"I already am. Didn't you see I stopped flinching and looking confused a couple days ago?" Zephyr joked with an even wider smile, nodding and leaving the cafeteria. He went to his classes, then basketball practice, where he may or may not have been mocked by Lank about his bruise and may or may not have caused a similar one to appear on Lank. He didn't tolerate bullies well. After practice he dropped his backpack off at the truck and went to the softball field, sitting up high in the stands like he usually did.

Sophia was warming up. She was playing. She was cooling down. Just like usual. She skipped around the bases to cool down and let her muscles relax before they stretched again. She had met a new girl, Jessi, and had quickly become friends with her. "I don't know if I want to play softball anymore... it's just so repetitive " Sophia furrowed hee eyebrows. "Repetitive? I can see that, but still. You're so good!" The girl shook her head. "I just don't like it, Sophia. And I'm not as good as you" They both stopped at home base and Sophia pulled her to the side, her hands on both of her shoulders. "Don't ever say that. I'm just as good as the rest of y'all. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I will never be able to catch like you do, and some people can't pitch like I can. It's ok though. You are an amazing first baseman. I need to pitch more often so that you get the spotlight you deserve. Please. Don't say I'm better. I'm not. We all started at the same place, some people just catch on a little faster" Sophia gave her a tiny shove. "Thank you" Jessi said before hugging the girl and walking to the dug out. Sophia quickly gathered her stuff and walked up the bleachers. "Hey" she said to Zephyr

Zephyr watched with interest as always, this time his sharp eyes focusing a little less on Sophia herself and a little more on the movements, the concentrated look on her face, the way she swung and pitched compared to the way everyone did, and he noticed little by little everyone was so different. Like in basketball, there was no *right* way to hold the ball, so everyone did it a little differently. His gaze was sort of glazed by the end as he thought, but Sophia's voice snapped him out of it. "Oh- hi." Zeph answered, standing. "Looks like you made another new friend." He gestured towards the girl Sophia had been hugging.

"Yeah... " she was kinda sad that because of her, people wanted to quit. Sophia took a slow breath before sitting down. "She wants to quit. She wants to quit and it's because of me. She's one of the best catchers and first baseman and she wants to leave. Because she feels she's not good enough. She said she couldn't be as good as me. I'm trying to bring her back and show her how good she is but I don't think it's working..." hee head dropped to her hands. "You are always full of advice. What do I do? "

Zephyr listened with the same attentive look he always seemed to have around Sophia. He never really listened to anyone else like that. After she finished he snorted at the last part. "For one, my advice usually sucks and I am not always full of it. For two.. I kind of almost heard you speak to her and I think you know exactly what to say. You really already did. Everyone has weaknesses and strengths. Put her in her strength and thatll make her confidence grow to the point where she can deal with strengthening her weakness." He answered with a small smile.

Sophia shook her head with a smile "see. There's the advice. If I didn't have you I would be pacing back and forth in my room right now trying to figure out if I said the right thing or not. And here's a little tidbit of information: don't take advice from Ryan. He got me in BIG trouble once" Sophia laughed at the thought. Man... he had really gotten her butt beat after he told her to do something that would +help her forever+. More like help ehr forever be mad at him

Zephyr lifted his eyebrows. "You would've known deep down it was right, and you literally said it first. I'm just stealing your idea and relaying it back to you." He smiled sweetly, then looked intrigued. "Nah, you have to tell me now. What was his advice and what did it do." He asked, more like a demand, looking expectant.

Sophia half groaned half winced "Ryan told me that it was a good idea to step out of my comfort zone and be a big girl. Well I was about eightt and he was 15. Yes. Seven year difference. Anyway, I went to this party and got a little high on sugar and ended up kissing this random kid. Ryan didn't get in a lock of trouble and I did. Now remember, I was eight. The next day at school, everyone was mad at how I had kissed the valentines king when the queen was supposed to. I got beat up because of that. Also, this may sound even dumber, but Ryan told me that if I ran twenty laps around the house I would be famous. " Sophia gingerly pulled her practice pants down an info or two. "Then I fell onto the rocks and cut open my side. Here's the evidence" she looked down at the two inch scar that ran across her side. "There. Whole story. Really dumb. Way to much information. Oh well"

-

(last story actually happened to me)

Zephyr looked smug, and interested all at once. As she would quickly learn, if she hadn't already, he was VERY expressive with his eyebrows. They shot up quite a bit during the story, along with a few concealed smiles, and at the end a wide grin he didn't even try to hide "Wow. I guess you learned to never listen to your older brother." He choked on a laugh, hiding his face for a second. "The scar ain't neccesarily a good thing, but hey, no matter what it is from, treat it like a battle scar." He joked before his eyes twinkled. "When I was... oof, I have to say 10 or 11, I was at a camp and I was playing dodgeball. One ball flew over an EXTREMELY low floppy orange fence, so I ran to get it. Normally, being how cautious I was back then- believe it or not- I would've gone around the fence, but since it was really only as high as my knees I decided to jump it. Something went horribly wrong in my opinion, and my foot caught. Which meant the bottom half of my body jerked to a stop and the rest went into the ground. Out of instinct I held out my hands to stop the fall, and what do you know, that was the moment I got my first scar and HEY, I also got my butt whooped by a tree." He held out his hand where a tiny, sad, 2 inch long faded scar ran right up his palm. "Split my hand almost right in half. I honestly didn't feel anything from the shock. Then when everyone asked how I got it, I somehow made every single person believe I was diving in the lake to help pick up litter and I grabbed a glass bottle, it broke, and I got the scar. So I had a heroic story all planned out that I even got people to believe, and for a whole YEAR I was known as the Nature Saver." He laughed a little. "Hilariously stupid, but I know have an awesome story for every one of the idiotic scars I have gotten, which is coming up to around 30 something now."

Sophia's eyes were wide. She really only got one thing out of it. "so you lied to people for a whole year!" She shook her head. "How rude. They believed you though! " she chuckled "people are so dumb sometimes"