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

“I know it’s been hard with you and Jenny fighting and everything,” her mother said over dinner, shoveling a second helping of pasta onto Leanna’s plate. “But tomorrow you should just focus on playing hard and having fun. You’ve been great out there this weekend, even though you’ve been a little distracted. If you can keep your head in the game through tryouts, I know you’re going to make JV.”

Leanna sighed, mindlessly twirling some noodles around her fork. “We’re not fighting, Mom, we fought. Now she won’t even talk to me. I don’t think we’re friends anymore.”

“Oh honey, that’s nonsense,” her mother said with a smile. “You two have been inseparable since elementary school. I know this fight seems like a huge deal to you right now, but as soon as the season is over Jenny will forget all about it, if not much sooner.”

Leanna didn’t want to wait until the season was over to make things right. She wanted to do it right now. She would have said that, but she knew her mother wouldn’t understand. From her perspective, this was all just part of the plan she had laid out in her head. The plan where Leanna gets on JV as a freshman and is quickly recognized as a star. She’d make varsity, then get scouted by some top tier university, where her career would flourish while she got a free education and the ride of a lifetime.

“Well, I hope you’re right, Mom,” Leanna sighed, dropping her fork on the half-empty plate.

“I am right, honey,” her mother said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Trust me—everything is going to be just fine. Everybody goes through this kind of thing at your age.”

If only you knew, Leanna thought. High school drama and fights between best friends was one thing. But the pressure to make the right choices after she got a magical do-over? That was something completely different

 When Leanna woke up the next morning, she did her best to push her fight with Jenny out of her mind and stay focused on the matter at hand—dazzling the coaches with her skills on the court and winning a spot on the JV squad.

This turned out to be easier said than done.

At tryouts, she got off to a sluggish start. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t get her mind off the situation with Jenny, who was nowhere to be seen. Leanna held her own in the warm-up drills, but every time she fell into a solid rhythm, she made some technical error—too much wrist, not enough follow through, leaving her racquet face open—and embarrassed herself, which forced her to find her groove all over again.

She was starting to think she might wind up on the C-squad herself until she found herself facing off against Kelsey Gartner—again. That was when her competitive instinct took over. Just like last time, her and Kelsey seemed to feed off one another’s energy, building up intense rallies that caught the eye of the coaches, who had appeared completely uninterested in Leanna up until that point. By the end of tryouts, Leanna was playing on a level she had only reached once before—during her first round of tryouts, before the do-over. Still, as she rode her bike home, she couldn’t help but worry that her performance might not have been enough. Things had really picked up for her near the end, but after such a rocky start, the coaches might decide that she was too inconsistent to risk putting into a JV spot. She laughed bitterly to herself. After all of this, maybe Leanna had been right to pressure Jenny into going to tryouts the first time around. At least that way she wouldn’t have been distracted by their fight and risked winding up on the C-squad.

Her mother didn’t waste any time when Leanna got home. “So, how did it go, honey? I mean, I know you did great out there—you always do—but what do you think the coaches thought?”

Leanna dropped her bag by the door and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, her mother following along behind her. “I did okay,” she sighed. “Much better at the end than I did with the drills in the 

beginning. I don’t know, last time I knew that I’d made it, but this time I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean ‘last time?’ ” her mother asked, confused.

Crap, crap, crap! Leanna took a big gulp of water to buy herself some time. “I meant last night. I dreamed about the tryouts last night and I felt like I did really well, but now that tryouts are actually over I don’t know how I did.” She didn’t like how easy it was becoming for her to lie. Leanna never really lied before, but now she felt like she was bending the truth somehow every time she said anything to anyone. I guess telling the whole truth isn’t really an option in this case, but still, she thought.

Leanna’s mother placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Well, I’m sure you did great.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she said. “But I’m pretty worn out, so I think I’ll shower up and then take a nap.”

Her mother smiled. “Of course. And Lee, you should be proud of yourself for getting out there and giving it your all.”

***

The shower was warm and refreshing, and as the sweat and grime from the court washed away, Leanna started to feel a little better about herself. She had done what she could, and that was something to be proud of. After she dried off and went to her room, it didn’t take long for her thoughts to return to Jenny. Leanna decided to send her one last text, then leave it alone for a while. If Jenny still wasn’t ready for her to apologize, she would just have to wait until she was.

Just got back from tryouts. I was really sorry to not see you there. Also just want you to know that I love you and I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. We can talk when you’re ready.

Exhaustion came over her in a sudden wave, and it quickly became impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

Three weeks had passed since Leanna had last talked to Jenny, but life without her got a little easier every day. Soon she started to think her mother might have been right about their fight—that Jenny would stay mad all season. But Leanna also realized that this might not be such a bad thing. Both she and Kelsey made the JV team, but it didn’t take long for the thrill to wear off and be replaced with focused determination. Most of the squad was older than her, and they had also been playing competitively for at least a year and were used to balancing their schoolwork with the rigorous practice schedule. Yet despite her inexperience, Leanna quickly rose up the JV ranks—but the higher she was ranked, the harder she had to fight to keep her spot on the lineup, which was always changing.

Kelsey found herself in the same situation. While she was clearly seen as a talent by the coaches, her spot was far from assured. She had managed to remain slightly ahead of Leanna for the first couple of weeks, but now the two traded spots on an almost daily basis. With the season now underway, there wasn’t much time left before the first match, which the older girls told both of them usually cemented players into more permanent positions in the lineup. Skill mattered to the coaches, but what really mattered was performing well in actual match play.

“So, do you think you can keep it together against East?” Kelsey asked. She and Leanna were both packing up their things after a long afternoon of practice. In the past, Leanna would have thought Kelsey was just being snarky, but since they’d been spending so much time together at practice, it seemed like they might be shifting from rivals to friends, or at least friendly rivals.

“I think I’ll be able to manage,” Leanna said. “What about you? Are you getting worried about the rankings yet?”

Kelsey snorted. “Of course not. East is one of the worst teams in our conference.”

Kelsey was right. It was pretty well known that the girls’ team at East wasn’t able to compete. Still, Leanna knew the first match was a huge opportunity to impress her coaches, and she didn’t want to screw it up.

“Yeah, I know. I just wish that I had a nicer racquet,” Leanna said. “This one is getting a bit worn out.”

“Why don’t you just buy one?” Kelsey asked.

Since she had joined the team, Leanna had started to fall in with the other girls, but there were some things about her life that they just didn’t understand. Like money, and how not everyone had it. They knew her pretty well on the court, but they didn’t know much about her personal life. They didn’t know that her dad was gone, or that her success on the court meant a lot more to her family than bragging rights—that how she did over the next few seasons might determine whether or not she could afford to go to college.

“I’m saving up for a car,” she said quickly. Leanna had also found that since she’d joined the team, lying had become a much bigger part of her life. It had started with the Jenny situation, but since then she had realized that life was easier when she didn’t worry too much about telling the truth.

“Real ambitious there, Lee,” Kelsey said, rolling her eyes. “With that job you don’t have, I’m sure you’ll have enough money in no time. But I don’t want us to get embarrassed playing against East because you can’t afford to shell out for proper gear. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but what do you say to me picking up a racquet for you before the match? You can pay me back later.”

Leanna felt her ears turn red. On the one hand, getting a new racquet was something she had wanted to do for at least a year. On the other hand, she knew Kelsey would never let her forget about it if she bought her