‘You come with quite some sway,’ remarks Coach Dillon, scratching at her clipboard with her plastic stick pen. She looks up at a poster with squinted eyes. ‘God, these kids work fast. What’s that even say? “Bradlasco Lives On”,’ she reads. ‘Have the both of you got some sort of history I’m not aware of?’

‘Uhhh …’ Coach watches my face phase through about five different versions of confusion, and knowledge dawns on her slowly.

‘I’ve heard some insane stories in my time on the lacrosse circuit,’ she quips. ‘I have time for one more.’

‘Um, the thing is – you gotta understand this much first. We aren’t together,’ I start, adding a couple extra-dramatic waving motions with my hands to really sell it. ‘But someone took a video of us a few days back – and there’s been some speculation.’

Coach Dillon just raises an eyebrow at me for a minute. Then, she jabs an insistent thumb at the quickly growing crowd filling the stands. ‘Clearly! That’s the whole damn town out there!’

‘And so – they think we’re …’

‘Hmm.’ The coach hums in thought. ‘I just love the rumour mill among young people nowadays. The things it churns out. Priceless.’

‘It’s not real. I swear …’

‘Ah-ah-ah.’ She holds up a hand to stop me. I blink, taken aback. What is going on? ‘That’s the whole damn town out there,’ she repeats slowly. Her gaze falls on me, and then back to the bleachers. ‘Maybe they came for you. Or Bradlasco. Or whatever it is. But maybe … they’ll stay for these girls playing lacrosse.’

We watch as the team jogs onto the field to hearty cheering and chanting. They’re definitely not familiar with the atmosphere they’re experiencing. I can see it in the tension in their shoulders, the way their heads swivel, fully alert. I remember going through the same thing when I started playing in Boston, and years later, last October. I still feel it now – the same tension they do. Crowds are, at their core, terrifying. I think of every single person who watched me go down on the field. Eyes everywhere.

In the girls’ case, though, this crowd is a good thing. People stay for lacrosse. And that means lacrosse stays for the people. Budget improvements, bigger and bigger crowds, and the best bonus – an edge when it comes to Major League Lacrosse visibility.

‘If May and Jordan finish the senior season out with all eyes on them?’ Coach reads my mind, shaking her head. ‘By the time they declare for the draft, it’s open season.’