Page 109 of Well Aware

No one touched the ball this time, allowing our midfield to advance the ball up the field with a throw-in that went well over thirty yards, thanks to the wind.

It fell perfectly at Nettie’s feet, and she ran it in so fast that no one was able to prepare.

Instead of shooting it herself, though, she crossed it to the other side, allowing our left wing to head it into the goal.

That was the moment that the other team started to play dangerously.

They were performing fouls that were close to injuring us, and not just stopping the play.

One such foul caused our left wing to go off the field with a knee injury that I prayed wasn’t anything too terrible.

In the last two minutes of the game, I was the one fouled in the box, having come up for a corner kick.

The breath left my lungs when I took an elbow to the throat.

I hit the ground hard, having trouble catching my breath for a second that caused me to panic slightly.

Nettie dropped down on her haunches and blew in my face.

I blinked, then took a deep breath that cleared the panic from my nerve endings.

“You okay?”

I nodded, holding out my hand.

I glared at my old teammate, who had just taken me out in such a dirty way.

“Was that necessary?” I grumbled.

She turned her back on me.

The ref put the ball on the penalty kick line, and Nettie shoved me toward it. “Me?”

The clock was counting down toward zero, having only eighteen seconds left on the clock. “Get to it.”

I stepped up to the goal and waited for the whistle.

The ref blew, and I faced my old goalie.

I’d taken thousands of penalty kicks off of her in my life. But the bad thing about knowing her tricks, she also knew mine.

This goal ultimately didn’t matter, but I didn’t like the dirty way in which they’d played the last twenty minutes.

I took the shot, and the ball went so far and high to the right that she had no hope of saving it.

The net swished as the ball sank into the back right corner, and the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game.

I was dog piled, and was laughing uncontrollably moments later.

“We did it!” Nettie cried.

“We did it,” I confirmed.

There were a lot of sweaty hugs passed around, and then there were all the interviews, followed by the ceremony awarding us our championship win.

Overall, the day went just as well as could be expected, considering.

When Beau finally met me with Iris holding on to his pant leg, I was more than ready to get to the locker room to change and then get out of the state.