AR - Endgame Part 1

Indoor soccer is different from outdoor in a lot of ways, some obvious, some not so much.

The first and most obvious way is that the playing area is so much smaller, which changes the dynamics quite a bit. The game is faster and in some ways meaner. There are more collisions, and a gym floor is less forgiving than grass.

It’s louder: the squeaking of sneakers on the court competes with cheering parents and shouting children all with the brutal acoustics of a modest gymnasium.

Finally, it’s about a thousand times more dangerous to spectate indoors than normal soccer. Everyone is crammed together and these kids are not pros. Wild balls blast into the stands, into the scoreboard, off the basketball backboards…

Adella’s hand shoots out to catch the ball, stopping it an inch from shattering your nose.

She tosses it nonchalantly to the ref.

This is your second game of the series. You lost the first, two to nothing. You’re losing this one two to one.

Whatever Stef did, it worked. She’s here in the stands with Jessica and a couple of others that you think must be in her gang. Ellen’s fancy coach hasn’t stopped blushing all game, and never looks in that direction.

The refs give you some hope for humanity. The other team is relying on superior size with their imported, probably too-old players to bully your team, but the refs aren’t allowing that to work.

Unsurprisingly, you have ended up putting Alice in the goal. She’s carrying the team with her long arms. She probably resents her awkward, gangly form, but she’s good. And tough. Adella has done a great job with her. The other team has a couple of good shooters, and without an exceptional goalkeeper, you do not doubt that these games would be blowouts.

The game is staying sufficiently competitive that the girls are fired up and into it. Even if they don’t win, this gameplay is right in the sweet spot. This is where sports feel best. It brings back a lot of memories for you. You enjoy higher-level play, but you haven’t forgotten what it was like when you were ten.

You lose by two because they score again right at the end. Alice is exhausted. You can’t blame her. She’s a trooper.

And you might have lost at soccer, but you won at foresight. Ellen’s team arrives at Gurlberg’s one pizza place to find that you and Adella already reserved it. They seem taken aback when they find it packed with parents and your whole team. What? Did they think that postgame pizza was only for winning teams?

You share a booth with Adella, who is devouring pizza as though she were the one playing today. Your phone dings and you check the text, snort, and show it to her.

It’s Stef with another dinner invitation.