Stress Relief

1: Jerseys

With the topic now being brought up again, he was remembering a few names; there was Alex, who seemed to have one-sided beef with some guy named Diego and was a little cocky, there was Anthony who had some anger issues and unfortunately brought that to the field, then there was Jaden-or was it Jason? And Matt?...whatever, he didn't remember much about them other than Matt has a chipped tooth and struggled to pay attention and Jaden or Jason liked to give Carson noogies. Right, then there was Carson who was a jokester and liked to rile the players up like he was his dad's assistant, which was funny when he'd compare their endurance to his grandmother, and then the captain was Chase.

He's heard more than a few things about Chase. He almost always showed up to afternoon practice late, despite being the captain. Not only that but with lipstick prints on his face and neck, plus a hicky or two. At one point his dad said his mouth was covered in lipstick and the whole team laughed at him. Chase had properly put them in their place, whatever that meant. Something that rubbed him up the wrong way was that he had a thing for having frequent "new girlfriends". His dad didn't know much but Alex had a big mouth and said that he'd get a new one from as little as a week into his current relationship, to at max a month. And that only happened once.

Right, there was another named Kayden his dad said to steer clear of. Apparently he had a really bad attitude and liked to smart mouth his dad a lot, which in itself was a red flag, but he was described as "the complete opposite" of Chase since their dear Captain was supposedly well behaved and Kaden had "work to be done."

He found it funny, and Clara always suggested his dad bench him until further notice-

"Elijah, you ready?" He blinked back to the present, realizing his name had been called serval times.

He sighed. "No. I'd love to go back to bed." Sliding sluggishly out of the truck, he and his dad made their way to the field. It was a little awkward to get to. You needed to either turn right at the entrance to the school and go down a long, winding path and some stairs, or go through the school and walk down the athletics hall. His memories from freshman year were fuzzy, but he remembered the layout at least.

Trekking down the outside path, his gaze zoned in on the school. The wind and rustling leaves whispered to him tauntingly. The image of the hall leading to the cafeteria entering his mind.

Nope, don't think about it. Shaking away the sudden chill in his body, he caught up to his dad on the stairs and diverted his attention to the sunrise. Usually by now he'd be just waking up, but unfortunately for him instead of needing to wake up at 6, he decided to come to school at 6. In his opinion, whoever decided to make football practice so horrifically early should be punished for their crimes against the teenage brain.

They passed by the glass hallway that had a view of the practice field and the door to the athletics hall. Walking between two sets of bleachers as they stood on the surprisingly green grass.

Finally, after admiring the sunrise for about a minute, he noticed a bunch of guys in football attire there on the field, passing the ball to one another to pass the time. Helmets on the ground, red and yellow jerseys on their bodies.

Red and yellow jerseys.

Jerseys and whispers.

Whispers and laughter-

Elijah jumped out of his skin from the high pitched shrill next to him. It seemed to instantly get their attention. All seven of the boys who were out there came jogging over. Once they were all gathered around, Elijah diverted his eyes to the much more interesting paint job on one of the numbers on the field.

"This is my son, Elijah. I expect you boys to treat him with respect." He voiced sternly and Elijah turned his head to them with an awkward wave. Something settled on his shoulder and he looked over at his dad. "These are the players I told you about." He explained with an encouraging smile. He just nodded quietly, thinking to himself that he should have stayed in bed today and pretended to be sick. Although there was no need for that when he already felt like throwing up.