Location: Team Retreat
Date: Saturday, August 21st
Time: Daytime, Ropes Course
(open)
All of the Foxes back after the summer, a weekend spent in the woods, the title of Vice Captain—Glory feels filled up with all of it, with energy and excitement for the year to come.
Sometimes it still tugs at her, the memory of the girl she was back in Louisville, the one who only ended up on the Exy Court as a last resort before expulsion, because she was grieving and she was numb and the only time she felt even halfway alive was when she was doing something she shouldn’t—until she got onto the court, and put everything she was feeling there. Sometimes she remembers the girl she was before that, too, back at the end in Owls Bend, when she felt half out of her mind with guilt and the only thing she could think of to save herself was getting out.
Sometimes, being happy with her life now feels like she’s forgetting all of that. Like she should still be back there, trapped in those moments when she was at her lowest. But there’s something about being out here in the woods—or maybe it’s the aftermath of another semester’s session with Betsy—that makes her feel resilient instead. Like she’s one of the trees she grew up climbing, sturdy and strong and growing taller towards the sky, even when it’s happening so slowly you can’t see it.
They’re making their way through a ropes course today after the bonfire last night, and while it’s not anything Glory’s done before she’s never been afraid of heights and she’s always been fearless, always trusted her own hands and feet to take her where she needs to go.
She attacks the climbing wall with the same confidence that sent her to the tops of trees back home, where no one could ever reach her to make her come down, not before she was ready to. She’s got nothing to hide from now, though, so when she reaches the top she comes right back down, sneakered feet thumping gently back onto solid ground as she unclips from the harness they strapped her into.
As a kid, she learned how to climb trees. When she was a little older, she learned how to play Exy. She learned how to be competitive. And so when she grins at the teammate next to her, she’s both a little bit breathless and a little bit smug. “What d’you think, is anyone gonna manage to beat my time?”