Broken, Flawed & Living (Discontinued)

Chapter Seventeen

An agitated patience played a factor in how Chance played on the field, a day before another game for the Arkham Knights. Because of it, Coach Tyson, along with Coach Jane and Williams, benched him a lot during the tedious practice these men were having. Exertion and frustration leaking out from Chance's aggressiveness drained these men. Their faces sunken from restless nights, their bodies aching from the constant rough tackles given by him, and no doubt the workload from school unbalanced their mentality.

The annoyance on Chris and Levy's faces said it all; they hadn't a clue what was truly up with their boy. They knew of his stress, of Shane's continued presence in Clarence and a great many times they've tried salvaging his anger into a smile. To no avail, however.

"Why's he being so aggressive lately?" Tori asked. A general question, really, as she panned the field, her narrowed and arched eyebrows locked on him. For being so close, why hadn't he opened up to her? I'm sure she knew, and yet understood nothing. "He's turning into a real jock these days." Aggressive, bitchy and mad all the time. With a slight hint of a dismissive attitude. Her words described him accurately.

A scary thought, to be honest.

"You're, like, the cheerleader who makes him such a softie," she added. Patient, calm, and preppy when I desired. With a slight hint of adorable awkwardness. Her words described me nothing like a cheerleader. At least, not the stereotypical way.

With Chance, "He's not a jock," I say. At least, again with the at least, "not stereotypically. He's just stressed with the workload and not being able to have quality time with me."

In response, her laughter busted the expectation of what her next thoughts would've been. "He has so much time to spend quality time with you and he's really bitching over that? Taking it out on the field and everyone else? Wow." Silly when you thought about it, yes, but understandable from our point of view. Our friends and school were distracting the development of our relationship.

Was it so hard to, at least, ask for a day or two in the week alone?

Twice I thought that maybe it was the wrong time for this, for our relationship. To be exact, I didn't know at all how it'd come to be or where it'd go and what we truly wanted to gain from the experience. Everything else sort of mucked it up and swayed our focus.

"You're still up for Sunday, though, right?" she asked. Reading her expressions, she wanted nothing more as to detour away from the subject. She probably gave up trying to understand and help him as of now.

A stressful month November came to be already.

"Of course. I'm the second lead in your film, why would I miss that?" Her Director, as she'd like to be called, Mrs. Amon assigned the whole class a creative film project. An original piece of work scrapped and bricked together from the minds of her students, whatever they may choose. No boundaries chained their creative imagery.

Pretty cool when she told me and wished for me to be a part of it. Surprised she never offered Chris a role, let alone asked him if he desired to join. You'd think the one couple who spent more than half the day together the girlfriend would invite her boyfriend to be in her movie. But guessed not.

Our attentions snapped back to the three coaches whose voices announced of a fan game the day after tomorrow. A little game some Colleges and Universities liked to do with one another I've heard as of now. Ryerson State against Henrick and they weren't even in the same state. But there were no rules cancelling that wish and so it was.

Isn't that kind of stupid, though? Random and stupid.

All the boys were either groaning or giddy. Chance, without a single doubt in anyone's mind, died a little inside. I died a little inside and when they dismissed them back to the lockers, Tori took my hand and led to the locker doors.