I Wear Boys Underwear

Chapter Nineteen: I Just Want You to Know Who I am

A ride that was supposed to take 20 minutes turned into 10 due to Nikki’s reckless driving. I swear that chick was trying to kill us all! I mean she was driving in the wrong lane half the time, almost decapitated an old woman and her Chihuahua, and she was constantly insulting other peoples driving. I understand that drivers in San Antonio are terrible, but she was just being crazy.

I walked to the ticket booth to stand in line, but Drew grabbed me by the elbow dragging me towards the gate. She handed me the ticket, they had already bought them, and continued through the thing that spins. We walked up the stairs to the stands and sat directly behind the players in the student section on the Mac side.

As the first quarter began with the kick-off I could tell I was in for a terrible game. First the kicker, Jose, couldn’t get much height into his kick so it was easy for the Madison team to retrieve the ball. Then the players were unable to stop the Madison runningback from scoring the first touchdown of the game. Both teams played hard during the first quarter, but you could tell the Mavericks had the upper hand. It seemed as though the boys had lost whatever drive they had during their first scrimmage and I couldn’t help but feel I was to blame for their current failure.

The score at the end of the first quarter was 0-14, Madison.

Starting the second quarter you could see the unease in the Brahmas eyes as they wearily looked at the scoreboard. They were only behind by two touchdowns, but it was wearing thin on them. Throughout the quarter they fumbled passes and had over ten interceptions made by Madison. And Blaine was worse; he seemed to be distracted the entire game, fumbling the ball off the snap. Getting sacked inside the pocket, you name it. Every now and again I would see him scan the stands as if he were looking for someone. Although I know that deep down I hoped he was looking for me, I couldn’t help thinking that he could care less about me.

At the end of the first half we were down 0-28, with virtually no way of catching up with the way we were playing and acting.

 “Hey guys I need to go take a leaky Louis, I will be back okay?” I told my friends as their eyes were trained on the Macs band performance of “Thriller”.

Walking around the area under the bleachers I came across a door labeled, “Home Locker Rooms”. My heart dropped to my stomach and I could feel my eyes begin to water slightly. God I was acting like such a girl. I was about to cry at a frigging door. I need to get my act together before I become a permanent water fall.

“Losing sucks.”

I turned around, heart frantically beating; to see Coach Avery sadly standing with his aging hands in his iron khaki pant pockets. His gaze was trained at the floor, but I knew he was talking to me. Keeping his eyes down, he walked towards the locker room door and opened it. I watched curiously as he motioned me in with the nod of his head.

Hesitantly I obliged and followed him in. The first thing that hit me was the smell of sweat and grass illuminating from the boy’s worn pads and uniform. If I were any other girl I would have cowered from the odor by pinching my nose in order to cease the fowl stenches of these boys from infiltrating my nose. But living with them has made me somewhat immune to the horrific smell. Although I still did flinch when I walked into the wall of perspiration coming off of the stinky football boys.

Around the corner I could hear the putdowns of the players beating themselves up for the twenty-eight point difference. As I came into view the noisy locker room turned dead. So quiet, that you could hear the splash of the sweat drop falling from their foreheads. As soon as the noise stopped it began again.

“What is she doing here?”

“Why is she here?”

“We don’t need her!”