There were seven from the team returning to campus in the school van. Conversation was subdued. Most of the players were spent and prized the quiet as much as the heat. Their thoughts were lulled into a contented rhythm by the wheels’ rising and falling—Da-Dum, Da-Dum.

Mattie drove because her place on the team was always in question. In another circle she would not have been considered overweight, but she was the heavy girl on this team. When she moved in competition, her hips lurched forward in turn, thrusting her shoulders forward—first left, then right. As she now alternated between accelerating and braking, her thighs rubbed together. A light sweat broke out along her crotch, but she quickly chastised herself, “You certainly didn’t sweat earlier tonight.”

Jilly sat in the passenger seat, occasionally clipping out a direction. She thought of her upcoming birthday with a vague sense of dread. Every special occasion since she could remember her grandmother had handed her perfectly normal gifts wrapped in the most oddball paper. Once Jilly had learned to read, Grandmother Joan had dug up an out-of-date copy of The Guinness Book of World Records. The most ridiculous, often gruesome, bytes of information were then shellacked onto old shoeboxes, into which otherwise innocuous toys were thrust. Jilly grew up praying for one selfish thing only—that her death wouldn’t come in the form of some ludicrous fun-fact:
Teen Dies Alongside Terrier in Tragicomic Lanyard Accident

Clarice sat behind the driver’s seat, staring obliquely at Jilly and enduring the incessant guilt that accompanies living a lie. The truth was that she didn’t like chocolate, but had given up trying to explain the distaste at Jilly’s second grade birthday party. “I’m allergic,” had been her response since. When she was younger she had enjoyed the sympathy and specially prepared desserts. In fourth grade she had met another little girl who was legitimately allergic to chocolate. Actual-allergy girl seemed resigned to lead the life of a leper, quarantining herself during lunch and recess. Clarice cringed and rested her head against the cool glass as she recalled how all of her friends’ mothers had grown accustomed to baking angel food.

Di sat with her arm hooked through Clarice’s, generally being faux-French. She had studied abroad for an entire year in Nice and had not yet realized those around her were not, in fact, riddled with envy. She wasn’t a braggart really, just continuously awestricken by her own life experiences. Her talkativeness sprang from genuine exuberance at all things new—two years ago she had spent months connecting all topics of conversation to her recently lost virginity.

Lexy lay with her head on her jacket, which was on Beth Anne’s lap. Lexy was convinced she was blond. Plagued by Towhead Syndrome—an unnerving condition during which platinum child-hair caramelizes to light brown—she was easily misled on any issue of relative unimportance, as a side effect of sorts. Her gaze became entangled in Di’s thick dreads and, in contrast, she visualized her own white-blond hair.

Beth Anne sat doing work under the sporadic lighting. Her spiral-bound rested lightly on Lexy’s ponytail. Beth Anne was a perfectionist in a half-assed sort of way. She skipped class to agonize over having less than 4.0 in both of her majors.

Myrtle hunkered in the back seat, dealing with having a name like Myrtle. Her entire life she had been trying desperately to establish a nickname. Graduation in her high school’s sticky gym found her dreaming of a new name in college; maybe her perfectly plausible middle name, Alice, or an edgy variation like…Myr. A second-tier friend had elbowed her—interrupting her soft chuckling—and whispered excitedly, “We’re going to the same school Myrtle!”

Light broke irreverently through the windshield, while the rear wheels left the ground. A collective gasp began from the three back rows. Six died. One lived.