The Price of Friday Nights

seven

"Sweetheart, you have mail." My mom hollered from downstairs in the kitchen.

"Thanks Ma! Just leave it on the counter, I'll grab it in a second!" I yelled back from my room.

I finished packing my school bag, and lazily got out of my chair before trudging downstairs and walking straight  to the the pile of mail that was sitting on the edge of the counter. I took a seat and got to sorting out the mail.

There were bunches upon bunches of college brochures in the mix, as well as my magazine subscriptions, but the one piece of mail that captured my attention was the one with my name and address lazily scrawled on a fancy-ish envelope. There was no return address, so I had no idea who sent it to me.

I opened the envelope hastily and inside it was a postcard from Florida, showing off the beautiful beaches that I missed. It read:

Hello.
It's been lonely since you left us here in Florida. We miss you. No, I miss you.
You need to come back. I'll make sure to get you back.
I will get you back, you need not worry Maddy.

I put the postcard down confused. Who the hell says you need not worry...  I whipped out my phone and texted Jared.

M: Jared, did you send me a postcard?

After about a couple minutes, he responded.

J: Uh. No, ain't nobody got time for that Madzie. I love ya, but that's too much work. Why?

M: Well, someone sent me one from back home, and there's no return address and no sign off. Here I'll send you a pic of it.

After I sent him the picture, it took him a couple more minutes to reply. The three dots kept appearing and the disappearing, until finally he responded.

J: Sorry for the flaky response, but I've been trying to rack my mind to figure out who it could be, and I have absolutely no idea who. This is actually kind of creepy, let me know if anything else shows up.

E: Yeah, I agree. It doesn't seem too settling. Yeesh. Well, I'll text you later yeah? Gotta head to school. xo.

I locked my phone and stuffed the envelope into my drawer. I went down to rummage through the kitchen for some food. I found some Nutella and bread lying around, so I quickly whipped up a sandwich before grabbing my bags, hollering a 'goodbye' and 'love you' to my mom, and kissing little old Sammy sitting on the floor watching his cartoons goodbye.

As soon as I got to school, I was attacked by two very excited people with apparently exciting news, before I could even step foot into the school.

"We have something exciting to tell you!" Mel yelled as she hugged me from the side.

"I couldn't tell..." I replied sarcastically as we made our way to our close by lockers.

"Hey, don't be mean, it's a good thing! So, since you're on the team, the cheerleaders and footballers always have a preseason barbecue at the quarterbacks house! It's always so fun, and this year, we'll have you to enjoy it with!" She told me grinning ear to ear.

"Is that all? I don't see that as that exciting though." I replied incredulously, trying to comprehend why it would be fun at all. A whole bunch of testosterone and estrogen mixed in one room, was not my forte.

Amanda and Mel shared a secretive look, but I caught it just in time and asked them, "What are you hiding from me?"

"Well, we were thinking, since Tyler's never actually genuinely nice to anyone, we thought that maybe he liked you or something, so we're setting a plan in action to get you two to fall in love with each other by the end of football season." Amy replied sheepishly.