Lilly

Two days. (Two days!)

There are two days of classes between me and my high school graduation. One paper to finish, a math project to showcase to my teacher—and only the former is even graded. 12 classes. One all-school assembly in our tiny, stuffy gym.

This summer I’ll work. I won’t start until after graduation, but I met my manager over the weekend and she said I’ll start clocking in sometime next week. “You’re only 17?” she demanded only moments after she first saw me. “I was expecting a little girl, not someone,” she gestured to my height and stance, “someone, I don’t know, fresh out of college!” I laughed it off, but thinking about it now, it’s a comfort to know that maybe I look more sure of myself than I really am.

This summer I’ll play, too. I made a friend who works at our local food co-op after he approached me and asked, a bit awkwardly, if I was the girl he had seen wearing a Real Madrid jersey around town. (I call that instant friendship, at least.) Now we stop to talk briefly every time we run into each other in the store, to the point where today I pulled him away from his job to tell him about the spectacular goal I scored in one of the last games of my high school career, an olímpico bent straight into the net from a corner kick. “That’s awesome,” he said, round-eyed. “Will you be playing this summer? We should hang out, go to the turf fields on campus.” He means it. I text my best friend and tell her I’ve found my 2-v-2 partner.

But until then, it’s two days.

(Two days!) ♦