shooting a wendy-bird = karma {max}

[wendy]

Addison’s favorite class was gym. Or P.E, physical education, what have you. While most of her friends figured it would be English for the writing and reading, Addison quite preferred being able to run around over having to sit in a desk for an hour. Addison was not like other girls in class who ran away from the soccer ball; in fact, soccer was one of her favorites. She preferred kick ball, though. Which was why she was very excited for today’s gym class. They were playing kick ball today! Addison had been bouncing on her feet since the beginning of class, just ready for her turn. It didn’t take long for the teams to be made up; her team was going second. Addison stretched, waiting for the person in front of her to finish. There was a girl on second base and if Addison could just get a homerun, then they could be in the lead. “Next!” Addison stepped up to the plate, grinning.

For a moment, the world was quiet and then the ball was running towards her. Addison pulled her foot back and kicked it. This was normally the part where she would start running, making it easily to first base, except that she’d kind of just knocked some kid to the ground. Granted, it wasn’t her who had knocked him down, just the ball that she had kicked. So, it was an inadvertent sort of thing. Still, there was no way she could make her homerun now, not since she’d just—Addison bolted, instead, towards the boy. She skidded to a stop beside him, kicking up dirt, and dropped to her knees next to him. He may have been in her gym class, but she didn’t really make a point of learning everybody’s name. “Are… are you okay?!” she exclaimed, hands fluttering uselessly, unsure what to do.

The rest of the class gathered around, some snickering and others whispering worriedly. “Give him some room.” The teacher scolded and the kids stepped back a little. Addison stayed where she was, biting nervously on her lower lip. “I’m so sorry,” she said, gently trying to help him up.

[OZZIE WAGERS]

Max walked out of the locker room a bit distracted by the overdue paper looming in his agenda for that night. He generally enjoyed gym class, but at that moment he was too stressed about his grades to focus on playing kickball. Leaning against the cold chain link fence, Max surveyed the field bustling with students eager to compete against each other, already trying to form teams even though everyone knew the teacher always chose them in the end. Of course, not everyone was as excited as some. There was always the group of girls who stood off to the side giggling and complaining about their lack of athleticism. However, at the moment he was pretty much just annoyed by everybody.

When the teacher split the class into teams, Max ended up in the fielding team first. Grudgingly, he left his place against the fence and jogged onto the field. All three bases had already been taken, so he nabbed short stop. He took a deep breath of the fresh spring air, trying to clear his head of the distractions and stress. The first to people kicked the ball to pretty much the other side of the field. What even was that? Nobody ever kicked to right field. He at least wanted to be able to help out his team, even if he didn’t enjoy it.

The next girl in line looked really focused. She didn’t look like much, though. The ball probably wouldn’t even end up going past the pitcher’s mound. Max looked around at the other players on his team. Maybe the kid on first base would switch with him for the next inning. He wanted to do something, at least-

The back of his head was throbbing, and he could feel the damp grass underneath his bare arms. He opened his eyes, blinking quickly in the bright sunlight. There was a girl kneeling on the ground next to him, asking him if he was okay. Yes, he was fine. Why was he on the ground? He sat up, looking around through unfocused eyes. Everyone was staring. Had he fallen? The hard rubber ball sat a few feet away. No. Seriously? He hadn’t really just been knocked to the ground by a kickball.

”I’m so sorry,” the girl said. What was her name again? Abby?

“Whatever, it’s fine.” Max started to get up, but sat back down when he felt a sense of dizziness overcome him for a moment. People were still looking at him and the teacher was standing by. “Ugh, God, what even just happened?”

[wendy]

The teacher was definitely going to give her detention. Or make her sit out the rest of the game. What if she had to take the boy to the nurse? That would be terribly awkward. Addison really didn’t want to do any of the above, especially not the nurse option. She glanced back to the teacher before looking to the boy again as he’d started to move. It seemed he didn’t really need her help, so she pulled her hands away and sat patiently. “Max, do you need to go to the nurse?” The teacher asked, moving closer while simultaneously shooing the students away. They dispersed, hanging out randomly in the field in small groups. Addison cringed, almost hoping the boy would say no. She was quite sure the teacher would make her go with him, and if that happened, Addison knew she would be apologizing most of the time. Over-apologizing was rather annoying which was why she wanted to avoid it.

Addison looked down to her hands, folded in her lap. “Er. Well…” She peeked up at him as he sat back down. “I sort of kicked the ball—” she paused, glancing to the wretched thing, “and it, uh… hit you.” Addison thought that it would make quite a good story if she weren’t feeling guilty. Also, the boy probably wasn’t too keen on a story being made out of his being knocked down by a girl (sort of). What was up with that, anyway? Girls were always seen as so weak. Addison shot a glare towards the tittering group of girls who had hardly paid attention during the game at all. Much too worried they’d break a nail. Addison glanced to her own nails; they were uneven from nail biting. Hmph. Addison looked to the boy and smiled a little, hoping she wasn’t positively radiating guilt. “I’m really sorry. If you need to go to the nurse, I can take you.”

[OZZIE WAGERS]

Why was this girl freaking out so much? Max had been hit with a kick ball, not thrown off a cliff. At least the rest of the class was losing interest. They probably all thought he was a complete attention-hog, lying in the middle of the field practically wailing in pain. Well, not wailing. But grimacing. He probably should at least stand up. Now the teacher, too, was losing interest. Man, but his head really did hurt.

“Uh, yeah,” he started, bracing his hands against the ground to stand up, “I don’t think I need to go to the nurse. I’ll be fine.” Max got to his feet, head spinning a bit. His eyesight went all blurry and grey for a moment and he almost grabbed onto the girl’s shoulder for balance, but stopped himself. He didn’t want his classmates to see him leaning on a girl for help. He was a man; he could support himself. Plus, she looked really guilty and he thought that if she realized he was still a bit dizzy from his fall that she had apparently caused, it probably would not make her feel any better.

“Really, Abby – Abby? It’s okay,” Max said to the still worried looking girl, hoping he had her name right. He kicked the ground lightly with the toe of his shoe, avoiding eye contact with her or the teacher. How had he let himself be knocked over by some kickball? It wasn’t like this girl was some super human or something. She was tiny. Seriously. He looked up, ready to continue with the game. There was a small group of annoying girls a ways away laughing amongst themselves, at him, no doubt. Greeeat, that’d totally help him get a girlfriend if they all thought he was a wimp. He gave the girl who had hit him a dirty look without even thinking, despite her apologies. Damn it, now she would probably hate him, too.

[wendy]

Maybe it would be a good idea to calm down. He was saying he was alright, which meant he was, right? Still, it would be rude to just flat out say “okay” and let him be. … Right? Was that rude? Or would he prefer that? He would probably prefer that. Addison glanced to the teacher, wondering briefly what would happen if the teacher were anybody else or the boy or even her. Like, the teacher could be a sensei and the boy could be his best student and she was some new girl who was ruining everything. Oh…! This was no time to be thinking up stories. She could see the boy standing and she looked back to him, ready to help if she needed to. Addison stood as well, brushing the dirt from her knees.

Wait, who? “Abby?” she repeated, unable to help sounding a little offended. “It’s Addison,” she corrected him, and as if unable to stop herself, continued, “though I suppose Abby does kind of sound like Addie which is what some people call me.” That made it sound she like didn’t mind that he’d called her Abby when she did, in fact, mind quite a bit. “You’re… uh, Max… right?” Oh, please be right! Just because he’d gotten her name wrong didn’t mean she had to get his wrong. “I’m still sorry… by the way. I didn’t… you’re okay, though. So… I guess it would be best if I just dropped it…” she ended the comment quietly, smiling a little. This was not how she’d wanted to spend her gym class.

“Sit out the rest of this inning, Vaughn. Just in case.” The teacher said before blowing the whistle. Addison’s expression fell into one of worry. Oh, he would surely hate her now! The class scattered to return to their places. “We’ll just skip you, Rowe, to… avoid anymore incidents.” Ahhhh, this was not good!

[OZZIE WAGERS]

“Addison. Right,” Max said. Why was she even so hung up on talking to him? She seemed like a nice girl and all, but throwing him to the ground didn’t really feel like the start of a good friendship. He’d been in a bad mood already, and now he felt even worse. He nodded once when she said his name, but didn’t look at her. Being completely rude would just make him look stupid. Some level of dignity had to be maintained. The thing, though, was that he just really didn’t want to talk to this girl, because she just would not stop patronizing him.

“Yeah, it probably would be best if you dropped it,” he said in response to what must have been at least her fifth attempt to make sure he was okay. Max started walking out into the field, ready to take any sort of position that would just get him out of talking to this annoying girl any longer, but the coach stopped him. Goddamnit. It wasn’t even his fault! He hadn’t thrown himself in front of the ball. Addison had fucking kicked it at him.

“Coach! That’s not-“ he started, but stopped when he saw the look on the teacher’s face. He didn’t want to risk losing the entire rest of the class. Kicking at a clump of dirt in the grass and sending it flying, Max started towards the outer edge of the field to go sit down or something, as far away from Addison as he could. He didn’t need any more apologies or demeaning, “helpful” comments.

”Vaughn, you know the rules! No one can be in the field unless they’re playing. Go over and sit on the bench behind the fence. You too, Miss Rowe.”

[wendy]

He was angry with her. Hmm… how could she remedy this? The last thing Addison wanted was to have made an enemy or a not-friend out of a potential friend. Maybe she could tell a story. Her stories seemed to fix everything. Did he look the sort to like stories? Her cheeks feeling a bit hot with embarrassment, she turned on her heel and headed for the bench, arms folded tightly. How embarrassing. And unfair! She just wanted to play a nice game of kickball. She was one of the few girls on her team that could actually get a homerun or the bases loaded. Yet, here she was, sitting down on the bench, watching the field with a jealous scowl. Addison understood why the coach had sent her back here, though, and she couldn’t argue with the teacher.

Max sat as far on the bench from her as he could. Was it Max? He’d never actually confirmed her guessing his name. Addison squirmed a little on the bench, wondering what she could do. She could sit here and leave him alone or she could make up for kicking a ball at him with a story. If he didn’t like stories, then… well, that was definitely his loss. Addison glanced over to him, trying to make out his mood. Had he calmed down enough for her to say anything? Or should she wait a little while longer? Addison returned her gaze to the field, watching as one the giggling girls kicked her third foul ball. Her team was not doing any better without her. Then again, she was probably giving herself too much credit.

Addison waited until the teams switched before looking back at Max. “Do you like stories?” she asked, a bit timidly.