#indigo: interaction

[go-foxes]

Location: Foxhole Court Date: Friday, October 3 Time: Evening (open​)

Indigo's not one to complain about a night off from practice—but having to spend the night preparing for the banquet instead of running drills isn't some great improvement. At least Exy practice she doesn't require climbing ladders to hang orange streamers, keeping an eye out for Parker in case she seizes the opportunity to, like, make Indigo fall from a height or whatever.

And, whatever they do tonight, it's not like it'll matter. All the teams will roll in tomorrow, and they'll be just as asshole-ish as they are when they're meeting up on opposing sides of the center court line. They'll be just as sure that they're better than the Foxes, and they won't be exactly wrong. A room full of Exy teams is just a room full of teams that have kicked the Foxes' ass—well, with the exception of the Southern Eagles.

And it's not like Indigo cares about what a bunch of sweaty jocks think, but it does make it difficult to feel any amount of excitement for the night to come. She's got a whole outfit picked out, and she's not fooling herself into thinking that anyone's going to appreciate it other than her.

"When do you think we say we've done enough?" She says, aware that she's most of the way to whining as the evening has stretched on and the court has gotten progressively more decked out in orange. "It's all kind of hideous, so I think we've got to be just about there."

[go-foxes]

Location: Team Retreat Date: Friday, August 20th Time: Evening (open)    

Indigo’s on her third year as a Fox, and she doesn’t know why this is the year Wymack’s decided to pull a fast one on them, turning the weekend that should have been their last hurrah before the schoolyear and the season officially started into some kind of summer camp. 

Indigo doesn’t hate the great outdoors, but this isn’t exactly a beach in the Pacific, or a safari in Africa. This is South Carolina at the tail end of the summer. It’s humid, there are mosquitoes, and tomorrow Indigo’s going to have to do trust falls. It sounds like torture. 

And Indigo didn’t exactly go to summer camp, but she did go to boarding school. She’s been sleeping in shitty dorms for years, even when you would have thought that the exorbitant tuition costs her parents paid would have gotten her something nicer. Her boarding school even had a lake to be picturesque on the front of all of their brochures, though in reality it was mostly used to get drunk next to after sneaking out from under the watchful eyes of their dorm parents. 

Going to college from that felt mostly like a lateral move. Going from college to this for a weekend feels like a step down. 

They’ve barely arrived, but Indigo’s gotten enough of a look at their accommodations to know that she’s not exactly psyched for the rest of the weekend, and the promise of a bonfire and s’mores isn’t exactly changing her mind. 

“Do you think, if we make a break for it now, we could hitchhike back to society?” She says. “I’m pretty sure this counts as cruel and unusual punishment, and we haven’t even lost a game yet.” 

[go-foxes]

Location: Bowling Alley Date: Saturday, May 1st Time: Evening (open​)  

She can’t remember the last time she went bowling. 

If she had to choose how to spend her Friday night, it wouldn’t be chucking balls at pins—(if you asked her, she spent enough time playing with balls at practice)—while wearing ugly shoes that had been on too many other people’s feet, but since it’s for Marley’s birthday, she isn’t going to complain. 

Or, at least, she had noble intentions of not complaining, but then someone had the bright idea that because of their natural athleticism they should play without bumpers, and Indigo has had to spend round after round watching her ball go into the gutter and not into the pins at all. 

The round isn’t even over yet, and she’s already feeling like a sore loser. 

When it’s her turn again, she make a big show out of picking just the right ball, even though she doesn’t really know the difference between any of them, before squaring herself towards the pins and half-heartedly telling herself that this time is the time she unlocks her inner bowling champion and gets a strike and makes everyone else on the team cry with jealousy, or whatever. 

But, when she lets the ball go, it’s back in the gutter again. The stupid pin picker-upper thing still comes down, though, makes its little sweep like it’s mocking her, and then it’s someone else’s turn.

“I forfeit,” she says with a groan, dropping back onto the plastic bench to await her next round of torture, tipping her head up towards the ceiling so she doesn’t have to watch someone be better than her at bowling. “This is rigged, or something, It’s a conspiracy. How the fuck is bowling so hard?”

[go-foxes]

Location: Vixen Den Date: Valentine’s Day Weekend Time: Party Time (open​)

Valentine’s Day. She may not be into all of the other trappings of this hallmark holiday, but all of this pastel pink is right up Indigo’s alley—even if the Vixens are more earnest about all of this than Indigo’s ever been about anything in her life.

Though, thanks to the Vixens, tonight seems to be more about getting drunk and hooking up than heartfelt declarations of love or whatever. Which is fine for her: she’s cotton candy pink from head to toe, and someone handed her some candy hearts when she walked in the door. They’re pure sugar when she bites down on them—be mine; xoxo—straight sugar in between vodka shots. 

It’s rare to have a night when there isn’t any orange in sight. She’s not complaining: Exy’s over until the fall, they don’t have to be walking orange billboards anymore. Exy’s over until the fall, but Indigo’s still expected to show up to practices, still expected to care, and that part’s harder for her. Last year, at this time, she had something to work towards. Something that brought her onto the court even when everyone else was gone: she wanted to be a striker.

Now she is a striker, and no one’s taking it away from her, sending her back to the goal. So that focus she had last spring is nowhere to be found.

It’s certainly nowhere to be found tonight, when she’s feeling loose and happy, wearing a fresh coat of lipcolor after her latest drink. Impulsively, and motivated by mischief more than any kind of affection, she darts in towards the next Fox she sees, leaving a sticky impression on their cheek. “Looks like you needed a little more pink,” she says. “Now you’re looking festive.”  

[go-foxes]

Location: Fox Tower Date: Thursday, Dec 3rd Time: Early, Before Practice (open​)

For her birthday, Indigo has the dubious honor of being woken up—as she is most mornings—by her alarm blaring at some truly godforaken hour of the morning. (And then blaring again, as she treats herself to a snooze. And then one extra because, again, birthday.) They’ve got just two games left in their season and no chance of making it to the Championships, but they’ve still got practice. It’s Indigo’s birthday, but she’s still got fucking practice. 

She’s glad to be back at Palmetto after Thanksgiving—(after a few years, dorms feel more like home than, well, a whole-ass Architectural Digest house)—but the week away seemed to just take the wind out of the sails of this last little bit of the season. What’s the fucking point? The Foxes will play two more games and, if precedent is any indication, will lose two more games, and then they’ll do nothing for a whole fucking semester. Grayson will graduate, some new freshmen will show up, maybe some transfers if Wymack feels like keeping things interesting, and they’ll do it all over again.

She won’t be a story, then. It won’t be Indigo Hayes, making her debut at striker. She’ll be overshadowed by whoever is newest or the most traumatized, until she does something that makes everyone really mad: starts another fight, gets another card. Not that she really felt like she had the spotlight this season—that was all Casey and Olivia. Fuck, they cared more about the missing Bryce than they did about her.

Which is kind of a fucking bummer. She’s probably not going to be this interesting—(in a sportswriter, college-Exy-narrative sense, because she’s always fucking interesting)—again. 

Except, maybe, if she gets a red card and makes them throw the fucking game. Then they’ll be talking about Indigo Hayes. Though that, admittedly, is an idea that sounds best before 6AM, when she’s half-awake and angry about it, especially when it is—once again—her motherfucking birthday. 

"Hey, what do you say you tell Wymack it’s my birthday, and I go back to sleep?” It’s an empty threat: here she is, with her eyes open and her gym bag on her shoulder, her dorm room door closing behind her. But complaining is an Indigo Hayes specialty, and she’s not going to pass up the opportunity. “You think he’d go for that?” 

[go-foxes]

Location: Beach  Date: Friday, November 20th Time: Post-Game (open)

Another lost game, another long game. She’s not about to start crying over it or anything, but the monotony of it all does get boring. They’ll go back to Palmetto tomorrow, and then she’ll get in her car and keep driving North, to her mother’s for Thanksgiving.

She’s not really sure if it’s preferable to staying in Palmetto. Between the long summer and Parents Weekend, she’s already seen far more of her mother this year than usual, and more than she’d like. But in the perpetual pissing contest between her parents, one of them has to get Thanksgiving and the other Christmas to keep them even, and there’s no use in flying to her father for what would be less than a week, if you subtract out the 24-plus hour flights. 

She knows that it’s not really about her. They only seem to want her around when they think the other one does. But that’s okay: it’s not really about them for her, either. She’s not dying to spend quality time with her father over Christmas, he just lives in interesting places, and he works all the time, anyway, so it’s almost like she has them all to herself when she visits.

But for now it’s just the Foxes. The Foxes, and the wide-open beach at night. That’s something new, at least. 

They might not have it together on the court, but this they’ve got down to a science: these post-game pity parties. Well—she thinks they’re supposed to be pity parties, but they’re not for her. Even when she knows she’s going to hear something from her mother over Thanksgiving about how she doesn’t know why Indigo’s wasting her time on this when all they do is lose, she refuses to do pity. Not for herself, and certainly not for anyone else.

“Fuck overtime,” she declares, because she needs to get it out of her system. Being a striker sure means a lot more running than being a goalkeeper, and she’s definitely feeling it tonight. “I think I’m fucking dead.”

[go-foxes]

Location: Foxhole Court, Lounge Date: Saturday, September 19 Time: After Saturday Practice (open)

Indigo was late to practice this morning. It wasn’t the first time and—despite the way she’s regretting her life and regretting her choices this morning, after the late drunken night and the early wakeup and the godawful hangover and the getting chewed out by Wymack and the extra laps—it certainly won’t be the last. 

She’d scored last night. Her first goal as a striker and as a Fox; her first goal since boarding school, since the few games she got under her belt before her coach decided that she was too much of a liability on the court, and stuck her in the goal. Last night, despite the loss, it had felt like something worth celebrating. This morning, though, Wymack made it clear that it didn’t count for much, not when they still lost.

And now it’s in the past. She’s got her first goal, and now she’s got to go out and keep scoring. She doesn’t doubt that she can do it, because she isn’t in the habit of doubting herself—god knows people do enough of that for her on their own. But while she doesn’t doubt that she can score more goals, she’s less confident that the Foxes can go out and win a game. That takes a lot more than her; that takes a whole team and a full ninety minutes. But she tries not to worry too much about that—she’s much happier focusing on the part she can control. 

She survived practice by the skin of her teeth, and now she’s a mess: tangled hair and dark circles and the remnants of last night’s waterproof mascara that she’d applied in the back of an Uber on the way to Eden’s Twilight under her eyes. She made it from the court, to the locker room, and then as far as one of the couches in the lounge before she gave up, and now she feels like she might never move again. 

Fuck Saturday practice, for real. 

“I’m gonna burn this court to the ground,” she mumbles from behind the couch cushion that she’s tugged to cover her face, blocking out the lights. “Who’s with me?” 

[go-foxes]

Location: Outside Fox Tower Date: Saturday, September 26th Time: Morning (open)

Her mother’s boyfriend is a better parent than Indigo’s mother is, and that’s the only reason why they’re here this weekend. They’d already been to visit his kid at Maryland, and now, like an afterthought, here they are, like that a thing that Indigo’s mother does. 

It isn’t. It’s not like her mother came to Parents Weekend last year, or to visit her at boarding school beyond the necessary move-in and move-out—(and, even then, it was only necessary because her school didn’t allow boarding students to bring cars, even after she had her license)—not like her mother has seen her play, or really knows anything about Exy at all. 

Technically, her mother still hasn’t seen her play. And that was the whole point: her mother might want to put on a show of being a dutiful parent, but that doesn’t mean Indigo has to play along with it. And so, last night, she didn’t. 

But there’s still the rest of the weekend to get through. And, of course, it’s a whole entire thing. They got an Airbnb, because of course they had to bring Denali, because he doesn’t like dogsitters, because he’s spoiled as hell. And of course they’re going to spend a few days in the Outer Banks on the way home, because there’s no way this trip could be all about Indigo.

And the real kicker: Indigo’s stuck with dog-sitting duty at her own school while her mother and her boyfriend partake in whatever non-dog-friendly sights there are to see in Palmetto. It’s just like the summer. It’s so fucking typical that it makes her want to scream, petulant in a way that only her parents can make her, like she hasn’t grown up at all.

Denali’s fine. He’s a pain in the ass to take on walks, though, because he only behaves for Indigo’s mom, and he’s a giant, so when he decides to just lay the fuck down in the middle of the sidewalk, there’s very little moving him. It took way too long to get him from the house a few blocks away to Fox Tower, but they’ve made it, and at least here is a good place for him to chill. 

“Say hello to the favorite Hayes child,” she says, even though, technically, Denali wouldn’t even be a Hayes. Honestly, she’s relieved to see someone she knows, instead of all the other dog-deprived students coming up to her along the way like she was running a petting zoo. Or, like, friendly. “He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s cute enough, I guess.”