The Lie by S. Syed, G. Klein (reading well TXT) 📕

Jenny grinned back at her. “Well you know it has to be TW3.”

“I know,” Leanna laughed. Thinking back to all the times they’d watched the earlier Teen Witch movies made Leanna feel a little better about things. Their friendship had already made it through hundreds of tennis matches. Besides, she hadn’t really done anything wrong—she’d just encouraged her friend to push herself. Even if things don’t go well, Jenny can’t blame me for that, can she?

When Leanna and Jenny arrived at the school courts for tryouts on Monday after school, the coaches split all the freshman into two groups, with Leanna and Kelsey in one and Jenny in the other. Leanna tried to keep an eye on how Jenny was doing and offer smiles of encouragement whenever the two caught each other’s eye. She wasn’t sure who the silent acknowledgements benefited more, her or Jenny—the competition was fiercer than she’d expected, and it was reassuring to see her friend out there with her, even if they weren’t on the same court. When the tryouts progressed from basic drills to more competitive, head-to-head play, Leanna wound up facing off with Kelsey again.

“Nice to see how you do without that pal of yours,” Kelsey sneered from the other side of the court. Leanna bent down to scoop up the ball she had just smacked straight into the net. Kelsey’s first serve had been wicked.

Losing the first rally hurt, but Kelsey’s words did even more damage. Leanna knew she had a point. She had been a bundle of nerves all day worrying that her encouragement hadn’t been enough and that Jenny was going to back out of tryouts at the last second. She had been so relieved when she met Jenny at her locker after class and saw her pulling out her racquet. But Leanna brushed off the memory and tried to focus on the match. Kelsey was in rare form, and Leanna had to start playing on her level if she had any chance of making the team. Okay, Leanna, concentrate, she thought. You can worry about Jenny later.

“Hey, you ready over there?” Kelsey called out from the baseline, where she was anxiously bouncing a ball against the surface of the court. “You can think your deep thoughts later.”

Leanna jogged back to her own baseline and called, “Let’s see it then, Gartner. Hope you didn’t tire yourself out too much with that first serve.”

Kelsey hammered the ball straight into the inside corner of Leanna’s service box, but this time Leanna was ready. With a perfect block, she sent the return deep into the court. She advanced toward the net, ready for Kelsey’s next shot. When it came, Leanna crouched down and answered with a perfect drop shot that sent Kelsey charging toward the net too. Kelsey got there, but barely, and she popped up a weak 

return that Leanna easily swatted toward the back of the court where Kelsey had just been. That’s more like it, Leanna thought. Now I just have to do that a hundred more times and I have this in the bag.

As Leanna slipped into the zone, she didn’t just forget to shoot Jenny an encouraging glance now and then, she forgot she was there at all. It took all her energy just to keep up with Kelsey, who had found her own groove. By the end of the first three game mini-set, they were running each other ragged on every point, sprinting from one side of the court to the other to return each other’s ground strokes then pressing up to the net for an equally punishing exchange of volleys.

Finally, after an intense showdown at the net for the set point, Leanna managed to clinch the first set by dropping the ball into the back court with a well-placed lob. Kelsey pivoted and dropped back with a sprint worthy of the Olympics, but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t catch a piece of the ball.

“Wow, Kelsey, you got good. Like, really good,” Leanna panted as they both grabbed their water bottles.

Kelsey wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and smiled—and for once it seemed genuine. “Well,” she replied between breaths, “we’re in the big leagues now. Did you really think I was going to let you get a top spot without a fight?”

Kelsey managed to win the second set with some tricky maneuvering of her own, pulling out a technique Leanna had never seen her use before—the kick serve. She must have spent all winter at the indoor courts across town practicing that, Leanna thought bitterly, wishing for the millionth time that she could afford to take lessons there. She made a note to keep an eye on Kelsey’s serve in the third and final set.

The short sets made things easier in terms of endurance, but it also meant there was almost no room for error. Leanna had the serve in the first game, and she tapped into what was left of her energy to increase her aggression. She started rushing the net immediately, taking Kelsey’s returns out of the air with vicious volleys.

Kelsey clawed her way back in the second game, taking advantage of Leanna’s fading energy by keeping her running all over the court until she started losing her technique and accuracy.

Leanna’s lungs burned and her legs ached, but it dawned on her that this had probably been the most exciting match she’d ever played. “You really meant it about not letting me get a spot without a fight,” she called. “Once we’re on the team, we’re gonna have to play together a lot more. The other schools won’t even know what hit them.” She could taste the sweat on her lips as she smiled across the court at Kelsey, who seemed to be having a lot of fun too.

“Yeah,” she called back, “if they don’t stick you on the C-squad once I’m done crushing you.”

Leanna laughed and shook her head before jogging back to the baseline on her side of the court to start the third and final game. But going hard during the whole match made Leanna exhausted—her arms were burning, and she could hardly lift them above her head, much less keep her toss accurate. Kelsey was starting to wear down too, but that made their skills even at best, and it soon became clear that Kelsey had the edge. She kept up with her strategy of making Leanna run for every return, and it worked. Kelsey had fought her way to a break point when Leanna’s arm finally gave out, ending the contest by sending her serve straight into the net twice in a row, losing on a double fault.

Defeated, Leanna dragged herself to the net to shake Kelsey’s hand. “Don’t tell anyone I said this to you, Lee, but you were on fire out there. Normally you’re not half bad—of course, I’m a lot better—but you were really in the zone today,” Kelsey said. “I think it rubbed off a bit on me too. We’re going to rock JV this spring, just as long as you don’t get any big ideas about who’s going to be the star.” She patted Leanna on the shoulder.

Leanna was too tired to care if Kelsey was being genuine or just trying to rub it in that she won. Instead, she placed her own hand on Kelsey’s shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze.

“You weren’t half bad out there yourself. Why can’t we always have that much fun?” Leanna asked.

Kelsey grinned, but there was a hard edge in her eyes that made Leanna feel a little uneasy. “Oh, this season is gonna be a blast, Lee. By the way, where’s your little friend? You know, the one who’s bad at tennis?”

Leanna winced. Here she was trying to make nice with Kelsey and she hadn’t even bothered to go see how Jenny’s tryouts had gone. Judging by the fact that she was nowhere to be seen, Leanna realized with a sinking feeling that it must not have gone well. She let out a heavy sigh and shoved her racquet into her bag, trying not to feel guilty for ignoring Jenny during tryouts. But there’s not much I could have done to help her anyway, she tried to remind herself.

“I don’t know, she must have left already,” Leanna said. “I guess I should go find her.”

As she biked to Jenny’s house, she started feeling annoyed that Jenny hadn’t stuck around to see how her tryouts had gone. When she arrived, she saw Jenny’s bike out front, but when Leanna rang the doorbell, there was no answer. She rang the bell again, and when there was still no answer, she tried knocking. Finally, the door creaked open, but it was just Jenny’s mom.

“Sorry, Leanna, she’s uh . . . not here. Why don’t you come back some other time?”

“Oh,” Leanna said, glancing up the stairs behind Jenny’s mom and seeing light coming from Jenny’s bedroom. “I guess I’ll come back tomorrow then.”

Jenny’s mom gave her a sad smile and gently shut the door while Leanna tried her best not to let this ruin the evening for her.

By the time Leanna got home, she could barely contain her anger. She was mad at Jenny for pretending not to be home when she stopped by, and she was mad at Jenny’s mom for going along with it. She was mad at her own mom for constantly reminding her how much a tennis scholarship would help them afford college. Most of all, she was mad at herself for talking Jenny into going to the tryouts in the first place. Deep down she had known how this was going to go, she just hadn’t wanted to step out of her comfort zone and do it on her own. Now she was mad at Jenny and Jenny was mad at her, and what should have been the best night of her high school career so far ended on a sour note. If I had another chance, she thought, I bet things would turn out differently. Too bad life doesn’t work that way.

At dinner, Leanna tried to explain the situation to her mother, but she was much more interested in Leanna’s performance than how things turned out with Jenny.

“But you said you did great, I just don’t understand how you can be so down in the dumps about it,” she repeated for the third time.

“Because Jenny didn’t do well, and I kept telling her she’d do great, and now she’s mad at me,”