Only When It's Us

One

Willa

Playlist: "Hurricane," Bridgit Mendler

I've been told I have a temper.

I prefer to be called tempestuous. Big word for a soccer jock, I know, but work in a bookstore as many summers as I have, and you can't help but broaden your vocabulary.

tempestuous: typified by strong, turbulent, or conflicting emotion

For better or for worse, that's me, Willa Rose Sutter, to a T.

Is my fuse a little short? Sure. Are my responses occasionally disproportionate? Sometimes. I could learn to simmer down here and there, but I refuse to subdue the storm inside me.

Because inextricably knotted with my tempestuousness is the force of nature that is my drive. I'm competitive. And that is an advantageous personality trait. I'm an aspiring professional athlete, set on becoming the world's best in my sport. To be the best, you need raw skill, but even more so, you have to be hungry. You have to want it more than anybody else. That's how far-off dreams become reality.

So, yes. Sometimes I'm a little feisty. I'm scrappy and hardworking, and I like to win. I don't settle. I won't give up. Nothing gets in my way.

Which is why I seriously need to get my shit together, because something is about to get in my way. My eligibility for next week's match against our biggest rival hangs by a thread, thanks to the Business Mathematics course and the professor from hell.

I'm late to class, trying not to limp because of how much my muscles ache after a brutal practice. As I scurry down the ramp in the massive lecture hall, it takes everything in me not to say ouch-ouch-ouch-ouch with every single step I take.

The room's packed, only a few stray seats remaining in the very first row.

A groan leaves me. Great. I get to show up late and make that super obvious by sitting front and center. As quietly as I can manage with muscles that are screaming for ibuprofen and a hot bath, I slip into an empty spot and silently extract my notebook.

Professor MacCormack continues scribbling equations on the board. Maybe my late entrance went undetected.

"Miss Sutter." He drops the chalk and spins, dusting off his hands. "Good of you to join us." Dammit.

"Sorry, Professor."

"Get caught up from Ryder." Completely sidestepping my apology, MacCormack spins back to the board and throws a thumb over his shoulder to the right of me. "He has my notes."

My jaw drops. I've asked Mac for notes three times so far this semester, when I had to miss due to traveling games. He'd shrugged, then said I needed to "problem solve and figure out my priorities." This Ryder guy just gets them?

That temper of mine turns my cheeks red. The tips of my ears grow hot, and if flames could burst out of my head, they would.

Finally, I turn to where Mac gestured, sickly curious to see this guy that my professor favors with lecture notes while I'm left scrambling to catch up with no help whatsoever. And I really need that help. I'm barely holding a C minus that's about to become a D, unless God looks with favor on his lowly maiden Willa Rose Sutter and does her a solid on our upcoming midterm.

Rage is a whole-body experience for me. My breathing accelerates. From the neck up, I turn into a hot tamale. My heart beats so thunderously, my pulse points bang like drums. I am livid.

And it's with that full-body anger coursing through my veins that I lay my eyes on the favored one. Ryder, Keeper of Notes.

He wears a ball cap tugged low over shaggy dark blond hair. A mangy beard that's not terribly long still obscures his face enough that I don't really know what he looks like, not that I care. His eyes are down on the lecture notes, tracking left to right, so I can't see what they look like. He has a long nose that's annoyingly perfect and that sniffs absently, as if he's completely clueless that I'm both watching him and that he's supposed to be sharing those lecture notes. The notes that I could have used to avoid failing the last two pop quizzes and our first writing assignment.

My eyes flick back up to MacCormack, who has the audacity to smirk at me over his shoulder. I shut my eyes, summoning calm that I don't have. It's that or tackle my professor in a blind rage.

Eyes on the prize, Willa.

I need to pass this class to stay eligible to play. I need to stay eligible to play because I need to play every game, both to maximize my team's chances for success and because Murphy's Law states that scouts come to games you miss. Well, really it just states that if something can go wrong when it's real inconvenient, it will. The scout scenario is my version of it.

The point is I need the damn notes, and in order to get them, I'm going to have to swallow my pride and explicitly petition this jerk who's ignoring me. I clear my throat. Loudly. Ryder sniffs again and flips the page of the printout in front of him, his eyes glancing up to the equations on the board, then back down. Does he turn? Acknowledge me? Say, Hi, how can I help you?

Of course not.

MacCormack prattles on, his notes both on the chalkboard and the projector screen, where his words unfurl as captioned text in a large, clear font. The next slide pops up before I got it all written down, and I grow angrier by the minute. It's like Mac wants me to fail.

Taking a steadying breath, I whisper to Ryder, "Excuse me?"

Ryder blinks. His brow furrows. I have the faintest hope he's heard me and is about to turn my way, but instead, he flicks to a previous page of the printout and scribbles a note.

I sit dumbfounded for minutes before I slowly face the board, fury shaking my limbs. My fingers curl around my pen. My hand whips open my notebook so violently, I almost rip off the cover. I want to scream with frustration, but the fact is that all I have control over is the here and now. So I bite my tongue and start writing madly.

After twenty minutes, MacCormack drops his chalk, then turns and addresses the class. In the haze of my wrath, I vaguely hear him lob questions. Students raise their hands and answer, because they've actually followed this lecture, because, unlike me, most of them probably don't have two lives pulling them apart. Athlete and student, woman and daughter.

Because they have leeway, wiggle room, which I don't. I have to be excellent, and the problem is that this pressure is instead turning me into an absolute failure. Well, except for soccer. Over my dead body will I fail at that. Everything else, though, is going to shit. I'm a scattered friend, an absent daughter, a lackluster student. And if this professor would just cut me a damn break, I'd have a chance of at least scratching one of those failures off my list.

MacCormack must feel my eyes burning holes into him, because after he accepts the last answer, he turns, looks at me again, and smirks.

"Professor MacCormack," I say between clenched teeth.

"Why, yes, Miss Sutter?"

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"I'm sorry, no, that is not the correct formula for calculating compound interest." Turning back to everyone, he offers them a smile I have yet to be the recipient of. "Class dismissed!"

I sit, stupefied that I've been swept aside by my professor yet again. It's the cherry on top when Ryder rises from his seat, slides those precious notes into a worn leather crossbody bag, and throws it over his shoulder. As he secures the flap on his bag, his eyes dart up, then finally meet mine. They widen, then take me in with a quick trail over my body.

Ryder's eyes are deep green, and damn him, that's my favorite color, the precise shade of a pristine soccer field. That's all I have time to notice before my resentment blocks me from appreciating any more of his features. When his gaze returns from my sneakers-and-sweatpants ensemble, our eyes meet, his narrowing as he processes whatever terrifying expression I wear. I am enraged. I'm sure I look murderous.

Now he acknowledges my existence, after so thoroughly ignoring me?

Rolling his shoulders back, he straightens fully. All I can think is, Wow, that's not just an asshole. That's a tall asshole.

I shoot out of my seat, sweeping my notebook off the desk. Jamming my pen into the giant messy bun on top of my head, I give him a death glare. Ryder's gaze widens as I take a step closer and meet those nauseatingly perfect green eyes.

A long, intense stare-down ensues. Ryder's eyes narrow. Mine do, too. They water, begging me to blink. I refuse to.

Slowly, the corner of his mouth tugs up. He's smirking at me, the asshole.

And just like that, my eyes drag down to his mouth, which is hidden under all that gnarly facial hair. I blink.

Shit. I hate losing. I hate losing.

I'm about to open my mouth and ask just what's so damn funny when Ryder backs away and pivots smoothly, then jogs up the ramp of the lecture hall. I stand, shaking with rage, pissed at this jerk and his odd, dismissive behavior, until the room is virtually empty.

"Cheer up, Miss Sutter." MacCormack switches off the lights, bathing the lecture hall in gray shadows and the faint morning sunlight that streams through the windows.

"I don't really know how to be cheery when I'm about to fail your class and I can't afford to do that, Professor."

For a moment, his mask of detached amusement slips, but it's back before I can even be sure it ever left. "You'll figure out what to do. Have a nice day."

When the door falls shut and I'm left alone, I sink into my seat once again, the whisper of failure echoing in the room.


“He really just walked off?” Rooney-my teammate and roommate-stares at me in disbelief.

"Yup." I'd say more, but I'm too angry and winded. We're doing technical drills, and while I'm in the best shape of my life, ladders always kick my butt.

"Wow." Rooney, on the other hand, isn't winded one bit. I've decided she's a mutant, because I have never heard that woman short of breath, and it's not for lack of trying. Our coach is a clinically verified sadist. "What a dick."

Rooney looks like a life-size Barbie. Classic SoCal girl-legs for miles, glowing skin and faint freckles, a sheet of platinum-blonde hair that's forever in a long, smooth ponytail. She stands and drinks her water, looking like a beach model as the sun lowers in the sky. I, on the other hand, look like Dolores Umbridge after the centaurs got her. My wiry hair puffs madly from my ponytail, my cheeks are dark pink with exertion, and my muscular soccer quads are shaking from effort. Rooney and I could not be more opposite, not just when it comes to looks, but also personality, and that's perhaps what makes us such good friends.

"No doubt, he's a dick," I confirm. "But he's the dick who has what I need: past lecture notes and the ones I'll miss when I'm gone for two more classes during away games."

We both jog toward the next section of the field to start one-touch drills. I run backward first, Rooney flicking the ball into the air before she lofts it my way. I head it back, she volleys it to me, and I head it back. We'll do this until we switch directions; then it's her turn.

Rooney serves me the ball, and I head it down to her feet. "So if that guy won't give you the notes, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know what to do. That's my problem. I see no solution for a guy who downright ignores me. I know I can be a little prickly, but I was polite. Whereas he was just . . . rude. I don't get why. And I really need those notes."

Switching directions, I scoop the ball onto my foot and softly kick it into the air, right to Rooney's forehead.

"Honestly," Rooney says as she returns my pass with a header, "I'd say the issue is with your professor. He's obligated by our student contract to accommodate your schedule, and this behavior is overtly hostile to your efforts as a student athlete. If I were you, I'd print out our agreement, head to office hours, and remind that jerk that he's ethically and legally bound to support your learning while you earn his college more publicity and money than his pathetic academic papers have ever contributed."

Yeah. Rooney looks like Barbie, but she's got stuff between her ears. She'll make a great lawyer one day.

"Maybe. But this guy's a hard-ass, Roo. I think he'll just make my life even more miserable if I do that."

Rooney frowns, heading the ball back again. "Okay, so show him the contract, but do it nicely. Kill him with kindness. Do whatever it takes to be sure you're eligible to play next week. We need you, and honestly, Willa, I think if you don't play, you'll internally combust."

As we finish our drill, the ball drops to my feet, and I stare down at its familiar shape. It's a view I've seen a thousand times-that black-and-white ball set against bright green grass, my cleats on either side of it. Soccer is the one constant in my life; everything else has been unpredictable. I live and breathe this sport, not only because I want to be the best, but because it's the only thing that's kept me going sometimes.

Rooney's right. I can't miss; I can't be ineligible. I'm going to have to suck it up and do whatever it takes to pass this class.

"Come on," she says, throwing an arm over my shoulder. "My turn to cook tonight."

I fake a dry heave, earning her rough shove that sends me stumbling sideways. "Great. I needed a good cleanse anyway."

Two

Willa

Playlist: "Might Not Like Me," Brynn Elliott

My reputation as a hothead is well-known across campus. I've had a few altercations on the soccer field, as well as one episode freshman year, when some chick went off on Rooney in the cafeteria, accusing her of stealing her boyfriend. I'd already climbed the table with the intent to knock that liar on the ground and finish her off with a good, WWE-style elbow drop, when Rooney thankfully grabbed me by the collar before I could get myself expelled. Nevertheless, the incident earned me a reputation that I've done nothing to disabuse people of. It's kept almost everyone either afraid of me or allowing me a healthy distance. That suits me just fine.