Chapter Fourteen: The Pep Rally
Sophia Crawford
It was strange seeing the gym so full; there were cheerleaders in their red and white uniforms, football players in their football gear, teachers and students on the bleachers, waiting for the pep rally to officially start.
I was used to seeing eight chairs positioned in a circle, Oliver occupying one and seven other students, including me, occupying the other.
Gone was the smell of polished floors; instead it smelled like sweat and food.
The wood from the bleacher was strangely comfortable—except for the ache in my back from having no support to sit with my back against, and the fact that there were a ton of students sitting around me, all in which who had a great view of the scar on my cheek, was definitely not comfortable, but having Ana beside me helped with the anxiety of having to sit around so many people.
I was, after all, here to support Cole because of the big game he has tomorrow, so I had to set the anxiety of being around so many people aside so that I can be here to support him.
I owe him for helping me around the school grounds, after all.
Ana nudges me with her left shoulder. “Are you okay?” She asks me over the loud cheers coming from the students around us.
“I’m fine.”
“If you want to leave, you can say the word.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going to let a few students get the best of me.”
The person I wanted to avoid the most, River, wasn’t here. I didn’t think he would come, anyways. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would give up his afternoon to support the football team he has quit since he changed. And even if he was here, I wouldn’t let him get to me, either. I have apologized time and time again and he doesn’t want to forgive me.
There are only so many apologies I can mouth before I give up, and I think I have finally reached that point.
I understand that he’s angry that I brought up Beck at his house the other day, but he can surely understand that I wasn’t trying to pry. I was just trying to make conversation, to join in on the fond memories his and his aunt shared because I don’t have those kind of memories I can share. If I broke a window with a pen like Beck did, my mother would have disowned me then and there. She wouldn’t have laughed it off. So I was just trying to make conversation.
But he doesn’t want to listen and therefore I will not try to explain myself again.
Ana nods and offers me a few of her jelly beans. I decline politely. My stomach was still churning from having to sit between everyone with their warm breath fanning me from all sides and loud cheers coming from all around me.
I don’t think I would be able to keep anything down if I were to eat.
It’s not only the students sitting around me that has my stomach tied into a million knots, but it is also for the fact that I have someone asking me if I could talk. It was an unknown number, asking me if I could talk to them about Daniel, but I haven’t responded to their message yet. I don’t have anyone listed under that number, so it’s probably just someone who was playing some kind of sick joke on me. I don’t think I want to find out if that was the truth, though.
I have gotten sleepless nights over that message, wondering what the hell they wanted to talk to me about, but I couldn’t find enough courage to respond. I have enough sleepless nights as it is because of what happened to Daniel—I don’t think I can handle it if an old friend of his came up and found out that I was the one who caused his death, and that they would want revenge for it.
The only people—and I know this for sure—who knows what happened that night when Daniel died in that accident is my grandmother and his parents. They know I drove the car that took his life. They know I looked away from the road to kiss him when he proposed to me. No one else knows what happened.
My parents know, yes, but they only know what they want to believe. My mother has called me a murderer for causing the accident that took my boyfriend’s life and for that reason alone, she disowned me.
The accident wasn’t the main reason why she wanted to disown me, no, this was something she has planned for a while, even when I was a child; the accident was just her way of finally doing it; to make her feel better about her choices.
She says she doesn’t want a murderer for a daughter, but the truth was, she didn’t want me as her daughter, so she didn’t even hesitate to throw me out of the house when she found out that I was the one who caused the accident.
My phone was propped in my jacket pocket, and when I felt it vibrate, I tensed up almost immediately. It was that number again, the number I have avoided responding to because I was afraid of what I would find if I did respond to it.
Just thinking about it made my hands shake in my lap.
I slide them underneath my legs by my sides, and look over at Ana who had a look of pure happiness inside her brown eyes. She was looking over at Cole standing on the gym floors, smiling at him even though he couldn’t see her from where he was standing.
He looked so strange—but not in a bad way—in his football jersey. And if he looked strange in his football jersey, it made me wonder if River would have looked strange in a football jersey too if he was still on the team. To be honest, I can’t picture River in a football uniform, or any other uniform for that matter. I was too used to seeing him wearing a hoody and a black pair of jeans to be able to picture him in something else, something like a football uniform.
The thing I can picture, though, is River tackling someone straight to the ground. He would have done that even though he wasn’t on the team. Hell, he would have tackled his own teammate if he was on the football team.
Why am I picturing River when I’m not even supposed to be thinking about him?
A blush coats both my cheeks despite it being slightly cold inside the gym, but before Ana could notice that my cheeks were all warmed up, the crowd starts to cheer loudly when the football captain, a guy with black hair and brown eyes, started to hype up the crowd. He was was going to host the pep rally for today.
The principle was standing right beside him, and the rest of the football behind him, as well as the cheerleaders in their red and white uniforms and pompoms.
My phone vibrates in my pocket yet again. Taking it out of my pocket, I unlock my phone. It was the unknown number again, and this time they mentioned my name.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: We need to talk, Sophia.
With shaky hands, I type back a message.
SOPHIA CRAWFORD: Who is this?
My heart started to beat faster as I saw the three dots appearing on my screen, and my heart started to beat even faster when the three dots just stopped, but no message came through. I locked and unlocked my phone, but the message still didn’t come through. When I re-entered the chat, my message was only read, there was nothing underneath my message.
SOPHIA CRAWFORD: Hello?
Nothing.
I shake my head, huffing as I place my phone back into my pocket.
Ana noticed my frustration with the phone and a frown forms between her eyebrows. “What’s wrong?” She mouths, jerking her head toward my phone.
“Just spam.” I lie to her. “I blocked their number.”
She nods.
As she turned to the front, to where Cole was standing, I couldn’t help but feel as if the number wasn’t just trying to play some kind of trick on me. What if they really wanted to talk to me about Daniel?
If they respond to my message, I guess I’ll find out.
Just thinking about Daniel made me want to clutch the ring I had hidden underneath my jacket, but I grasped bare neck instead. Panic seizes me almost immediately, but remembered that I left it back at home this afternoon because I didn’t want to bring it along to the pep rally.
Mr Ryan warned that the pep rallies can get very chaotic, so I didn’t want to risk bringing the ring along in case it gets stolen in the crowd.
I still let my hand linger over my chest where the ring usually hung, and the fact that it wasn’t within reach made me feel very uncomfortable and naked somehow. I was so used to having it around my neck that it became a part of my outfit—my signature.
I need to get home so that I can feel Daniel’s presence around me again.