The words "you remind me of someone…" never fail to freeze her blood. She always forces herself not to run right then and there, instead running her finger nervously along the tattoo that winds its way around her left arm until the threat is gone and she can breathe again.

Too many years being called Katie, too many times being handed Stacey's things to sign, have made her paranoid. Her blonde good looks were her only saving grace that terrifying day when no one realized she wasn't already one of them, just another mindless pretty face identical to all the other mindless pretty faces. Steven had been the only one to see, and if he'd turned her in instead of warning her to run, or if he'd been fired that season instead of the next… she doesn't want to think about what could have been.

Being blonde and pretty had saved her that day, but she'll never be mistaken for anyone else again. Ponytails are too obvious, braids don't do enough to change her look, and she's too white to pull off an Afro; these days she dyes her hair dark red and spikes it up in the general direction of a Mohawk, although it's not long enough for her to be completely successful, and she doesn't dare let it get that long. If it starts to go past her shoulders while it's down, her right hand reaches for her left wrist and starts tracing the letters: DC, CM, CD, AP, SF, KC, JP… she's a player without a team, and even the memories have started to fade to pale blue and pale white.

No new haven for her in her old haunts, either; Connecticut is as blonde as Chicago these days. Her fingers trail back down to her wrist and pick up the familiar litany of the lost on the second round over her vein: KD, KS, JC, AJ, BT, NS, KH, LW… probably for the best that Coach T liked to gamble, probably for the best Margo missed that season and saw the writing on the wall. At least this way she can e-mail people from the road and keep in touch with the rest of the world.

She comes home to the Midwest after that only to discover she's been overwritten; her parents can't recognize her as their daughter anymore, because she's not the woman on the television who's wearing her name and number. Reality has shifted, and the human mind forgets so easily. She traces the next circle around and tries to forget the knowledge she saw in too many quiet brown eyes: AD, TW, AB, EH, KW, TW, KS, KT, TS, SS…

She sees it now everywhere, and her guy doesn't pretend to understand why she keeps coming back. San Antonio is ridiculously blonde for a town so close to the border, and when she happens to be in town at the same time as the Liberty, a shudder runs down her spine. How does no one else notice? Or is she the crazy one to think that all the faces are exactly the same, except for the one she sees silently pleading for freedom? VJ, SY, HD, MF, KF, SZ, CL…

The rummage sale in New York brings her around the next turn: JD, JM, TJ, LM, SD, SC, MD, CK, SB, AB… She wears a necklace with someone else's number for a little while, but someone else's KT has more of a right to it than she does, and there's nothing more vulnerable than a turtle out of its shell. The Celtic knot on the back of her neck, the butterfly on her right shoulder, the motto on her right arm, are reminder enough.

She gets her eyebrow pierced in downtown Atlanta, wiping sweat and blood from her face and grinning at the pain. Everything new is old in this town, and everything old will be new again, as a rose blooms over her collarbone. Time moves slow down south, slow as the line of letters winding up her arm: KM, CT, TY, JL, ED, IL, IC, CA…

In Minneapolis, she almost edits her tattoo with a cigarette burn before she remembers Le'Coe and subsides. Such a waste; all the pandering and hero-worship that Minnesota engaged in had actually made Lindsay, the beloved heroine, uncomfortable, not that that ever got past the walls of Connecticut's locker room. But life goes on, things change, and another line snakes its way around her wrist: NO, VH, LH, AJ, TR, NQ, EM, SA…

In Los Angeles, she runs into Taj, and she knows her short hair and sunglasses are enough of a disguise when Taj's eyes slide right over her, not even taking in the beauty, or the familiarity, of her features. She has to introduce herself again before Taj recognizes her and engulfs her in one of those big Mama Taj hugs that she missed in Chicago. Taj knows a little more about this; she doesn't want to know how Taj knows, nor does she think Taj can actually tell her, because it's enough to see what's become of their beautiful game. She shows Taj her wrist, and Taj helps her add to it: TJ, MM, CP, SS, LW, SB, CT, MF…

Now she travels everywhere, never staying in one place for very long. Taj gets her whatever money she needs by draining from player salaries that are never spent. She goes to bars she thought she'd never have a reason to visit and strikes up strange conversations with stranger women about secret tattoos and unexpected piercings. As the years pass and team after team falls, the line of letters around her wrist grows longer and longer, wrapping inexorably up her forearm, around and around: CM, MC, LH, NT, NB, TJ, NS… JB, KG, TW, YG, BL, RH, DL, AR… TT, MS, MW, MM, AS, CS, SL… she immortalizes every team in ink, and every April she adds the latest crop of fresh meat at the end. She listens carefully to the gossip and reads between every line. Some stories mean she has to tack a few memories on belatedly: TC, KB, CR. What she hears in Phoenix has her ready to remove a couple of initials and a couple of people; Tangela talks her out of it, but her blood still boils at the betrayal.

Her body is a canvas, a scrapbook of other people's abandoned memories: family she's never loved, lovers she's never touched, emotions she's never experienced, experiences she's never had. She regrets nothing. She might look like a freak to people who don't know her and don't care what she's seen. She might raise more questions than she can ever answer.

But at least she'll never be mistaken for Stacey… or Katie… again.