Ticktock Love

[16] Sixteen Scandals

Even if God had created everything on Earth, I would have sworn that bleachers had been invented by Satan.

There was nothing comfortable about the lukewarm metal, and I tried to sit on the back of my hands to provide at least some sort of cushion. It didn't work. When Amber turned her head to the left, her hair in a high bun and a foil wrap wrinkled between her fingers, she visibly recoiled at my indignant glower.

"What?" she had the audacity to ask me before she bit into her hot dog. As she chewed the processed meat and pretended to enjoy it, all I could focus on was a tiny spot of mustard painted on her upper lip, almost like a discolored beauty mark. The pumped-up roars did eventually break me out of the trance, and I winced as a few hundred teenagers whooped and clapped at the agile cheerleaders.

"You tricked me," I accused Amber the second they quieted down. "You knew I'd never willingly succumb to the torture that is American football. High school American football."

My best friend rolled her eyes, still not fully done chewing as she replied. "Get over it, Lizzie. We're here for a good cause."

"Watching your boyfriend wrestle with other guys on a patch of grass does not constitute a good cause."

"Our boyfriends," she corrected me, earning another angry glare from me.

"Neither one of us is in an official relationship."

"Yet."

"Look, I admire your optimism, I really do," I lied, and her knowing smirk called me out on it. "But just because we're twiddling thumbs at their game, it doesn't mean Troy or Aiden will get inspired to do a grand romantic gesture. Life isn't like that Fever Pitch movie. Which, by the way, I still think was totally unrealistic."

She didn't hear me. As Arizona Bulls, our school team, entered the spacious field, Amber jumped up on her feet and started chanting Troy's name. The camera around her neck bounced against her chest until she remembered that she was supposed to be taking pictures for the yearbook. By some miracle, the number nine heard her, and he grinned and waved at her as she abused the shutter button. Meanwhile, I was trying to camouflage myself by rounding my shoulders, praying Aiden wouldn't notice me. If I hadn't known he was the one in a purple jersey with a giant, black twelve on it, I could have never pointed him out.

"I hate you," I wailed. "If Aiden sees me here, he's going to think I'm stalking him. And I could have been at home, doing something more productive with my time."

"Like what?" Amber scoffed as she plunked herself back down on the seat next to me. "Posting more ridiculous videos of Berlioz on your new TikTok account?"

"Yes," I hissed, my voice deadpan serious.

You'd think that my infamous dress code fiasco would have stopped me from ever using the app again, but it had managed to do the opposite. When Maddie shot an adorable video of Berlioz dipping his own tail into his salmon-flavored cat pâté and then trying to lick it clean, I decided to upload it and allow the internet to gush and aww over his cuteness. My friends and Aiden immediately followed me, so I got about a hundred followers in a single night. I could have never repeated my initial success, but it was honestly for the best.

The original account was doing fantastic, even more so now after the report. The influx of comments had become a steady, powerful stream, and despite my best efforts, I could no longer keep up with the notifications. They weren't all sunshine and rainbows, anyway.

"Come on, Liz," Amber yelled in my direction, taking a photo of my assumingly frowning countenance. Her voice sounded miles away, muffled and slightly contorted, although there was a mere three-inch distance between us. "This is fun! And you'll have to go to all of Aiden's games if you two start dating, so you'd better get used to it."