1. Chapter 1

There are two things in life that Maya hates. One, someone, an adult, talking down to her. And two, getting up before the sun to train.

She walks down the hallway, her legs a little tired after her morning workout. It was weight training day. As a result, afterwards, her legs feel like Jello. Wobbly and weak. Maya is nearly to her locker. The school day hasn’t started yet but she needs to switch out her homework that she brought home last night with her books for her first two classes of the day.

She sees them coming towards her, but Maya can’t get out of the way in time. A group of five girls, the most popular girls in her class. The tallest one, bumping into her as she’s not paying any attention to where she is going as she laughs with her friends about something.

“Watch it.” The tall brunette spits out after she bumps into Maya.

Maya ducks her head. “Sorry.” She doesn’t know why she is apologizing. She’s not the one in the wrong here.

“Whatever.” The tall brunette looks Maya up and down. “Oh, Bishop. Shoulda known it was you.” Her lips curl into a smart smirk. “Stay out of our way.” The girl spits, and walks off, laughing with her friends.

Maya sighs. Correction, there are three things she hates in this world. Adults talking down to her, before dawn training, and Carina DeLuca.

They’ve had a number of run ins over the last couple of years. Stuff like just now. Bumping into each other in the hallway. That sort of thing happens all the time in the hallways of the school. It’s crowded and kids are zooming in every direction trying to get to where they need to be. The problem is that just about every time it happens with this particular classmate of Maya’s, the girl always needs to say something about it. Most of the time you would just mumble a ‘sorry’ and carry on your way if you bump into someone. It’s usually not a big deal. But not with Carina DeLuca, she always makes it into something bigger.

That coupled with the fact that Carina is one of the popular girls doesn’t help. That’s actually probably why it keeps happening. Carina trying to take authority of the situation, let Maya know who’s the popular one, who’s in charge.

Maya has a few people she calls friends. Mostly, Travis Montgomery and Victoria Hughes. They are both members of the cross country and track teams like she is, so that’s why they are friends. They never really hang out outside of their sporting activities or school though. Maya’s father won’t allow it.

She knows it’s not normal for her father to ban her from hanging out with friends, or going to the mall, or a movie, or just going out for a meal or ice cream or something with someone. But she can’t complain because he is her coach and if she wants to be successful, she needs to follow the rules and keep her head down and stay out of trouble and get good grades and train every day and…

Maya rolls her eyes. Her entire schedule is packed from the beginning of every day until the end. Even if she wanted to hangout and socialize, it would be hard to find the time unless she wanted to take away from something else. And she’d hate to do that for fear of something slipping, getting lost. Getting a B instead of an A. Not beating her own time in a race or coming in second place in a run. Those are things that definitely can not happen. The wrath her father will put her through, the extra training and studying. It just wouldn’t be worth it.

She gets to her locker and turns the dial.

“Hey, Maya.” Travis appears at her side. “Did you finish the Calc assignment?”

Maya smirks. “Is that even a question?”

Travis rolls his eyes. “Of course, you did. But I didn’t. Can I copy yours?”

Now it’s Maya’s turn to roll her eyes. Travis does this from time to time. And he knows that Maya always has her schoolwork done so he can turn to her if he didn’t do his.

“No, you may not. I’m not getting caught.”

Travis scrunches up his face. “It’s not like it’s an essay or something. It’s math. Everyone’s is going to be the same, if they did it right.”

Maya sighs. “Come on.” She gives in. “But this is the last time.”

“That’s what you said last time.” Travis says sheepishly.

“Montgomery. Do you want help or not?” She glares at him as they walk into the cafeteria.

They sit down at one of the tables and Maya gets out her Calculus homework. Travis starts copying down the handful of problems that he didn’t finish with.

Maya looks around the room. There is the table with the football players, the table with the cheerleaders is right next to it. Some from each table mingle with the others from the table next to them. Maya wrinkles up her nose at them. Typical high school crap, she thinks.

She looks around some more. The band kids are all gathered in the corner of the room. The rest of the popular athletic kids occupy a couple of tables a few tables away from Maya. If Maya had to say for herself, she probably wouldn’t say that she’s the most popular kid because that’s just not true. She thinks if she didn’t have so much going on in her life that maybe if she had more time to socialize than she could be in one of the popular groups. But she’s not like an outcast either. Not a loner, so to speak. All the kids on the track and cross country teams like her and are friendly with her. Maya just doesn’t have time, nor does she want to put up with, maintaining status or popularity or numerous friendships. Travis and Vic are good enough.

“Okay, I’m done.” Travis speaks, shaking Maya from her thoughts and people watching. She looks over as Travis slides her homework back to her.

“Where’s Vic?” The two are usually attached at the hip.

“I’m right here, Bishop. Did you miss me that much?” Vic sits across from Maya.

Maya grins and shakes her head. “I was just asking cuz you and Trav are always together.”

“I know. We are very co-dependent. It’s disgusting.” Vic laughs. She jiggles the brown paper bag in her hand. “I stopped to get egg sandwiches. That’s why I wasn’t here early.”

“Ooooh.” Travis makes grabby hands.

Maya grins at her friends.

“Did you not have breakfast, Montgomery?” Vic teases

“You know I didn’t.” Travis had text Vic to ask if she could pick up breakfast for him because he ‘needed Maya’s help with homework’.

“Did you copy Maya’s homework already?” Vic asks.

“Keep it down.” Maya hisses. “I don’t need to get caught.” She panics and looks around the room, hoping no teacher overheard what Victoria just said loudly.

Her eyes catch though. On a tall, slim, brunette. Maya tilts her head to the side as Carina stands up and stretches her arms over her head, the back of her shirt lifting up with the movement, a little sliver of skin of her lower back being revealed. Maya looks away as soon as she sees it.

“Maya?” Vic says for the second time.

“What?”

Travis and Vic share a look.

“What’s up with you?” Vic looks behind her, where Maya’s eyes were just fixed. She doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but she knows something happened by the slight pink tint on Maya’s cheeks. She turns back. “I asked if you wanted one of these. I got one for you too.” She holds an egg sandwich out towards Maya.

“No thanks. I already ate.” Truth is Maya wouldn’t eat the egg sandwich even if she hadn’t had anything to eat yet today. It’s too heavy, too much bread and not part of the training diet that she is on.

“More for me then.” Vic grins.

The bell rings, letting them know it’s time to get to first period.

Maya hops to her feet quickly, glad to have a reason to get out of the cafeteria. She doesn’t have to deal with Vic’s questions. Or Vic and Travis’ curious looks at her. She needs to real her shit in. Head held high, shoulders back, confident expression on her face she heads to her first period World History class. Maya like History. It’s one of her favorite classes. She takes solace in that and tries to forget everything that happened so far this morning. Time to focus on her classes. No distractions. Eyes forward.

The school day goes well until Maya gets to gym class. The teacher, Mr. Larson, announces that they will be running the mile today. The whole class groans. Everyone’s least favorite activity. Well, not everyone. It’s something that Maya revels in. She can whoop everyone in the entire school at running the mile. It’s only a mile. Maya runs miles and miles at a time. It’s the simplest thing for her really. But today. After her morning leg workout, she knows this mile is going to be more difficult than usual.

“You look like you just saw a ghost, Bishop.” The PE teacher is also one of the track coaches. While her dad is her personal trainer, the teacher runs the team as a whole. She has to report to him and check in with him. “You should be able to do this in your sleep.”

Maya nods. “I just-“ Her father’s voice in her head reminds her to not make excuse. “I’ll be fine.”

It’s after lunch and her legs don’t feel like Jello anymore but she knows they haven’t recovered completely from her weight session this morning.

Maya keeps her head down as she stresses, knowing everyone in her class is looking at her. They all know she’s this hot shot long distance runner. It’s not like Maya goes around announcing it herself. The high school does an overview of all the sporting events every morning during morning announcements. Maya is always in first place at every meet. It’s no secret. So, everyone in her class just roll their eyes at the ‘track star’. It’s just a reason that some people don’t like her. She knows how that goes. It’s the same reasons she doesn’t like some of the popular jocks. It’s not her fault she’s exceptional at running. It puts an unwanted target, for looks and glares, on her back.

It's fine. Maya can handle it.

“You gonna show us all up, Bishop. Like you always do.” Andy Herrera says from a few feet away.

“Okay, lets all head outside.” The teacher gets the group moving.

“Listen, I know you don’t like me or that I’m a talented runner. I’m just going to do my best and hopefully get a good time. However you do, doesn’t matter to me.”

Andy scoffs. “You don’t have to be cocky about it.”

“I’m not. I’m just speaking the truth.”

Andy glares at Maya, leaning towards her, ready to say something else until there is Carina’s hand on her arm holding her back.

Maya smirks, knowing she won this round. Andy isn’t that bad. She thinks they could even have been friends at one point. But when they were younger, they were so completive with everything against each other. Every sport they battled it out to see who was better. That pit them against each other for the future. Andy chose sports like basketball and volleyball. Maya went with running and softball. Though she doesn’t play softball anymore. Her main focus is on running.

During the mile, Maya struggles to get into a groove. Each of the four laps is a grind that she pushes through. She finishes first out of everyone in her gym class. That’s no surprise. The surprise is that her time is worse than it usually is.

“Can we not tell my dad about this?” She asks the PE teacher/track coach as soon as he tells her the time. Hands on her hips, sucking in a deep breath of air. “I did leg weight training this morning. I’m just not-“ She gulps a bit breath of air. “It’s just today. I promise. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.” Maya is worried about her dad finding out about her mile time. “I can rerun it tomorrow to get a better time.” She offers. “Just don’t tell my dad.”

Mr. Larson isn’t even paying any attention to her. He is busy looking at his stopwatch as students start to cross the finish line.

“Whatever, Bishop.” He grumbles that his focus is being taking off of the rest of the class. “Here.” Her hands the clipboard over to Maya. “Write down the times as I say them.”

Maya looks down at the list of names of the kids in her gym class. “Really?”

“Do you want me to let you rerun it tomorrow or not?”

“Yes. Yes, please.”

He nods. “Then write down the times.”

Andy crossed the finish line second after Maya. Maya looks down at the time. It’s not bad and not that much slower than Maya’s time.

“7:18.” Mr. Larson yells out the next time and Maya looks up to see who crossed the finish line. Carina.

Maya writes the time down next to the brunette’s name. It’s not a bad time for someone who isn’t a runner, doesn’t run. At least, Maya doesn’t think Carina runs. Maybe for leisure or exercise. But she doubts that. Most teenagers don’t run if they don’t have to or if they don’t like it.

“Nice time.” Maya doesn’t even realize the words leave her mouth. She looks up from the clipboard to see Carina staring at her. Maya opens her mouth to say something else but then someone else finishes and the teacher is yelling out a time and Maya is looking down again to find the name and write the time. When she looks up again Carina is gone. She lets out a sigh of relief.

She doesn’t know why she is such an idiot around the brunette. Always seemingly bumping into her in the hallway. It happens at least once a month. Maya knows that’s probably not normal. She wonders why it is that they are always crossing each other’s paths. At least in the hallway. They have a few classes together though too. Like PE. Also Advanced Biology. They have the same lunch period too. But Maya tries to avoid the popular kids at all costs at lunch. During class, she might not have a choice but at lunch she does.

The rest of the day is ordinary. Maya gets done with school and then has track practice. She starts with everyone else and does the warm up run. They all separate into the different events and distances that they students participate in. That’s when Lane shows up and meets up with Maya.

“Hey, kiddo. How was your day?” He asks the same question every day.

Maya usually has the same answer. “Good.” She certainly isn’t going to bring up her poor mile time. She already talked Mr. Larson into running it tomorrow during her lunch period. He grumbled about having to miss lunch. Maya said ‘I’m fast, you won’t miss all of lunch’.

“Okay, you’ve stretched and warmed up?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We are going to do sprints today.”

Maya groans internally. That’s the last thing her legs need right now. “Okay.” She doesn’t dare debate or challenge her father.

They go to the empty side of the track and Lane sets up some cones 50 meters apart. She knows the drill. She’s done it hundreds of times. Lane stands on the side with his stopwatch and clipboard at the ready.

“Ready?”

Maya takes her mark. “Yeah.”

“Go.” He doesn’t give her any warning or any countdown.

Maya takes off, sprinting the 50 meters and turning at the cone and sprinting back. She stops at the end and her father records the time with a shake of his head. She repeats the process four more times.

“You’re slow today. What’s going on kiddo?”

“Nothing.” She knows not to make excuses, but it slips out. “It’s just been a long day. I did legs this morning and then we ran the mile in gym class.”

Lane hums. “What was your time?”

Maya knows she can’t lie to him. “6:34” She hangs her head afraid to see the look of disappointment on her father’s face. “I’m already rerunning it tomorrow. I talked to Coach Larson about it. I didn’t know we were doing it today. If I did, I wouldn’t have done a leg day this morning.”

“You are going to be doing an extra run each day this weekend.” He informs his daughter.

“Okay.”

“I’m going to talk to Mr. Larson. Get something to drink before your run.”

“Okay, dad.” Maya gets a drink of water and prepares for the six miles she’s about to do. She knows her time today isn’t going to be good. She knows she’s already going to pay for it. She also knows that her father knows that her time isn’t going to be good, and he won’t bother to even record it today. Her small saving grace, if there is one in this day that is quickly becoming worse and worse.

She soon as they get home, they sit down to dinner. Katherine tries to ask how Maya’s day was. Lane buts in.

“She ran a terrible mile in gym class. And our training after school was just as bad. But Maya is going to be making up for it this weekend with two extra runs. Isn’t that right, kiddo?”

“Yes, dad.” Maya gives him a tight lipped smile. “I’ll do better. It was just today.”

“You better.” Lane mumbles and returns to his meal. “This is very tasty, Katherine.”

“You’re welcome.” Katherine whispers. “How was your day, Mason?”

“Good. We got to use acrylic paints in art class. I was super excited about that.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.” Katherine comments.

“It sounds stupid and trivial.” Lane says. “Son, why don’t you start with a sport. Like soccer or basketball or baseball.” He suggests team sport for his son because he never sees him excelling in an individual sport like Maya.

“I don’t wanna play sports, dad.” Mason whines.

Lane grunts. “I’m going to sign you up for soccer.” He thinks at least with soccer, Mason will run around more than with baseball or basketball. “End of discussion.”

Maya stays quiet. She doesn’t want to get involved. She’s already in enough trouble with her dad.

Maya is on her second six mile run of the day. She is running through park in the afternoon on Saturday. Her father had her up and out of bed before five am. They ran together for a mile before her dad dropped off and returned home. She did the other five miles early this morning by herself. It’s something she’s used to. The route isn’t always the same. Her dad switches it up every couple of weeks, so her muscles don’t get to used to running the same route. Sometimes it’s a hillier route or more twists and turns. Anything for a different challenge. Her second run is fairly easy. It takes her through a couple of parks. The first one in her neighborhood, the second a few neighborhoods away. There’s a trail that she runs along at one point next to a river so it’s not a bad run scenery-wise. It’s a gorgeous day, though, so she is trying to enjoy that part of it at least.

She sees a young boy as she come up to the second park, maybe twelve years old. And an older girl with him. They are kicking a soccer ball back and forth. The boy kicks the ball further than Maya thought a kid that age could. It rolls in front of her and the boy yells.

“Kick it back, miss.”

Maya stops, smiles. She picks up the ball instead of kicking it back. She about to walk the ball back over to him.

“Hey.” The boy whines. “Don’t steal my ball.” He starts to run towards Maya.

That’s when the girl that he’s with turns towards Maya. And she soon as Maya sees who it is she drops the soccer ball. Maya doesn’t know hardly anything about Carina, other than she is a mean popular girl at school, so she’s shocked to see her here in the park with a boy.

“Andrea.” Carina yells after him. She takes a step before she recognizes who it is that has her brother’s soccer ball.

Andrew runs up to Maya and picks the ball up from her feet. “What’s wrong with you?” He asks, seeing the blank expression on Maya’s face as she stares at his sister.

“Sorry.” She mumbles and takes off, running faster than she was running before.

Andrew turns back to his sister. “That girl was weird.”

Carina hums, her brow wrinkled in thought.

“Do you know her?” Andrew wonders.

Carina hums again. “She’s in my class.”

“Is she weird then?” Andrew kicks the ball towards the goal.

“I don’t know.” Carina mumbles. She’s never put too much thought into one Maya Bishop. She’s definitely noticed her at school. She’s the girl that Carina keeps running into in the hallway. Which she finds annoying. And Carina has thought that maybe Maya was doing it on purpose. Or that her showing up at the park, now, was on purpose. She wonders briefly if Maya is stalking her. But then she doesn’t know how Maya would know she was at the park on a Saturday afternoon playing soccer with her little brother. If it were one of her friends, Carina would be embarrassed to be seen playing with her brother. She’s happy that’s not the case.

“Carina. Get the ball.” Andrew yells as the ball rolls past her.

She gets the ball and boots it back towards him. Carina brought Andrew down to this park because it’s not in their neighborhood. She can’t be seen playing soccer with her brother in their neighborhood. That can’t happen. She knows it’s wrong, but she has status and appearance to uphold. The problem is, she enjoys playing with her brother. And she enjoys playing soccer. She’s even in a rec league. The adults on her team keep asking her why she doesn’t play for the school team or another girls team in the area and ask why she decides to play with the ‘old people’ in a YMCA league. She can’t tell them the reason why. She just says she like playing with them. Which isn’t a lie at all. It’s one of the highlights of Carina’s week. Thursday night, where she gets to run around, kicking and passing the ball, trying to score a goal for her team. It’s just that she doesn’t want anyone to know about it.