And Then He Fell

Chapter 2

 I hope you are enjoying this story.  I see that some of you are already guessing what's going to happen.  I love it!  I hope you'll keep reading this.  It will get better with time.  I'm just laying the groundwork right now.  Please keep reading!

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DREW

              So, we show up at the lake, and most of the football team and cheerleading squad are there.  There’s a bonfire down on the sand, and all the “it” couples are cuddling around it.  That’s my queue to take Ellie down there as well.  Jacey Stevens, Ellie’s bestie, and Trevor Abigio, her flavor of the week, are next to us, all over each other.  Mike Joplin and his girl Jen Santos are on our other side, Kristy Jansen and Tommy Mueller are across the fire, and Justin Thomas and Katie Samuels are part of the circle as well. 

             Why is it that everything in high school is required to fit so well?  I mean, how can this whole group of guys be my football buddies, while the entire collection of girls is on Elle’s cheerleading squad?  It’s weird, I think, but I never voice this.  I’m sure most of them lack the thinking skills necessary even to realize that this is not cute, but creepy.  Don’t get me wrong, it makes for an afterschool special kind of atmosphere during get-togethers such as this one, but otherwise, not very realistic, if you ask me.  But, since no one is asking, I really don’t know why I bother worrying.  Ellie and I belong together, regardless of how much the cynics disagree.  That’s where my involvement in this debacle should end. 

             “Drew, are you listening?” I hear as I come out of my reverie.

             “Huh?” I ask, knowing this both answers the question and asks a question all at the same time.

             “I was asking if you wanted to go to Jacey’s party tomorrow night,” Elle asked. 

             “Sure,” I answered.  Why not?  Another night out with the Ken and Barbie brigade. 

             As we drive home after our lake outing, I notice that Elle is on the quiet side.

             “What gives?” I ask, hoping she will give me the short version of her troubles, yet open up to me enough that I can be useful to her.

             “Nothing,” she says with a sigh.  “I was just thinking about how absent you seemed tonight.” 

             Whoa.  I was “absent” tonight?  “What do you mean, exactly?”

             “You didn’t talk much.  You seemed like you were lost in thought somewhere.”

             Now, Ellie might be a cheerleader, but she’s no dummy.  The girl has a brain.  She actually understands what the words ‘lost in thought’ mean.

             “Well, I was just thinking.  This is our senior year.  Our last homecoming will be here in two weeks.  Our last season will be over in six weeks.  I was just trying to picture what it will be like next year, is all.”  Now, I was thinking about this a little, but I’m not going to share my afterschool special thoughts with Elle.  Not now, at least.

             “Aw, my poor Drewby.  Here I was getting upset with you, thinking you were being selfish, and you were worrying about the future,” she gushes.  Ugh.  I love her, I really do, but the Drewby bit has got to go.  She and her friends came up with the nickname one night during a sleepover, and I have suffered ever since.  Thankfully, though, she has given me the courtesy of not using the name when my buds are around.  I would never hear the end of it.