No TWs for this chapter!! Just minor bullying
* * *
i met zach through football. since i started high school and joined a team outside of school, joey and i ended up on the same team.
it kind of sucked at first. joey isn't very nice to me. he would knock me over when we practiced dribbling, kick the ball directly at my torso at scrimmages, and usually he would steal my water bottle during breaks. the coach got on him after a while, and he only did things when we were alone. it was easier to avoid him like that because a lot of the team would crowd around me a lot.
zach was a friend of joey's, and i'm pretty sure joey liked him. i guess that's why he got even meaner when zach took a liking to me.
we met at a scrimmage. he was talking to joey after the game and i overheard them talking while i was getting some water.
"blondie over there is pretty cute," zach had said. at the time i had bleached my hair since i didn't know what colour to dye it.
joey scoffed. "scott? really?" i could hear him laugh and it made me want to cry. "god, zach, you need to get better taste."
i glanced over to see zach shaking his head. "no, he's really cute," he said. i caught him smiling out of the corner of my eye. "i think i'm gonna go talk to him."
joey had protested obviously, but zach came to talk to me anyway. i hadn't gotten a good look at him before, but i can remember only being able to think: he's really fucking hot. he had wavy black hair, green eyes, and a nice jawline, too. he was tall. like, really, really tall. and he was pretty muscular as well.
"hey, cutie-" zach had tripped over a bench and landed on his face in front of me.
i struggled not to giggle as i said my own hello.
he looked up at me and gave a silly smile. "you've got me falling for you already," he said.
i could feel my cheeks heat up when he said that. it was corny, but it was cute. "guess so," i answered. i helped him to his feet.
"thank you," he sighed. "uh, your name is scott, right?" i nodded. "i'm zach."
i smiled. "nice to meet you, zach."
after that, he'd come up to me in the hallways at school whenever he saw me. i learnt that he played basketball during the winters and did track during the spring and fall. he also took theater and choir with me. and since i already had all of my credits for history (i took those classes in junior high), i was taking a mythology class. the same mythology class as zach.
"hey, cutie," he whispered to me with a wink. i couldn't help but smile back at him. he glanced at the teacher, who was grading our homework from the previous day, then handed me a slip of paper.
it read: wanna be my boo at the halloween dance?
i could've sworn my stomach was doing cartwheels and my heart was doing jumping jacks. like every other pick-up line he cracked, it was totally cliché. and it was absolutely adorable.
i looked back at him and nodded. i'll never forget the way his face lit up.