The Small Things

-21- homecoming

Copyright © 2016. All Rights Reserved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: FRESHMEN YEAR

D A T E : September 2011

✖ homecoming ✖

Apparently Homecoming was such a big deal that it requires capitalization. It was a holiday all on it's own, because it came equipped with a parade, floats, a football game, and the infamous powderpuff match. There wasn't a single dance as hyped up as Homecoming, because did prom have class rivals? Nope.

Nothing in high school was as intense as a classic powderpuff match with girls pulling on each other's hair and head butting them into the ground. The rules for powderpuff were simple: it's basically flag football, but with junior and senior girls instead. I'd never been to the game before, so as I stood in the sidelines with Clara and Yui, I felt completely clueless as ever. I barely understood football anyway.

Someone blew a whistle and Clara quickly gasped, "Ooh! Did you see that? She totally elbowed that girl's face in!"

"I don't know much about football, but I don't think you're supposed to do that," I confessed, tucking my gloved hand close to my mouth, clasping my fingers together to deflect the chill in the air rising up from the lake. The seasons in Wisconsin all blended together, and on a day such as this—where the school year just barely began three weeks prior—the leaves were tumbling around us and it seemed the heat radiating from the field lights was our only chance of warmth outside of our blanket bundles.

The three of us—Clara, Yui, and I—had a funky striped blanket Yui had brought from the trunk of her parent's car. It was apparently hand-woven, and the scratchy wool was, without a doubt, the warmest fabric I had the pleasure of wrapping up in. So we stood shoulder-to-shoulder, jumping around like beached whales whenever "our team" scored a touchdown. I didn't even know which team was the one we were fighting for because they both came from the same school.

A time out was called by the juniors, who were down six to nothing, so everyone on the stands started fidgeting, chatting all about the hot chocolate at the snack shack.

"I could go for some grub. Come with me?" Clara pestered, when all I wanted to do was tug my hat over my ears and curl under the blanket.

"Ugh, I don't wanna move," I whined, to which she responded with an annoyed snort and then egged Yui on to get food with her. The moment Clara suggested paying for it, Yui tossed the blanket off her shoulders and jumped down from the bleacher seat. Squealing with joy, Clara took off, leaving me with more than enough blankets to supply me warmth.

Now, anyone would look up at me and think, "Boy, does she look lonely up there." I really didn't mind, though. When I sat down, all the people around me blocked the Michigan breeze. Besides, then I didn't have to see all the upperclassmen, non-football boys with all their obnoxious signs cheering on the girls on the field. Some of the basketball players weren't even wearing shirts and had the letters for 'SENIORS' painted on their chests.

In the midst of staring at a particularly depressing bag of forgotten popcorn on the grass beneath the bleachers, I heard footsteps clanking across the metal beam of the bleacher seat.

"Geez, that was fast. Did they run out of hot chocolate already?" I said to Clara, but went absolutely slack when I looked up and saw that it was not—definitely was not—Clara.

"I heard they're getting low, but I wouldn't be able to tell ya." Kole.

God, my heart was beating straight out of my chest when I bolted up from my seat, nearly tripping on the edge of Yui's blanket. "Oh God—I'm sorry, I thought you were Clara and I just-"