Not Very Stereotypical.

Chapter Twenty Seven

The atmosphere was electric as we all jumped out of the jeep back at the school parking lot, it was fuller than usual with cars from the rival school parking alongside all the other spectators of the game. With the summer sun high in the sky, it wasn't what I was expecting, there was no floodlights shining over the pitch and there wasn't any scarfs in sight.

Linking arms with my friends, we skipped towards the oh so familiar bleachers. Laughing and giggling on the way, my phone secured tightly in my back pocket, we ran through the crowd up the metal stairs and found our way to the bench. "For regular games I promise it's not this busy all the time. Don't set your expectations high!" Gracie said loudly over the crowd. "It's the first home game of the season, so of course everyone is going to be here."

Nodding I looked around at the field, with fresh line painting, the field was truly ready for a match. The swarm of voices and the heat fizzling my skin made me feel like I was lucid dreaming, it didn't seem real but it was a great feeling.

Of course I had watched football matches back home, but for schools to put this much effort into them and have this big of a crowd show up, shows the patriotic-ness of the country I was now calling home. "So are we green or burgundy?" I asked to Milly who was sat next to me.

"Both." She replied, looking ready to explain herself. "Our school has two colours it's really weird, and most of the time whenever it mixes it just looks like Christmas threw up everywhere." She shivered, reacting to the thought of the colours. I nodded, taking note of the simple question I just asked.

"So tonight they're playing in red and when they play away they're in green." Leighton finished, "Just like soccer." I smiled, able to understand her reference easily from that perspective.

"Okay we've got to go down with the other cheerleaders. See you soon." Gracie waved, holding onto Leighton's hand and begins weaving her way through the crowd.

"If we don't see you later, have fun on your date thing and good luck!" Leighton shouted, smiling with her bright teeth. By filling me with the reminder of the date, the butterflies tickled me again.

I had known Noah for just over a month and with my first sight of him being on the lacrosse field, I have to say that being able to watch him play a game (aside from all the practice matches) I was actually looking forward to it. Of course the initial attraction to him was due to his looks and how he compared to no boy back home, but as I learned to know him it was his personality that filled my cheeks with blush and stomach with butterflies.

"Welcome to the first lacrosse game of the season. Playing at home tonight we've got West Shore High against Madison High School." A man shouted from the middle of the field through a single microphone. The team in blue entered onto the field and all stood in line with their sticks at hand. The group of 12 boys were then joined by a matching team in red. The crowd around me seemingly got louder as the line up tapped sticks with their opponents before setting up to begin play.

Keeping an eye on Mitchell, proud and loud as always wearing his captain jersey, he began playing well - of what I could tell by the crowd reaction and noted Gracie had been giving me during our watching of practices. But keeping close to Mitchell for the first half of the game was number 13. Noah was Mitchell's guard for the game and therefore taking the most hits from other players when trying to tackle Mitchell. My squeamish self jumped ever so slightly as he took those tackles but knowing the more he took meant the better they all played.

As half time came, Gracie and Leighton took centre field with their team to perform a short routine they had prepared throughout the la say few weeks. As I was told by my friends, although Lacrosse was the schools biggest sport, the cheerleaders didn't usually support them, simply because it's not usually the sport to have the support of them. But because there wasn't many other sports to cheer on at the school, they'd put a short routine together for first and last games of seasons and would usually just cheer on the sidelines.