Have you ever been hit in the face so hard that you can’t feel the pain at first? Your feet maybe go back a couple steps; you stumble, blink your eyes several times, and try to replay what just happened in your head. You know you got hurt just now. There was a bright flash of something coming towards your face. You felt the contact but where’s the pain. You maybe reach up to touch your face when out of nowhere the tears come down heavily. Your body knows you’re in pain but you just haven’t registered it yet.... have you felt that before? I have, several times. That’s what the sport soccer is for. Face injuries. The worst and most puzzling injury. Everyone that’s ever played soccer has either been hit in the face once with a soccer ball or has been very close to being hit. 

I met my friend with this injury. We happened to be placed on the same team back when we were in Middle school. I was trying to get into the conversation these two girls had. Turns out that trying to include yourself in conversation while on a soccer field means that you’re gonna get hit. This stranger just kicks the ball with all god mighty strength and it comes hurdling towards me and lands right in the middle of my face, on my nose and proceeds to press in as hard as it can before bouncing off my face and to the ground below. I was shocked at the sudden encounter with such force and I don’t remember much of what happened in that moment. I know that the stranger was trying very hard to apologize over and over again as if she were six and her mother was about to spank her. Repeated apologies. From there we quickly got to know one another and from then on our friendship became a battlefield when we played. The next year passed and we ended up on the same team and this stranger who was now my best friend was called Olivia. That year we were very close and so we decided to give ourselves nicknames. "Shotgun and "Bullet. There’s a memory somewhere of the events that lead to that name but I don’t remember all the details. More than likely we were playing a Nancy Drew game when we came up with it and we just decided to go with it. 

It actually ended up working out pretty well as we got to being put together on defense. See Olivia and I had the biggest kicks on the whole team and that was a huge advantage when it came to the ball being in just the right spot on our side. With a strong offence our team was pretty much undefeatable. Of course, playing on the same team meant more injuries for us both. Several times we had close calls and I remember distinctly when coach wanted Olivia and I to spar. We both immediately declined warning him that one of us would get injured. Thinking we were joking he put us out on the field. Olivia on defense and me on offence. Trouble is, once that happened chaos became a chasing game. We were both trying so hard to hold back that one of us eventually snapped. We were a good minute into our spar when I go for the ball and Olivia had the same reaction to hit it as hard as she could so that she could win the game. With so much force behind her kick it went straight into my nose. There was a moment I felt like the lord might just make a bloody appearance. I was so confused when I saw Olivia in front of me. The coach was telling me to sit down and I felt fine. I even said it, declared it and took a step forward when my body had collapsed from my face basically exploding into a frenzy of tears and words that became lost in the vortex of words along the way of trying to say them. It took me a whole fifteen minutes to recover and for my friend to calm down as she was hysterical. Back then she was so apologetic all the time and I just remember thinking about how ridiculous this was that we still couldn’t have a normal game. That year I believe we won the tournament and with my best friend we had awkwardly taken photos and then spent the summer together. 

We were close for a while and we had so much fun together. I have stories for days when it comes to the two of us and I’m sure I’m going to share many of them with you all but, those two moments were the ones that brought us together and made us so close for so long. Not just us playing but us bonding over the actual sport. Who knew I would meet such a quirky friend.