Wrangling teenage emotions is hard enough on good days, but what if on bad days they could manifest as giant flesh and blood monsters?
Pacific Rim meets Friday Night Lights as knee-jerk rebel Sage Sawyer is forced to join her high school "tourneytub...
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The harsh weather of deep autumn has finally descended all over Jupiter.
Every leaf on every tree just finished exploding into its annual riot of color and is awaiting its inevitable fall.
Genesis O'Toole is also awaiting the inevitable.
She just hopes it's not a fall, is all.
It's Tuesday night following the Filigree game, and Gee is lying on her bed in The Barn trying, without much success, to get some chemistry homework done. It feels like her brain is about to melt. Fortunately, she's saved from this gruesome fate by the buzzing of the cell phone beside her.
It's a text from Nate:
Hey Babe! I know you got a game Friday but on Saturday there's a bash at the church here in Trumpet Falls. An Anti-Halloween thing. Can you join me?
Gee buries her head in her pillow and groans. She knows she has to let him down again. Maybe he'll take it a little better than last time...
I'm sorry Nate. This week we're playing the Howl all the way out in the opposite direction near Lake Zachary. Overnight trip. Most of Saturday is just gonna be us driving back to Jupiter. :(
As soon as Gee sends the reply, she immediately regrets adding the emoji.
Laying it on a bit too thick, O'Toole, she thinks to herself.
Visions of Sage float up in her head.
Figures. Nate eventually texts back.
Gee has nothing to message in response to this, so she settles back into her chemistry studies.
Easier than dealing with Nate's endless sulks.
But Genesis O'Toole is not about to apologize for tourneytub.
Maybe one day she'll apologize for Sage, but today is not that day.
Nate will just have to get used to it, or he'll just have to...
***
Thankfully, besides the growing knot festering in her stomach, Gee's week passes by rather uneventfully. The Jackalopes still train their butts off, of course, but their collective focus seems to drain the drama out of everything.
At least for a little while.
Come Friday midday, the whole team is let out of school early. They have a long bus ride ahead of them before the game. Tomorrow also happens to be Halloween. The thought hadn't even really crossed Genesis's mind until she got to school today. It feels like everyone but her is wearing a costume.
It's not like she would've worn a costume even if she had remembered, though.
Pagan festivities are really not Genesis O'Toole's thing.
