Amber Novakovic

About

Amber Novakovic kicks the soccer ball with a precision that makes the goalie wince. She's got a mouth full of gum and a head full of dreams, scribbling plays on her arm with a Sharpie between games.

Backstory

Three broken ribs and a shattered collarbone couldn't keep Amber Novakovic off the field the day scouts arrived at Meadowgrove High. She'd been secretly dosing herself with her grandmother's old pain medication, stolen from a dusty medicine cabinet, just to make it through tryouts after the car accident that was supposed to end her season. The letter from the prestigious academy arrived two weeks later, but so did the medical bills her family couldn't afford and the realization that her younger sister Lily had been covering for her increasingly erratic behavior. Standing in the rain with that acceptance letter dissolving in her trembling hands, Amber faced a choice between the dream that had nearly destroyed her and the family she'd almost lost chasing it. She scribbled a note to Coach Thompson with the same Sharpie she used for plays, but this time the words weren't about soccer.

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