🅈🄴🄻🄻🄾🅆 🄲🄰🄽🄰🅁🅈 🄱🄸🅁🄳 •Stanley Barber•

Stanley's Jacket

The sun sat in the sky that day as if waiting for something interesting to happen. It had a good reason to, too. Tonight the Westinghouse football team would be having their very first game of the season in our home stadium against our very own rivals: Alderman High School. School emails promised it to be the biggest event of the summer and a wonderful way to kick off a new school year.

Jacob would have hated all of it. He would have been embarrassed by my enthusiasm for a school I had never cared about before. After all, yesterday I had gone out of my way to buy/"steal" a shirt in our school colors, and to purchase tickets before the game. And why? Just for a strange boy I had met a month and a half ago?

Yes. Because apparently that's what friends did. They went out of their way to do dumbass stuff like support their own school, even if it was a bit ironic for both of them. What were we to the school but nuisance teens?

It didn't matter. This was the new me with that new 'Ra Ra!' spirit everybody loved.

Even the awful music Stan was playing in the car couldn't spoil my mood. I popped open the passenger door, and slid in. Stan had an arm draped over the back of his seat as he gave me a weird look.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Why'd you go out your bedroom window? Your front door works, doesn't it?"

"Goddamn Erick was stalking the hall again," I answered, buckling my seat belt and closing the car door.

"Again?" He shook his head and began to pull back into the road. "God, that sucks."

"I know!"

"It could be worse, right? I mean, you could have me as your roommate."

He turned just to give me a smug grin that I wished I could wipe off of his stupid face. I shoved his cheek away from me, and gave out an audible sneer.

"Keep your eyes on the road," I said. "Your eye contact is disturbing."

"Rude, but okay."

Stan drove, and the crumby music played on as we headed towards our school. Seeing it brought back stale and unpleasant memories. It reminded me of long, boring days and gross cafeteria food. I could still taste the "chocolate milk" on my tongue from May. And we were coming right back in a month.

As Stan drove around for a good parking spot, I pulled up the digital tickets on my phone. I'd never get to feel the stub of a real football ticket on my fingers as I decided whether or not I should keep it. The emailed receipt really just wasn't doing it for me.

Stan rolled to a stop to let a few teens cross in front of him.

"You should run them over," I said. "You know, to see what would happen."

"Hmm, maybe another day." We began moving again. "I'm not really in the mood to go to jail today."

"Booooo!"

He eventually found a spot near the tennis court, and the minute I opened the car door, I was hit with that strange feeling of excitement again. People were chanting the school song, the words hazy over the off-pitch school band. It was an event I had ridiculed for so long, and yet—

"Go, go, our hardy Westinghouse," I mumbled, "our boys and girls all crowwwwning. Rah, rah, our mighty Westinghouse, we make our town astouuuuunding."

Stan's lips quirked when he met me on the sidewalk. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets as he strolled beside me.

"You know the school song?" he said.

"Everyone does," I replied. "How can you not? They play it on the speakers until our ears bleed."

"Yeah, I guess that's true." He playfully shoved me into the fence. "Just never thought you'd care."