We are now opponents and here we are getting acquainted with each other

Ding dong—

Ding dong—

The doorbell resonated in the house, but nobody went to get the door. I paused from my baking and went to get the door. Before I could reach the door, the doorbell rang yet again.

Ding dong—

Ding dong—

This person is really impatient. The way the person was ringing the bell reminded me of someone who used to ring the doorbell the same way. But he can't be here, now, can he?

I slowly opened the door, wide enough to see the person standing opposite of me. Seems like he is. I was met with grey eyes, a small smile playing on his lips. My reaction was instant, I slam the door right on his face with wide eyes before he could even blink.

"What the f**k?" the person cursed from behind the door in a low voice. I giggled silently and called for mom.

"Who is it, Mary?" Mom asked me from somewhere inside her room.

"Mom! Someone is trying to break into our house!" I shouted for her to hear, trying to put enough panic in my voice as I possibly can with a suppressed laugh.

"What? Who is trying to break into our house in a broad daylight?" Mom asked in puzzlement, her voice coming from different directions, showing that she was walking around her room, probably tidying it up.

"He is wearing a hoodie and a pant" I shouted in her direction.

"Mary! Are you going to open this door or not?" a voice came from behind the door in a warning tone.

"Mom! He is even threatening me" I yelled acting frighten. "Mom, is there anything that I could use to knock him out?" I chuckled silently.

"Use umbrella" mom said hastily.

A laugh bubble out from my mouth hysterically.

"No mom, we need something harder to knock him out" I said, my breath coming short due to laughing hard.

"Wait! I'm coming out now!" mom said, finally a panic laced in her voice.

Mom came through the door hastily and— and— she was holding my dad's metal trophy in front of her like a weapon.

My laughter doubled over, and I squatted down holding my tummy in pain due to laughing too hard.

"MOM! Will you open the door? Your daughter has lost some brain cell. Why don't you make an appointment for her with a psychologist?" a voice said from behind the door with irritation.

I looked up at my mother as she froze in her steps when she recognized the voice, her face priceless. I laughed again, my shoulders shaking. Then she directed her gaze slowly towards me.

I giggled and took cover behind her and urged her to open the door. She shook her head at me with disbelief and opened the door, the panic from her face was long gone and was replaced with a huge smile.

"Ezra!" mom greeted with happiness, stepping away from the door letting him come inside. Ezra greeted mom back with a same happiness and dragged his bag from threshold and came inside. I gave my dear elder brother a smirk from behind mom's shoulder. The person before me has the same dark grey eyes as mine, which has now appeared more bluer than grey due to the navy-blue hoodie which he was wearing.

He gave me a threatening look in return, a promise for a revenge. Ah, how much I missed this. Our love for each other.

"Mary! This is how you greet your brother when you are meeting with him after such a long time" mom scolded.

"Mom…" I drawled, widening my eyes, feeling blamed. "What did I do? Doesn't he always make trouble for me?"

"You not only troubled him today but also scared the hell out of me"

I gave her a cheeky smile in returned.

"Why didn't you say you were coming, Ezra?" mom asked, her attention back to Ezra.

Ezra was three years older than me and was going to a university three hours away from our home. And mom was overreacting when she said he was coming after such a long time, it had only been some months, probably three to four months. And the three years difference doesn't matter to us at all. We act like we are of same age. But when it comes to talent and smartness the age difference seems much wider. I am nothing compare to him.

"I texted Mary" he said.

"What? You didn't!" I exclaimed, shocked from his blatant lie. But nonetheless, not trusting myself, I looked at my phone for any messages and *dun dun* there was none.

The nerve of him to lie so blatantly!

Looking up from my phone I gave him an accusing look which he returned with a smirk. "…But I deleted it" Ezra said.

Expect from him to twist his lies smoothly. He is definitely lying, I'm sure of it.

"How was my surprise mom? Were you happy to the point of being speechless?" he chuckled while dragging his bag deeper into the house. She gave him a grin.

"Yup! She definitely was!" I chuckled, when the image flashed in my mind of my mother holding a trophy frozen in middle of hallway after hearing Ezra's voice. "She was about to knock you out with a metal trophy you know?"

"What?!" he chuckled after noticing the trophy which mom was holding. "Mom you should stop listening to your daughter. Once she might take you to your doom and you might not even know"

"What the hell Ezra? How dare you to accuse me?" I said while smacking his head repeatedly and he was laughing all the while. Then when I stopped hitting him, he smacked me bck. Then when I saw him raise his hand again to hit me. I ran away from him, chuckling and he came chasing after me.

"Ezra! Why are you fighting the moment you enter?" mom shouted after us, slightly in panic.

"Mom! it's just the way to show our love for each other" he called out to mom finally cornering me.

And he was so damn right. We were not that kind of siblings who would act all mushy with each other. We would never say I love you or I miss you to each other, that was not our thing. Even if we miss each other immensely we would never say it out loud. We would respond in sarcastic way.

***

Thursday has arrived. The day of the soccer game. The school was bustling with extra energy everyone was excited for today's game, the game was at early evening. And the past few days I have been practicing basketball with team, harshly without any break and we had made a noticeable progress, which managed to calm my jittery nerves. And I was playing fine so far.

We finished our today's classes and were heading home. I was walking towards parking lot with Rose and Tracy beside me.

"Don't be late, alright? You guys must be here before four thirty. We must get the best seat to have a perfect view" I reminded them before making my way towards my car.

I went home and completed my homework. Ezra was not at home probably gone out to meet with his old friends. And Mark, my younger brother was in living room doing nothing other than playing video games. I quickly completed all my chores and called Tracy to say that I'm on my way and asked her to call Rose.

I drove back to school and few minutes later Rose and Tracy arrived. Our big parking lot was almost full. There were way too many new faces, indicating the arrival of west high students. The whole campus was crowded, students lingering here and there.

There was still some time left for the game to start so we went to cafeteria and bought some snacks and made our way to the soccer court.

"Did you talk with Sam after that event?" Tracy asked while opening the pack of chips which was in her hand. I had narrated the whole incident to Tracy, Rose and Noah about the other day. They actually didn't believe me at first, saying that I was trying to fool them. But when Noah did, saying that it actually made sense, they thought the same too.

Don't know if Elias is too humble or too stupid—Rose's words not mine. I did give her a smack for those words though.

"Huh—no I didn't saw him much after that" I said and sipped my drink from can.

"Do you think he will still talk to you?"

"You should ask if I will still talk to him, dumbass!"

"Who do you think is more cruel, Sam or Brian?" Rose asked curiously.

"You should ask 'Brian or Anna'. She is probably the root cause for all these disputes, in my opinion, we never know. The boys just needed the small push that time and she probably did that job because of her grievance with Elias"

"I mean everything was going fine till sophomore year, he was the hottest topic of the school and the hottest guy too. Then when he made enemy out of Anna all these started. Though, now we know that it was to make them stop from bullying everyone…" I was sharing my thought while looking at Tracy and Rose, moving my hands in different directions to emphasize my point.

We suddenly collided with something making all the contents from our hands to fall. I looked at all the stuffs fallen on the ground in agony and then lift my gaze to look at the source. A dozen of unfamiliar gazes met our eyes.

My gaze landed on the girl before me, whose top was now soaked with the empty content from the can I was holding. My chest immediately swelled up in guilt. "OH MY GOD! Iamsosorry Iamsosorry!" I said in rush tone. Then I looked between my friends frantically feeling helpless. Her top was now fully destroyed. The girl before me was practically twice my size. Which stopped the option of me lending her my spare shirt.

The girl before Tracy was dusting something off her shirt, which made me notice that the half of the content from the bag which Tracy was holding has fallen onto the girl in front of her. But in her case, it was not all wet she was easily able to dust it off, except for a few dull stains.

"Shall I lend you my spare shirt?" I said to the girl in front of me, just to show how genuine my apology is.

"Its alright. It's not fully your fault, we are at fault too. We didn't saw where we were going" she said giving me a smile and then cringe looking at her now wet top.

I was slightly shock that she accepted my apology so easily. Inside of fuming she was smiling at me sweetly.

"I have a spare top I will give it to you" another girl who was standing beside her, said to her. She was little shorter and fatter than her. But she could easily fit in unlike in my shirt.

The girl nodded in reply.

"You guys are probably from west high, right?" I asked.

"Yes"

"Then let me guide you guys to the restroom" I said loudly for everyone to hear. They agreed.

I, Tracy and Rose went ahead, the rest of them trailing behind us. We went inside the nearest girl's restroom. I leaned against the wall beside the sinks and looked at everyone properly for the first time. They were six girls in total, one of whom has now gone inside the bathroom stall to change, one was washing off the stain from her shirt.

"Hey, I'm Aria Clarke from West high" one of the girls said, giving a friendly smile with a heavy British accent, her British accent catching me off guard.

She was standing near me wearing a beautiful off shoulder cream top, which flared around her hips, with a pair of skinny jeans, she then extended her hand towards me. She had a thin figure and has a brown wavy hair and a brown eyes.

I grasped her hand, smiling back. "Mary Evans"

"This is Rose Martinez and Tracy Williams" I said gesturing towards Rose and Tracy, who were now standing beside me.

"The one washing off the stain is Zoe Rook" Aria gestured at the girl who was before the sink. I looked at her and noticed that the girl was quite cute with a straight and long blonde hair and a brown eyes and had tall and slim figure.

"I'm Serenity Smith" the girl who stood in front of us said with a friendly smile, she was the one who had lent her spare top, she had a chubby face with a thin but straight light brown hair.

"Nova Carter" the girl said who was standing beside Serenity. She too had a thin figure like most of them, which was visible even through her baggy tshirt and had a bony face. Her dull grey eyes were visible through a pair of big round spectacles which she wore. And her head was wrapped in a bandana, her few brown wavy strands stubbornly falling out of it.

"And she is Rebecca Scott" Aria said pointing her thumb towards the girl who was standing away from us. Her dark hair was matching her dark outfit, she was wearing a crop top with a high waisted jeans which revealed the little of her skin. And her brown eyes seem to be seeing something faraway than the door which she had casted her gaze upon. Her lips were set in a straight line, not even making a move to acknowledge our presence.

"We are now opponents and here we are getting acquainted with each other" Nova said smiling at us.

We chuckled at her statement.

"True to it. We must go and support our own team" I said with a grin, the thought of watching a game perking me up.

"There is still some time left. Why don't we hangout for a bit?" Serenity suggested.

"Till then we won't be having any seats left" I said lightly.

"Guys, I'm going to the court. Are any of you coming?" Rebecca said glancing at her friends.

"Let's wait a minute. Rylie is still inside" Serenity said.

"Aria, are you coming?"

"Let's go together with everyone"

"I'll be going alone then" Rebecca said a little dejected and spun around to go. "I'll save seats for you guys"

"Can you save three more?" it was Tracy who spoke. Shocking me a little.

She did not—she did not just say that to a person who she didn't speak even a word with.

Rebecca paused for a second then glanced back at us. "Sure"

Then she disappeared into the hallway. I sighed internally. Thank god, she didn't give any excuses. Otherwise it would have been awkward. This girl needs to know when to shut her damn mouth. Couldn't she read the situation.

I gave her an incredulous look, which she 'oh so mightily' returned it with a proud smile. I felt a sudden urge to smack the smile away from her face. But I successfully managed to hide the urge.

And Rebecca's behavior was odd, and it seem like her friends didn't mind it much. They went back to chatting like it was common to act like that. I ignored the way how weird it felt to me, considering whether it be Rose, Tracy or me, we wouldn't leave, without each other's company.

"Umm… is she always like that?" I asked to no one at particular, gesturing my eyes at the direction which Rebecca has walked off to.

"She just… doesn't get along with people quickly. We are accustomed to it" Aria explained.

"Oh"

"You have a nice accent!" Tracy said to Aria, smiling.

"Thanks" Aria grinned.

"Stop showing off already, will you?" Zoe mocked in a light tone, finally leaving the sink and standing beside Nova.

"Its been long since her accent has ware off. She is purposely using the accent" Nova explained when she saw us giving a confuse look.

"Is it?" I asked Aria, chuckling. She grinned cheekily at me in answer.

"I'm from England, I came here three years ago" she said with a lingering accent, her accent not as heavy as before.

After a while, Rylie came out of the bathroom and our conversation kept going, from teachers to school facilities to school teams, losing the track of time. I did notice the fact that Rylie doesn't mock or joke around much or use sarcastic remarks. She speaks simple and decent language most of the time.

After, it was time for the game to start. So, we quickly went outside from the back of the school building passing by our school soccer team on our way.

"Was the one in the middle Brian McKenna? I mean the blonde one? Your school team's captain, right?" I heard Serenity asking Tracy.

"Yeah, its him"

"He is quite handsome, isn't he?" Aria beamed, her accent returning, unintentionally.

I groaned. Oh no, not this.

"Yes, he is" Zoe said agreeing with her.

Will I ever find someone who wouldn't find him appealing as much as I do?

"What do you think Nova?" Zoe inquired Nova.

Nova shrugged uninterested, not bothering to answer.

Oh, seems like I did find someone.