.

 Evangeline

January rain prattles against the windows of the lake house. I watch the raindrops fall into the water, leaning back in my sunchair and stretching out my bare legs, their summer tan slowly fading to dark beige, glad to be inside and for the coffee in my hands.

“What a grey day,” mutters Mare as she sneaks in and puts our brunch on the table. She’s not quiet about it, though efficient, shoving clutter aside and dropping bread rolls on plates, lastly tossing her wet coat out of the way.

We can afford to, now, and here. Unlike before, this brunch is wholly ours. Private. Alone. Without family attending. The first time we did this I couldn’t believe it’d be so easy, just not to give my Sundays to my family. With Mare at my back, I made this space for me, for us, by taking it.

My gaze follows her motions and soon hers traces mine when I rise and step to the table. The difference is stunning: Me in the revealing but comfortable black nightgown, she in wet and loose jeans. I wonder if she’d like a warming hug. Or the trousers out of the way entirely.

She snaps out of her stare, tucking her chin-long browns curls behind her ear. “There’re cakes as well,” she mumbles and proceeds to place the mouth-watering cherry- and hazelnut cakes, more careful this time while avoiding my eyes.

I see enough of her though. Her blushing cheeks. How she bites her lips. I grab her wrist before she runs off any further. “Thank you, Nightmare,” I say softly as she gives up to hide her smile.

Mare falls on a chair, sighing and covering her face with her hands. “… that you really turned that into a pet name,” she says. She straightens to cross her arms and brown eyes fix me.

I set down my coffee with a clank, trying to subdue my smirk. “It is a reminder,” I say in a neutral voice and close the little distance she put between us. I cup the nape of her neck with my hand. “That you aren’t an unattainable fantasy I dreamt of.” She leans back into my hold. “But real. And here.”

“And a nuisance?” she asks softly, the challenge in her voice swallowed by her trembling – that she stills trembles at my touch! – lips, full lips I long to kiss like nothing else, to test if they taste better than the delicacies she brought.

I grin with a headshake, letting my hair sway. “The best kind of nuisance. The one who succeeds.”

Now it’s her who pulls closer.

 Eventually, Mare did get rid of the jeans, to sit crossed-legged on the couch to multitask between eating and doing homework on her tablet while I sit beside her, my feet against her thighs. The food is enough for me as she does physics again, reminding me of our earlier afternoons of learning together when she was still undecided whether to go into engineering. A surprising mutual interest of ours. Mare is certain now, ambitious to take a leading position in the industry where her mother had to work her way in step by step, and only got so far.

We shared a lot of worries and hopes, as well as family memories and secrets in the last months, ignorant of how much we had in common and where we diverged for real, or where we erred about the other. Unlike my former Sunday circles, Mare wasn’t diplomatic about it and I fell for that as hard as I fell for her. She has the teeth to fight but for me, they’ve been a blessing. I want to warn her sometimes, against the industrial high society I hail from and she intends to enter. They’re not more refined, certainly not better than anyone else, but believing themselves so rather makes them – us – worse.

“Captain?”

“What?” I startle, then roll my eyes. “Don’t call me that.”

“And I told you not to call me Nightmare.” She frowns. “I’ve asked about geothermic efficiency factors twice now and you said nothing.”

I grimace. “Yeah, well …” But I fall silent.

“Well, what?”

I open my mouth, sigh, shake my head. Finally, I pull my legs back and straighten my posture. I take a sip of juice, Mare’s full attention grazing my neck. “About that. I let it slide.”

Before more exclaims of confusion rain down, I stare her down and go on. “I’ve decided to sign with a professional team. I’ll start training with them in spring, so.” I shrug.

Mare is completely stunned. “Wow,” she gasps, then smiles all over her face and embraces in a flash. “Captain, I mean, Eve, just, wow.”

I squeeze back, once, but can’t let go. I hold her closer and closer, drinking in her reaction and basking in her support. It takes an age before we break apart and still I want to hold her. My fingers trace her cheek, playing with her hair. “So you see,” I mumble, “I can’t be your captain for much longer.”

“Sure, but …” Although she’s happy for me, she’s struggling to grasp the whole of it. Pursuing a sports career wasn’t a main possibility I considered, not even with her. The weight of it hits me again, sobering me too much for more caresses.

“You were right,” I say, fumbling with my ponytail. “I could be anything. Do everything. So, I realized I should do exactly that: Go for everything and gamble. Start anew and work myself up from scratch, even if I could fail. Take the risky way instead of the straight one.”

Mare can’t help chuckling at that, and neither can I. Before I notice, my resolved declaration is over and Mare takes me in her arms again. “I wish you well, Eve.” My name in her mouth feels like the touch of a feather. “All the best.”

My head leans back on her shoulder as I take her hand. Elane and I, our love was always like a whisper in the moonlight. But Mare is like a lightning strike. She could be the death of me as well as a challenge. Energizing. Illuminating. And powerful all on her own.

I’m tired of fearing to touch old wounds I’ve gathered by wanting to be myself. Even if it hurts, I’ll open up and unfold the person I can be.