Chapter 5: Rejects

The varsity roster went up at midnight.

Five starters, two subs.

The same seven as last spring, plus nobody.

Under it, the coach posted the names of everyone who'd tried out, with "thank you for coming."

By one in the morning I had three tabs open and a plan I didn't say out loud, in case it sounded stupid.

The first one I found in the union at noon on Friday.

A sophomore girl in a black wrist brace, eating noodles alone at a high-top table.

She'd been cut from lane.

I'd watched her tryout from the doors on my way out.

She was mechanically the best person in that room after Beck.

"Your wrist," I said. "Is that why?"

She looked at the brace.

"Do you want to play anyway?"

"For who?"

I unfolded the rulebook page on her table.

She read it twice.

Then she looked up at me.

"You're the 1v1 girl."

"I'm the 1v1 girl."

"I'm in," she said. "Obviously. I hate him so much."

"Who?"

"All of them. The coach. Carver. The guy who said my brace was 'a vibe killer.'"

The second one took longer.

He was a grad student in chemistry, twenty-six, who'd been cut for "attendance."

He only played after midnight because he ran experiments all day.

He answered my message at 12:40 a.m.

"if you can play at 1 a.m. I can play at 1 a.m. that's my whole condition."

The third one was a freshman who never took his headphones off.

He'd been cut from carry because he froze in his tryout and didn't say a word on comms for six minutes.

I found him in the basement of the library, where the club teams play.

I tapped his shoulder.

He took one ear off, which I found out later was a big deal.

"I watched your tryout," I said. "You froze."

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