The Championship - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

The start of a new short story, commissioned by an anonymous Patron.

"So," Gloria finally spoke up, the rest of the team remaining steeped in the silence that had overtaken them since the video had ended, "what are we going to do about this?"

"I'd heard she was good," Kyra shook her head, seemingly more to herself than in answer to Gloria, "but I didn't realize..."

"Of course we didn't," Gloria interrupted. "They've always been fine, but they've never come anywhere close to the championship before. There was no reason for us to pay any attention to them..."

"Well, there is now!" Kyra exclaimed. "We were so sure it was going to be the Tritons! All of our strategies are based around them, and now..."

"There's still a little time," Gloria reminded her. "We don't need to freak out yet, but we do need some kind of strategy..."

"And you think we need something that Coach wouldn't approve of?" Maisie asked quietly, everyone turning to look at her. "I mean, I have to assume that's why you wanted to show us all this when she wasn't here..."

Gloria shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm not saying we should put a hit out on her or anything, but... There's so little time, and, as much as you love you all, I don't know that any of us are capable of handling her on our own..."

"Do any of you have a sibling, or a friend, who go to her college?" Maisie looked around at the rest of the team.

"Seriously," Gloria reiterated. "We want to win, but I don't want to hurt her..."

Maisie rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to hurt her. I just need a bit of her hair..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Winnifred blushed, shaking her head humbly. "It's no big deal," she waved it off. "I'm only doing my part... The rest of the team..."

"No way," the random guy who had come up to her out of the blue said, patting her on the back drunkenly, frowning as his hand seemed to get tangled in her hair. "Oh, crap..."

Winnie did her best to contain her temper. "Calm down," she told him, trying to reach behind herself to help get him loose. "You're just going to..."

"No, I got it," he insisted, his other hand joining the first. Her hair wasn't even all that long, really, so she had no idea what was going on, the whole affair making her nervous in the dim light, and pounding music, of the party, as if something was going very wrong... And then, as swiftly as it had begun, it was over, both hands returning to his pockets. "Sorry!" he said.

"It's fine," she forced a smile, glad when he excused himself so that she didn't have to do it, her teammate, Liza, hurriedly rushing over.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "I saw him over here being creepy, but I was on the other side of the room, and..."

"It's all good," Winnie reassured her. "We was just a fan, I guess."

"Oh," Liza face fell slightly. "I've been on this team for four years, and I've never had a fan come say anything to me at a party."

"Well, trust me," Winnie shrugged. "You're not missing out on much." It was, she realized when she saw the other girl's reaction, not the right thing to say. "H-He was pretty drunk," she corrected. "I-I'm sure he didn't even know who I was, and..."

"Yeah, whatever," Liza sipped her drink sullenly.

"It's not my fault!" Winnie pointed out. "I didn't tell him to come harass me!"

"Him, or any of your other 'fans,'" Liza grumbled.

If she hadn't been at a party, if she hadn't had a drink or two herself, Winnie would have been able to hold her tongue, but she was just tipsy enough for the words to slip out. "Maybe if you guys had won a couple times before I came along, you'd have some fans of your own."

It wasn't a nice thing to say, she knew... And it wasn't even necessarily true. Every game was different, and they could have been having good luck this year, going up against weaker versions of the other teams than usual. There had been a lot of freshmen on them... But she was a freshman, too, and her team had never made it to the championship until she'd joined. She knew she couldn't take complete credit for it; she didn't have to keep pretending that she wasn't clearly a big part of it, however, no matter how much the truth might bruise her teammates' egos.

Liza glared daggers at her for a few seconds, then stomped away, no doubt to tattle to Kristine or Kady, two of her best friends on the team. They were all seniors, all people who ought to be grateful to her for finally dragging their team to the championship, but who she'd always suspected actually resented her for it. They'd probably all thought, coming in, that they'd be the star player, the one who would have what it took to fix the team.... It wasn't Winnifred's fault they'd been wrong.

"Hey, there," another boy slid in with a goofy grin. "Do you need a drink?"

Winnie knew she was a lightweight, and she'd decided already that it was time to cut herself off... But after that little interaction, she didn't care. "Sure," she smiled at him. "Why not?"

She didn't remember much about the rest of the party after that, though she was grateful when she woke up safe and sound in her own bed, without any weird guys there with her. It was very dumb, she scolded herself, letting herself get that drunk... Especially when she had practice that morning. She groaned, rolling over in bed to look at her phone, praying that she could go back to sleep for another hour or two, and that the headache she could feel forming would be gone by the time she woke up...

What she felt beneath her sent her scrambling out of bed instead, cheeks blazing. What was going on?! Had she tucked herself in with a drink, and spilled it? There was definitely a huge wet spot there, all around where she'd been sleeping... Finally, she was grateful for the plastic all the thin mattresses the college provided were encased in, as if the school assumed they were all bedwetters, like a bunch of little toddlers...

That definitely wasn't what had happened here, though... She had to have spilled something, even if she didn't see any sign of a cup, or bottle, or anything, in her sheets... And even if, when she dared to look down at the crotch of the jeans she'd worn to the party, and fallen asleep in, they were also wet, the stain almost looking as if it had emanated from there...

"What's wrong?" her roommate, Enid, asked with a yawn, rubbing her eyes and reaching for her glasses. 

"N-Nothing!" Winnie shook her head, quickly spinning to sit down with a squish, cheeks burning as she realized she'd just exposed the wet spot more clearly to the bed on the other side of the room. She nervously attempted to yank her covers up over her lap, unintentionally exposing the dampness there, too, her every motion seeming to make her situation worse. "G-Go back to sleep! I-I'm heading to practice, that's all!"

"Oh, Win..." Enid sighed as her glasses fell into place, Winnifred freezing, the other girl's tone making it obvious she'd been caught. 

"I-I drank too much last night," Winnie sniffled pitifully.

She expected Enid to lecture her on how they weren't really old enough to be drinking at all - not that it had stopped most of the other people at the party, though Enid was the oldest sibling in her family, and always seemed to need something, or someone, to fret over - but she walked over and gave her a hug. "It's all right," she told her, stroking her hair. "I bet you don't feel very good, do you?"

"I-I don't know what happened," Winnie pouted up at her. It was a rare perspective, one she was experiencing only because she was sitting and her shorter roommate wasn't, although it did make the other girl's presence more comforting. Winnie was an only child, and while that had rarely bothered her, times like this, when she didn't mind Enid's big sister instincts as much, made her wish she'd had someone to comfort her this way when she was younger, and didn't want to go to her parents for whatever reason.

"You don't?" Enid raised an eyebrow, then let it go.

"It was a party," Winnie reminded her, the implication of the other girl's reaction not lost on her. "I-I just..."

"It doesn't matter," Enid said. "Go get cleaned up, and I'll get all this ready for the laundry."

"R-Really?" Winnie sniffed. 

"Trust me," Enid chuckled, "you're not the first bedwetter I've had to help hide evidence..."

"I-I'm not...!" Winnifred gasped, shaking her head in horror. "I-I was drunk! That's all!"

"Does that make your bed any less wet?" Enid asked. "Or your pants?" Winnie didn't have a good answer for that, so she quickly stripped down, throwing on her robe and shower shoes to scurry down the hall to the bathroom.

She was convinced that was the explanation, however, and, while she didn't love that it had happened, it was easy enough to avoid it, if that was all it was... She did her best to put it out of her mind once she had everything stuffed into a washing machine, Enid promising she'd move it to a dryer when it was done so that Winnie could grab a bite to eat before practice. 

It was hard to forget completely, however, especially with the headache her hangover was giving her, and she found herself struggling to make shots that should have been simple, to execute plays that she could normally do in her sleep... She was sure she could feel the other girls glaring at her, angry that she was messing up, but what did she care? They were mad at her when she did too well, mad at her when she was having a rough time... What did they want from her?!

She wasn't quite able to maintain that attitude when her coach called her over, though. "Everything all right?" the woman wondered.

"It was a rough night," she said. "Give me a few more minutes, and I'll..."

"No," the coach shook her head, then nodded downwards. "I mean that."

Winnie frowned, following her gaze, her eyes bulging in humiliation at the wet spot she saw on the crotch of her gym shorts, much smaller than what she'd woken up to, yet far bigger than anything she'd done past the age of three... Until now.