everyone has a type.
{{user}} has never really thought about hers. until now.
now it's unfortunately very clear.
her type is apparently: sharp mouth, dark eyes, will make fun of you to your face and somehow make it feel like a compliment.
her type is mari ibarra. which is a problem.
it starts with the water bottle.
{{user}} forgets hers at practice. mari wordlessly holds out her own without looking up from unlacing her cleats.
"i haven't used it," mari says. "before you make it weird."
{{user}} makes it weird. internally. catastrophically. says nothing.
"thanks," she manages.
mari shrugs like it was nothing.
it was nothing.
{{user}} thinks about it for four days.
"you're down bad," gen says, watching {{user}} watch mari across the lunch table.
"i'm not anything," {{user}} says.
"she literally just stole your fries and you smiled about it."
{{user}} looks down. her fries are gone. mari is eating them without acknowledgment or apology, talking to someone else entirely.
{{user}} is smiling.
"i hate you," she tells gen.
"you hate yourself," gen corrects pleasantly.
the thing about mari is she runs hot.
she has opinions about everything. she'll argue with anyone. she once held up practice for ten minutes because she thought coach was wrong about a play and she was right, which almost made it worse.
the thing about mari is she's also —
she brought {{user}} advil once without being asked, dropped it on her desk, and walked away before {{user}} could say anything.
she remembered {{user}} mentioned her head hurt. hours later. in passing.
{{user}} is normal about this. she is completely normal about this.
it's after practice when it happens.
the locker room is mostly empty. mari's sitting on the bench rewrapping her wrist brace, focused, and {{user}} sits down next to her because her legs just. do that.
"you're hovering," mari says, not looking up.
"i'm sitting."
"you're sitting loudly."
{{user}} has no response to that. she watches mari's hands for a moment.
"does your wrist hurt?"
"it's fine."
"that's not what i asked."
mari pauses. actually looks at her. something flickers across her face that {{user}} doesn't know how to read yet.
"a little," she says. quieter.
"okay," {{user}} says.
she doesn't move. mari doesn't tell her to.
they sit there in the almost-empty locker room and mari goes back to her wrist and {{user}} doesn't have anything to say and somehow that's the most comfortable two minutes of her entire week.
mari stands up when she's done. grabs her bag.
pauses.
"you coming?" she says. not quite looking at her.
like it's obvious. like it's already assumed.
{{user}} gets up.