I Quit Soccer

This year I am taking all honors and one AP U.S. History class. I was also on the soccer team, whose coach does not seem to understand the demands of a high schooler's life, especially when they are not about soccer. For most of the soccer season up to now, I was wondering if I was going to have to quit soccer. There were several factors that that went into making this decision, one of which was if my schoolwork became too much for me or if my grades went down, and another of which was the behavior of a certain girl, whose in my grade and on the soccer team, towards me. The latter factor ended up deciding the matter.
Yesterday, which was election day, I was innocently finishing up my history test in first period when my teacher gets a phone call and tells me to go down to 222 and see Mrs. DiNardo when I'm done. The period ends, and so I quickly run to my home room to vote for myself (I was running for president, whether I've won or not remains to be seen), then run down to the office. When I'm in Mrs. DiNardo's, she tells me to sit down and that Ms. Nykeil (one of my soccer coaches) will be here any minute to mediate and then calls up a teacher to say another girl can come down now. Of course I'm sitting there wondering what in the world I'm doing there when a mediary meeting is about to take place. Little did I know I was about the have a starring role in this meeting. I inqire as to what exactly is going on and Mrs. Nidardo says, "Oh, well, Ms. Nykeil is trained in mediating and since she is your coach and Caitie's coach and she knows you two, we agreed she would be best to mediate." I say, catching on and sort of starting to freak out deep inside, the kind of freaking out the doesn't really show, "Excuse me? Mediary meeting with Caitie?" The psychotic and conniving girl, with whom I have a long and painful history, and who constantly tries to undermine me? Mrs. NiNardo responds, "Yes, that's going to take place now." I blink. Not only did I not know it was going to take place at all, I was sure that last spring I had made it clear to this woman before me that I did not want a mediary meeting and that it could not possibly fix anything or mend the broken bonds of a friendship that barely existed between that demon in girl form and myself. In the awkward silence that followed, I was suddenly able to comprehend a great deal in a short amount of time. I knew that Caitie was expert at portraying herself as the victim, I knew that this whole thing was some sort of scheme of hers and I knew that I was going to have to do my best to defend myself, prepare for a very unpleasant meeting, which was doubtless going to contain many instances where strong emotions would ruin any sort of organized defense I had. I was in for a rough ride and I was in it alone.
I took a deep breath, pointed to a picture of a toddler girl with angelic golden ringlets and said to Mrs. DiNardo "She is such a cutie." I don't really remember what Mrs. Dinardo's response was but we chatted for a moment or so about her daughters, who are two and four. Then Caitie arrived and a moment later Ms. Nykeil arrived and Mrs. DiNardo had to rush off to a meeting. We started by rearranging the chairs in the office into a sort of obsolete triangle and Ms. Nykeil giving a little, slightly phony speech about how it's important to get along and how she had not been aware of any recent issues between us. Suddenly I brain kicked in and I said, "Neither have I and, actually, I'm sort of wondering why I am even here." And Ms. Nykeil, seeming relieved that one of us had broken the silence, said, "Okay, good, Caitie, would you like to explain?" And so Caitie explained. She explained about how she felt that the "I love Armenians" comment in my speech a few days earlier had been directed at her because when I had said that over the loudspeaker everyone in her English class had turned and looked at her.
This relates to some business last spring in which she had come up to me and another girl and said, "What do Armenians contribute to society? Nothing." and then I had started to defend Armenians, saying a few things about their amazing accomplishments. Then she said rather snidely, "You know, Parisa, you shouldn't force your views on others." And I laughed because she had been the one to come up and ask me a question and then answer it for me and then interrupt me in the middle of me saying my view. Then I laughed a little more because the whole thing was ridiculous, the girl next to me was half Armenian.
Then Caitie went on to say how I had been harassing her and how it had hurt her feelings when I had de-friended her on facebook, which I might point out is avoidance, the opposite of harassment. I was stuck in that damn room for an hour listening to Caitie portray herself as the victim. I missed my entire gym class, I never even saw my teacher. I had to take a french test next and I was almost even late for that.
At the end of the meeting Caitie left first for her class and Mrs. DiNardo came in, looked at me and said, "You look a little blindsided." I replied, "I feel a little blindsided." At that Mrs. Dinardo looked at Ms. Nykeil, who rushed to smooth things over and went on to say how she thought it had been a pretty good meeting as far as mediation goes. As I was written a pass to French, Ms. Nykeil and Mrs. Dinardo explained how things had gotten a little mixed up and Ms. Nykeil had meant to find me before I went down to the office but had gotten caught up with another student. I wasn't really listening by that time. All I wanted to do was get out of that room. I could feel the muscles of my face trying to express exactly what I was feeling, which was not a pleasant emotion. I rushed through the office into the hall thinking, "I am definitely not going to practice today. Maybe not even to the game tomorrow. Actually, it would be convenient not to have to do soccer at all." I met a friend in the hall, everyone was in class now I realized, and she came up to me and said, "Are you all right?" with a concerned expression. It was so nice and kind that I nearly started crying then and there. I told her a little bit about what had just happened and she asked if I needed anything or if I wanted to go get a drink of water. That single act of kindness made everything seem a little worse than I had thought.
I never went to practice that day and when Ms. Nykeil called later that evening I never called her back. My mother called my coach, Marino, to tell her I wouldn't be coming to the game on Saturday and that I wouldn't continue to play soccer this season. Coach Marino tried to talk her out of it and tried to talk to me but my mom wouldn't let her.
Now I'm doing cross crountry. I like the team and the practices don't go too late. Sometimes I sort of miss soccer, and I miss the games we used to play like World Cup. I also miss just playing soccer a lot. I never realized how much I loved that game until I quit. But I made my decision and I won't be going to back, at least not this year.