The Outcrowd [Wattys 2015]

Chapter 7: Scott's POV

That afternoon, I arrived home in a pretty shitty mood. On my way to the parking lot after school, I had run into Jake. And although it was the first time in a week that I had caught him on his own, without Lauren or either of her little minions scuttling after her, our exchange hadn't gone well.

I greeted him as naturally as possible, as if we were still on good terms, but instead he had ignored me. When I tried pressing it further, he had exploded on me in a bout of inexplicable rage. And then he had stormed off without letting me say anything else.

So, that had happened.

And so I wasn't ready for the confrontation with my parents that I was faced with when I got home.

Mom, apparently, had left work early, and she was in the kitchen, waiting expectantly for me, when I walked in. I didn't want to say that she was angry, necessarily, but she definitely wasn't too pleased that I was at home.

"Hi, honey," she greeted me before getting straight to the point. "Why aren't you at swim practice?" The way she asked the question made it sound more like a warning.

I opened my mouth to reply, and then shut it. The truth was that I didn't have the guts yet to face the other guys on the team after the entire fiasco with Lauren. But Mom couldn't know about that. She was the kind of person who would make a big deal about stuff like this, which would only make things worse.

So instead, I told her, "Lots of homework this weekend and I wanna get ahead."

She gazed at me with a calculating expression on her face. "Really now? I would assume that the homework load in senior year is fairly light."

"Uh, I have some pretty hard teachers,"I shrugged. It wasn't a complete lie. Baranov, my insane AP Statistics teacher, and Langsley were both pretty intense.

"That much work, huh?" she pressed, keeping her voice calm.

I nodded earnestly and tried to inch my way out of the kitchen. She didn't buy it.

"Honey, Coach Collins just called," she told me. I closed my eyes and let out a resigned breath.

She continued, "He said you haven't been at practice all week."

I couldn't think of a legitimate reply fast enough, so she kept talking.

"Is there something going on? Because if there is, you should definitely tell me about it."

I shook my head.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Scott, honey. You've been acting a bit strange this past week. Are you stressed out about something? Did you and Lauren fight again?"

I shrugged impassively. But she wouldn't let it go.

"Because you can't just keep ditching practice. You're the captain, honey. And you know you have to keep up your game if you wanna maintain that scholarship to Stanford," she reminded me.

"I know, I know," I mumbled, trying for a second time to subtly get myself out of there. It didn't work, and instead we ended up arguing in circles for quite a while longer.

"Scott, what's wrong?" Mom repeated.

"Nothing," I told her.

"Then why have you been skipping practice?"

"Homework."

"Don't lie to me, Scott."

"I just have stuff going on, okay?"