"You did what?"
"Yeah, I know," I facepalm.
"Wow. But that's pretty great, right?"
"What do you mean? It was humiliating."
"Noa. You were mere feet away from Jeremiah Peterson, AKA: Your crush."
"Yeah, that was cool, but it was awful at the same time."
Kailey just laughs.
*****
After school, Kailey and I change and went to track. Brody comes with, as usual, holding Kailey's hand. Once we get out to the bleachers, he puts his hand on the small of her back, leans down, and kisses her sweetly. They're so cute together.
"See ya, babe."
"Bye, B," Kailey smiles.
"Bye, Noa."
"See ya."
He hugs Kailey, then walks back inside to go to foootball conditioning practice.
"You two are so cute."
"Thanks, Noa."
"Seriously. You two need to get married." She blushes and looks down at her feet.
"Alright, ladies. Come join us, please," Coach calls to us.
"Sorry, Coach." We walk down to the third bleacher and sit down to listen to his little pre-practice speech.
After his speech, Kailey and I split and go to our separate practices. She's a track runner and I'm a thrower because I can't run to save my life.
"Hey, Noa!" Lydia shouts as I come up the hill toward the discus cage.
"Hey, Lydia."
The throwing coach gets the shot-puts and discuses out of the shed and we start lining up to practice. I'm not the best at either, but I'm getting better. That's all I can ask for, right?
"Alright, Noa. Pay attention to how your feet, hips, shoulders, and hands are positioned when you turn and throw the discus."
I nod and get ready. I do a couple practice turns, looking at my coach for validation, then finally connect the turn and throw it...right outside the line. Ugh!
"It's okay. Calm down," Coach says. "You're getting better. You're still new to this."
I nod thankfully, then jog to collect my discus and get back into the line.
*****
About two hours later, practice is over and Keala checks his phone and a concerned expression appears on his face. He types in something, then puts the phone up to his ear. I wonder what's going on?
"What's going on? What happened?"
...
"You-"
...
"Well, you did say you felt like you should call things off a while ago."
...
"I know, but-"
...
"How'd it go?"
...
"That's good. How a-"
...
"I know, Jeremiah," Keala sighs. "But listen, man. It's probably what should happen. What could you expect down the road, anyway?"
...
Jeremiah? Call things off? Does this mean he and Adrienne...
"Yeah."
...
"Oh. Congrats, Jer."
...
"A'ight. I'll talk to you later."
*****
"Overheard Keala talking to Jeremiah on the phone," I explain.
"And...?"
"And Keala kept saying things like, 'called it off' and 'for the best'. Do you think that means-"
"Maybe. If so, you're asking him to Spring Fling."
"What? No, I-"
"Noa. If he's single, you will ask him."
"He'd have at least, like, twenty girls lined up at his door to ask him. What makes you think he'd say yes to me?"
"We've been over this," Kailey retorts. "I'm going over to Brody's today, and he should know. I'll ask him about it and text you, okay?"
"Alright."
*****
Kailey texted me about an hour later, and said that Jeremiah Peterson is in fact single now. Now, I have to figure out how I'm going to ask him to the dance. He plays football and he wrestles, so I could probably do something with that in mind...
Kailey's the creative one. But she's busy, so I have to figure this one out myself. What should I do? I don't know much about him, other than the facts that he is attractive and nice and that he plays football and wrestles.
I sit down with my laptop and start searching Google and Pinterest for ideas.
"Ways to ask a football player to Sadies"
"Ways to ask a wrestler to Sadies"
"Ways to ask a guy to Sadies"
"Wrestler dance asks"
"Football dance asks"
All of them have some interesting ideas, but I don't know which one would be the most creative that I can actually pull off. What would our day activity be? I guess I can worry about that if the time comes. I just need to get the asking part done first. Oh, I'm so nervous, even though I have about two weeks until "D-Day."
Got it.
