Dark Night

Homecoming

John caught up with me after classes. "I'm sorry about Jeanne," he said apologetically. "I don't know what got into her."

"You don't owe me an apology for that," I said, dumping my books into my locker. "She was the one who was rude."

"It might be a cultural thing," he said, but I shook my head.

"She's Canadian, they're known all over the world as the nice North Americans. They've got football and basketball up in Canada, she's got to have seen pompom and dance teams, even in passing. But even if she came from Mars, her rudeness is no excuse. I don't even know what she was trying to imply with her comment, but it was deliberately provoking. If we hadn't reeled Kara in, your girlfriend would have been laid out flat."

"I don't know why she said that," he fussed.

"She doesn't like me. She might have thought it would be a way to get a cheap shot in, embarrass me in public."

"She's hard to get to know," he tried.

"She's cold and she doesn't want to get to know me. I was asked by the vice principal to help her out, make sure she understood everything in her classes, but she blew me off after a week after she realized that she didn't need my help. I'm not the most popular kid in school but I could have introduced her to more people. I know it's hard to come to a new school. And all she has to do is bat her big eyes at you and all of a sudden I'm out my best friend."

"What?"

"I get it, you guys are both up at the rink all the time, I barely see you. But even last year when that was also the case, we still did things. But she's all 'oh, cherie,' and you're all 'Delia who?' until you have some unexpected free time and you're all puzzled that I'm not waiting around for the scraps of your time. And frankly, your surprise that I get asked on dates is kind of offensive. I'm not a gorgeous little pixie, but I'm not ugly, and I try hard to be nice. Just about everybody I know has said that boys and girls can't really be friends, and I'm starting to think that they're right. It was fun while it lasted." I shoved my calculus text and some books for a report I was doing for Mr Tiller into my bag and slammed the locker door shut.

"What?" John looked stunned.

I drew a deep breath. "Good luck at the Grand Prix event in France next week," I said and turned. He caught up with me at the door. He looked bewildered.

"Leia, what?... "

"I'm hurt that you basically dumped me after you got a girlfriend." I shook my head. "I know that your time is tight because of all the time you have to spend up at the rink. I guess I just assumed you'd always have time for me." I shrugged. "I was wrong."

"Delia, I've asked you to do things, I'm not the only one who's busy," he said in exasperation.

"The last time we did anything more than talk in class was a couple of weeks ago. You said that what's-her-name was doing extra work up at the rink, so I didn't go to the park. Even then, the only reason you called was because she wasn't around. Nice." My chest was tight. "I am not an afterthought, John," I bit out. I hit the bar on the door and went out. He didn't follow.

The next day was the pep rally and the game, so I got to wear one of our cute uniforms and we performed a really solid routine to Fallout Boy's "I Don't Care" that required a lot of concentration for all the wave elements and other precision moves but was a lot of fun.

I got to the field early, glad to have the distraction. John and I hadn't spoken since I'd huffed off. Soon my teammates started to show up and we staked out a block of seats in the student section of our side of the stadium. The score was tied when we went down to do our warmups and stretch. As soon as the football team filed off the field for halftime, the drumline led the marching band out onto the field and we paced out on their sides. We'd practiced with them so that our groups performed an integrated routine to a medley of pop songs, which finished with a rousing rendition of Buster Poindexter's "Hot Hot Hot." Then the band played the fight song, which the cheerleaders joined us for, then the marching band left the field. With just a few minutes left in halftime, the cheerleaders started the "We Are... Sparta" chant that had started all the games, I'd been told, since 300 had been released. We clapped with "We Are" and did a step, high kick to "Sparta", facing the other side of the stadium, punctuating the rhythm of the cheer. The band's big bass drums boomed. Our classmates really liked that and their cheering got louder, roaring the chant with us. By the time the other team came back out, the stands were rocking and the first few players fell back a couple of steps from the noise before trotting out onto their sidelines. We stayed on our side of the field, stepping in place and doing low kicks until our players came back out to chanting crowd, then turned and paced off the field.