Chapter 19: Football Practice
Isabella's POV
After a few minutes of walking, Jay and I made it to the football field, where the rest of the team was doing laps around the track. I look around and see Ryan, shirtless and sweaty, doing push ups off to the side.
"Looking at Mr.Gomez, I see." Jay smirks over at me.
"Am not." I say, feeling my face heat up.
"You look like a tomato." Jay laughs.
"Shut up and go practice." I blush even more.
He nods and makes his way to the locker room as I take a seat on the bleachers.
As I sat down, I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket, a text from Emery.
'Hey girl, what happened to going to the mall?'
I reply with:
'I had a bad day, decided to go home.'
After replying, I watch Jay run out of the locker room and start his laps, with a few of the other boys.
"Hey, Isabella right?" I hear a voice behind me ask.
I turn around and realize it was Lauren, "Hi yeah. That's me." I smile.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Lauren." She smiles brightly.
"You too."
"You're in my Literature class, you're a great writer." She compliments.
"Thank you so much! That means a lot." I smile, blushing a bit.
"I see you know Jay Preston." She blushes.
"Yeah, he's my boyfriend's friend." I say.
"Oh right, you're dating Ryan Gomez!" She says.
"Yup, how do you know Jay?" I ask.
"We use to be best friends in elementary school." She says, frowning a bit.
"Oh, if you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by use to?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
"We didn't go to the same middle school and freshman year here was so different. Like we didn't know each other at all. He became so quiet and isolated. He use to be so outgoing and confident," she tells me, sadness filling her voice, "I miss him."
"I know I really shouldn't be telling you this but we hung out today and he said he wanted to ask you to the homecoming tomorrow." I say, not regretting it at all.
"What? Seriously?" She asks, excitement in her voice.
"Yes but promise me, when he asks, act super surprised. I don't want him knowing I told you." I say.
"I promise." She smiles, "we should hang out sometimes."
"That'd be cool." I smile.
"I really need friends. I'm a sophomore with a memory of a friend," she pouts, "that sounds so pathetic."
"It doesn't at all. I feel the same way. I have no friends who are girls. I know 3 people: Ryan, Jay and Zach." I say.
"Zach? As in Zachary the boy who argues with Mr.Thompson?" She asks.
"Yup, that's him." I laugh.
"How do you know him?" She asks.
"He's a family friend." I say, leaving out major details.
"Ohh, aren't you friends with the cheerleaders the guys hang out with?" She questions.
"Cheerleaders? Not interested." I say, making Lauren laugh.
"I know right! They're so gossipy and a little too perfect. Not my cup of tea." She laughs.
"Do you play any sports?" I ask.
"Yes I do, volleyball and soccer." She says, proudly.
"Nice! I play soccer." I smile.
"Awesome! Did you know Jay is great at soccer? He doesn't like to say it because he's so obsessed with football." She says.
"Really? What I couldn't believe is that Ryan is the captain of the soccer team. When I first saw him, I already knew he was a football player but the last sport I thought was soccer." I laugh.
"We should all play sometime." She offers.
"I'd like that." I smile.
"Me too."
Before we knew it, the boys practice was over. I had walked over to the locker room exit, waiting for Jay to come out.
"Hey babe." I heard a familiar voice say as they walked out of the locker rooms.
"Hey." I smile, looking up at my gorgeous boyfriend's eyes.
"Hey Bells, ready for me to walk you home?" Jay asks, walking out, "oh hey Ryan."
"What's going on?" Ryan asks, suspiciously.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"You're wearing his hoodie, you smell like him and now he's offering to walk you home." Ryan says, the anger in his voice obviously rising.
"Dude, nothing's going on." Jay says, truthfully.
"Yeah, absolutely nothing." I chime in.
"Then explain all this shit." He says.
"This morning I got into an argument with Zach and I didn't want to be here with him in every class. He said some fucked up shit and I stormed off and left school." I started.
"I heard and saw everything, she was in tears and I didn't want her roaming around all alone. I decided to help her and distract her from the bullshit Zachary said." Jay says.
"What'd you two do?" Ryan questions.
"We hung out at my house. We played video games and ate ice cream." Jay replies, "and after eating we headed over here cause I didn't want to be late to practice. I offered her to stay until practice was over so she wouldn't have to walk home alone."
"Oh." Ryan says, looking like an idiot.
"Do you not trust me?" I ask, feeling a bit hurt.
"It's not that I don't trust you, I just-" he says, stopping himself, not being able to come up with an excuse.
"No, you don't trust me." I say.
"I do." He says, coming closer to me.
"Stop." I tell him, taking a step backward.
"Come on, Bella, you can't blame me for thinking that something happened." He says, reaching for my hand.
I scoff, "You think I'd cheat on you?"
He shrugs, "It doesn't matter. Nothing happened."
He grabs my arm and pulls me toward him, "Don't touch me." I spat, moving away from him and pulling my arm from his grip.
"Don't act like a stubborn bitch." He says, anger in his voice.
"Don't act like a bitch? Says the asshole who thinks I would stoop that low and cheat on him with his best friend." I say, the blood boiling in my veins.
"You're making a huge deal out of this." He says.
"You blew everything out of proportion thinking and assuming I cheated on you with Jay." I inform him.
He rolls his eyes, "Whatever." I say and walk off, wanting to go home.
"You're a real dick. Thinking I'd do something with your girlfriend." Jay says, and I hear his footsteps follow behind me.
"Isabella, wait up! I'm walking you home." I hear him shout and speed up.
I slow down to let him catch up and wiping the tears falling from my eyes.
"Don't worry about it, Bella. We know nothing happened and that's all that matters." Jay says, wrapping his arm around my waist.
"I know but also knowing he thinks that low of me to cheat on him with his best friend. I would never do anything like that." I sobbed.
"Shh, don't cry," he says, stopping and pulling me into a tight embrace, "it'll be okay. You guys will make up."
"But what if we don't?" I sobbed into his chest.
"Then there will be other guys. Guys that trust you and that are 100 times better than Ryan." He says.
"Thank you, Jay." I say, trying my best to stop crying.
"Let's get you home, you need to rest." He smiles, as we pull away from hugging.
We began walking towards the entrance of the school, walking at the same pace.
"I saw you talking to Lauren." Jay said.
"Yeah, she's pretty cool." I shrug.
"Did she say anything about me?"
"Yeah, she said she misses you." I tell him, looking over at him smiling.
"She misses me? She can't possibly miss me as much as I've missed her." He says.
I smile at him, "So have you thought about your big prom proposal?"
"Sorta?" He says, unsure.
"Sorta?" I ask.
"I know her birthday is on the same day as homecoming, so I was thinking maybe before the game, you guys can hang out and I'll text you to come to the football game. And before it stops, I'll have people from the entrance of the school and through the locker room to the the entrance from the locker rooms to the field, pass her balloons. But once she gets to the field, everyone will be in the bleachers and there will be boxes lined down the field designed as gift boxes. At the last box, I'll be hiding in it and ask her." He smiles.
"How are you gonna clean all that up before the game?" I laugh.
"It doesn't matter, as long as I'm going to homecoming with Lauren." He smiles, brightly.
"Need any help?" I ask.
"Yeah, I was actually gonna ask if maybe before the game you could get the balloons from the store before you meet up with Lauren and drop them off at the school. I'm hoping Nick will be there to get them from you while we setup." He says.
"Sounds good, do you want me to pick anything else up?"
"Flowers!" He shouts.
"Shhh!" I laugh, hysterically, "What kind of flowers?"
"She loves pink carnations!" Jay says, his eyes gleaming with joy.
"I'll get pink carnations then." I giggle.
"Well then everything's planned out. While I was in the locker room, I ask Julian, a friend of mine, to help me make the boxes tonight." He mentions.
"Sounds good. Who are the people handing her balloons?" I ask.
"I'll just find random people in the morning." He shrugs, "Are you still going?"
"To homecoming? Well I already bought my dress and shoes. Apryll probably wants me to go anyways." I say.
"I'm really sorry, Bella." He says, with sympathy.
"It's fine, not your fault." I tell him.
"It is." He replies.
"It's not your fault Ryan doesn't trust us. It's not your fault that he has his doubts but what the hell can we do about his thoughts?" I ask.
"Nothing." Jay mumbles.
"Exactly." I told him.
We just kept walking, silent and in thought. Jay probably thinking about having the best time of his life at homecoming and me...
Well I'm thinking: What have I done for this to happen?