I finished the breakfast at Bob Evans uneasy. I knew she heard me, and I knew I was screwed over. Whoa, wait. I never actually admitted to liking Derek, did I?
"Anyways, back to this Derek. Sounds hot."
"Wha, how did you get that from his name?"
"Oh, naive Maddy. You know we've seen him when we pick you up from practices."
"He's not...hot. He's mean, and most certainly not a hero."
"Punching someone in the face and risking his spot on the team, sounds like a hero. And heroes aren't mean."
"C'mon, Maddy. He's a total cutie, just go for it. You know you like him."
Aha! So I never admitted it. I was safe...or at least I thought. Why did Mrs. Weaver smile at me when she left? I never, ever said anything that would of given myself away. Course, I was always a bad liar...
Wait, I was not a liar. Because I didn't like that stupid, egotistical, jerk; I coudn't, I wouldn't, I shouldn't. But then why did I keep thinking these things? There was only one explanation - that I had fallen for the green-eyed self centered jerk called Derek Weaver. But that wasn't true!
"Yes, it is." A voice of reason said inside my head. I was so conflicted, I just wanted to sleep everything away and pretend it didn't happen, like I've tried before. Tried.
I relaxed at home and watched some TV to get things off my mind until practice came. I looked for my things earlier than usual so I wouldn't be late.
"Ready to go Maddy?" I heard Hannah say. Or Hadley. They both sounded alike, but when you see them up up close, there's a distinct difference in their eyes. Sure, they were both hazel like mine and Mom's, but Hadley's were more brown and army green while Hannah's were more gold and blue-ish. I absolutely hated my eye color. Hazel? What color are you supposed to be, just the leftovers from all the other colors? I woudn't of minded just one color; blue, brown, gray, or green, like Derek's...
"Alrighty, let's go." Hadley said, interruping my thoughts. I shook my head around again and headed for the car. Derek is out of the question right now. And what was the question? Maybe the question of who I liked, or if I even liked anybody. I used to have a crush on Kendall in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, but I eventually got over him. He's a good friend now, kind of like a brother my age.
"You still need to admit you like Derek, Maddy. We aren't resting until you do." Hannah said from the driver's seat.
"Is it just too hard to accept the fact that not everything's working out the way you want to?" I said. It was getting annoying to hear.
"We just want our little Madeline to be happy. It's about time you got a new crush since that Kendall Fox..."
"How did you know about that?" I hissed. Even though it lasted 3 years, no one in the entire world knew about my dirty little secret. I had only written about it once in my diary... "You guys didn't."
"I'm sorry. We both know that was wrong, and we apologize for it now. We didn't intend for you to find out..." As the twins rambled on with their apology, every entry I wrote rolled across my mind. I'd written about the kid on the playground who stole my teddy bear and about how he gave it back eventually, about 1st grade when I fainted, 2nd grade when I learned cursive and everything was written in it, 3rd grade with the teacher who hated me, just typical journal stuff. I didn't write in it anymore.
"It's fine. Kendall was the only embarassing thing you read." I finally interjected. I let out a sigh of relief.
"We know that. You need to write in it more often!" Hannah exclaimed.
"Or just admit the fact you like Derek. That would do it." Hadley said. I didn't respond immediatly. I saw Hadley glance over at Hannah, then back at me, eyebrows raised.
"No."
"Fine then. You'll see." Hadley said. See what? We were barely friends, for the most part. In fact, we weren't friends at all.
"And we're here, so go kick some ass on that field." Hannah said, unlocking the doors.
"Grass! She said grass!" Hadley exclaimed. If there's one more unmistakable difference between the two, it's Hannah's sometimes vulgar word choice and Hadley's goody-two-shoes vocabulary.
"Okay, thanks. Pick me up at 7:30, okay?" Practice was actually over at 7:45, but they were always late.
"But isn't -"
"Bye!" I said, shutting the door. They better not be late; I had a low tolerance for tardiness.
"Maddy! You're here!" I heard Heather say. I unzipped my bag and got my soccer ball out. It was black with highlighter yellow and orange, and easily one of the coolest looking on the team. Everyone wanted to use it for ball handling.
"Yep. Umm..." I noticed the group of people near the goal. "What's going on?" I asked her.
"Oh, Max Weaver is here again. He's taking shots!" She exclaimed. I took a closer look at the man in the net. It was definitely Max, tall & thin, shorter and lighter brown hair but his eyes were grey instead of green.
"Oh, cool. Anyone score?"
"Haha, only when more then one person shoots."
"Well, I think it's time to change that, huh?" I said, dribbling past Heather and lining up the ball on the 18. I waited for the others to shoot and go get their deflected balls. He made eye contact with me and had a surprised smile on his face. I winded up an delivered a kick to my specialty spot, the upper left corner. It sailed through the air, just brushing his finger tips. It was going to hit the bar, but someone slyly stuck their head out to score a goal. Max looked at me and smiled.
"Good shot, Maddy."
I gave a polite smile back. He moved to reveal Derek, who was being high fived by Sam, Wyatt, Kendall, Jarod, and Oliver for finally scoring a goal on the brick wall. I saw his face peek out from the mini crowd and give me a half smile before returning to his friends. My stomach swooped.
We then went into routine drills, and, thankfully, no corner kicks. We did do penalty kicks, and I managed to get every kick of mine in. I almost bust out laughing seeing Derek so flustered.
"Alright tigers, hustle up!"
We congregated around Coach Dublin. "Put the soccer balls away for now." A few moans escaped from the team. What do you get when you take the ball out of soccer? "We're doing some running today."
This time, I was one of the moaners. Running was easily my worst aspect of being a soccer player, which is kind of ironic in a sense. But when Coach says "some", it's not the 50 meters I'd be hoping for.
"You're going for a 25 minute run. Your path is just somewhat circular around the property, and I'll tell you how much more time you'll have left when you pass me. Are we ready?"
"No," I wanted to say, but I tried to keep my thoughts to myself. Before I could regroup for the torture to come, Coach had already yelled go.
Slowly, I jogged. A speedwalker could probably pass me right now, and the rest of the team was already pulling ahead, but I was determined not to give up. Enjoying my snail-like pace, someone appeared on my left.
Derek.
What do I do, what do I do!? I thought frantically. Try to act natural? No. natural right now is panting like a dog. I had then noticed how he hadn't said anything yet, just jogging beside me silently. We went on like that for what felt like an eternity. I tried to say something, just to break the silence, but I was losing energy quickly. I had to slow down if I was to make it.
"No, keep the same pace." Derek growled to me. He wasn't showing it, but his voice was airy and exhausted. Why does he want me to continue this pace? Does he want me to pass out?
WHAM. All of a sudden, my arm was jerked to the left, my back pinned against the old concrete building, the air completely knocked out of me. I started to yell at Derek, but I looked up and realized how close he was, face only inches from mine, breathing heavy, those eyes searching, searching for something hiding. I could feel the heat radiating off of him, hands still pinning my arms to the wall. As suddenly as he grabbed my arm, he let go, backing up and few steps and kneeling on the ground, still catching his breath.
"Wha...what...was that...for?" I gasped. I realized where we were. We were behind an old concrete building, the one with the bathroom that have cell phone numbers and dirty words on the walls. We were in the lover's hideout, as they call it. We were at the place where high school couples-
"I didn't bring you here to make out, if that's what you're thinking." said Derek suddenly. I was a bit taken aback.
"I-I never thought-"
"Never mind. Don't speak, just...just wait here." Derek disappeared into one of the dirty bathrooms and came back out with a clean waterbottle, handing it to me.
"Drink this."
I cautiously took a few sips of the water. It may have been warm, but my throat wasn't going to complain. Before I knew it, I had drained half the bottle.
Feeling slightly refreshed and more conscious, I asked Derek what the heck was going on.
"We're getting out of running, that's what." Derek plopped down on a bed of overgrown grass.
"But, uh, shouldn't we-"
"Nope."
"But we'll-"
"Nope."
"But what if we-"
"Nope. None of that is ever going to happen, and never has for that matter."
"So...you've cheated on running before?"
"Tons of times. Goalie's shouldn't have to run." Derek gave his signature smirk.
"Whatever," I mumbled. Secretly, I was glad he'd shown me this little hideout. I knew there wasn't anyway I would make the 25 minutes, so why try?
Silently, I sat down on a bed of grass next to him, watching dark clouds pass by.
"So...am I someone you trust now?" I said. His face looked genuinly worried for a moment. "I could very well just run off now and tattle-tale on you..."
His arm shot out grabbing my wrist, actually expecting me to leave.
"Please. I'm begging you."
I laughed at him. "I was kidding. But it's nice to know I have a sort of consequence on you now." I said, giving my own smirk. It was nice to be able to kid around with him. His grim expression wasn't what I wanted.
"Perfect. More consequences." I then took his subtle hint. It hit me that he might actually be depressed over his suspension. I know it would suck if I had to miss nearly 5 games.
"S-sorry. I didn't mean to, um, I thought-"
"It's fine."
A silence settled in, only filled by chirping of evening birds. The sun was low in the sky, bathing everything in that golden glow that you only see in phtoshopped pictures from time to time. I didn't want to waste this oppurtunity.
"I'm sorry," we both said at the same time.
"No, I'm sorry-"
"No," we let out the same exasperated sigh. He laughed a little. "Ladies first?"
"Sorry about getting you suspended. I never meant it to end up like...like that."
"And I'm sorry about interfering. And for making you upset."
"You're forgiven."
"Thanks. And you too."
I wanted to ask more, ask why it killed him, ask why he did protect me, ask every single question under the sun. I was about to when he plucked a piece of grass from the ground and laid it between his thumbs.
"What are you doing?"
"Just watch."
I watched Derek blow on the grass, creating so sort of buzzing noise close to a kazoo. Then a song began to take form-the familiar intro to Star Wars. When he was done, he cocked an eyebrow at me. "Impressive, huh?"
"I bet I could do it," I stated, snatching my own piece of grass. "It can't be that hard."
In reality, it was much harder than what I had expected. I tried and tried to get the grass to make a noise, but Derek's amused laughter and the tiredness in my cheeks were only giving way to sort of dying animal sound. Derek was almost it stitches from laughing so hard.
"Shut up," I said angrily, throwing the grass at him. "I bet you've practiced your whole life for that one song."
"You're just mad," he said, starting another song I didn't know. I crossed my arms. "But that's alright. You're funny when you're mad."
"Funny?" I said, somewhat frustrated. He stopped his song again, looking worried for a second.
"Not funny as in stupid, more funny as in cute."
Whoa, what? My mind did a double take.
"Like a cat trying to catch a laser," he added quickly. The scene rolled through my mind: an adorable little kitten trying to catch a red dot on a wall, jumping and pouncing about. It was funny to watch those videos on YouTube, but something told me "cute" had another meaning. I let the comment slide.
"Where did you learn that trick?" I asked, gesturing to the grass.
"This?" Derek started another, more complicated song on kazoo-like instrument. I playfully threw another handful of grass at him.
"Yes, that."
"Oh, my dad showed me before he left."
"Left where?"
"Left here for the army. Deployed to Afghanistan."
The silence settled in again. "God, you are such a mood killer, Maddy. How does this boy even talk to you." I thought, feeling rude for asking such a personal question.
"But he's scheduled to come home soon."
"That's good." I replied, stupidly.
"Yeah." Another small silence.
"So," Derek said, falling back on the grass, putting his hands behind his head. He turned to me and I had a connection between him and those giant posters they have at Abercrombie & Fitch.
"How is your life, Ms. Gray?" he asked, in a laid back tone, snapping me out of my fantasy.
"Quite fine, Mr. Weaver." I said, laying down on the grass beside him, observing the last few rays of golden sunlight. How pretty. How picturesque. How...perfect.
"Derek, what's your middle name?" I asked abruptly. I had always wondered what it was, but never have gotten the chance to ask.
I heard him sigh. "Braxton."
Hmm. Derek Braxton Weaver. I decided the name was much better than my dull one. It had a sort of flow to it, like a conductor in the middle of a conducting an orchestra. Every swish and flick of his baton was another syllable. Derek. Braxton. Weaver.
"I know it's stupid."
"It's not stupid."
"Yes it is."
"No it's not."
"Stop lying."
"I'm not lying!" retorted, letting out a little laugh.
"See? You're laughing."
"Not because it's funny as in stupid. Funny as in cute." I quoted, letting the words sink into my thick skull. Funny as in cute. How cheesy. How...words couldn't even begin to describe my embarassment, and a red hot blush crept onto my cheeks. In desperation for something else to talk about I ripped a clover from the Earth. "Look, it's a four leaf clover!" I lied, hoping to break the silence. I was talking so normally to him until now. What the hell was wrong with me.
Derek laughed a little. "That only has three leaves."
When was I going to stop being such an idiot? Just kill me now. I wished my brain would just cooperate with me once and not try to embarrass me. My blush must've been as red as a strawberry. I'm pretty sure I would've literally slapped myself in face if Derek didn't take the clover from my hand, plucking a leaf off.
"Now it's a lucky two-leaf clover," he said, handing it back. I gave a small laugh, accepting the messed-up clover. Then something amazing happened. He gave me a smile. A real smile. One that commenced my stomach to turn into an Olympic gymnast and my heart flutter like a hummingbird's. One that said something unmistakably real words couldn't describe.
Derek rotated back on his back. "What about your middle name?" he asked.
"No way I'm telling you."
"Why? I told you mine."
"My name's too depressing."
"I highly doubt that," Derek said, snickering. "If I find a real four leaf clover, then would you tell me?"
I threw my hands up. "Sure." I said. There's no way he can find a four leaf clover.
"Good. Because I picked this one up awhile ago." Turning to me, he held up a true four leaf clover, no holes or crumpled leaves, each of the four in perfect symmetry, a mischievous smile on his face.
I scowled. "That's not fair."
"You already agreed."
"Alright, fine. My middle name's..." I hesitated for a second, considering to lie, but now the sun was at just the right angle to illuminate his face, in some cheesy romance movie. No wonder the girl always fell for the boy now. You can't control anything in this moment. "Joelle."
"That's a nice middle name." He said, almost dreamily.
"I hate it," I quietly stated, searching for a four leaf clover to show off. "It reminds me of old people. And sadness."
Derek laughed. "Old people? No, it's more...like a color."
I expected to hear him say boring old gray, what everyone usually relates my name to.
"Like purple. A light purple: a lavender. Lavender that's so fragrant, you're lost for a moment when you take a whiff. And your first name reminds me of a soft yellow. You know, a pastel yellow that doesn't hurt your eyes. The kind of yellow that makes you relax. Your last name isn't gray, it comes off more silver to me. Silver clouds. What's the phrase again...something like a positive person sees the silver lining in every cloud. Anyway, all put together, I just imagine early morning sun finding its way through those silver clouds, illuminating spots of that fragrant lavender, sprouting as far as you can see, the wind warm and soft. Peaceful. Secretive..." Derek said, hesitating. "Beautiful."
I lay stunned. No matter how thick my skull might be, it was unmistakable that he had just given a compliment. A serious compliment.
And I also realized that Derek wasn't just a jock. He wasn't some self-centered narcissist. He had some unknown ability to paint pictures with words, the ability to entice anyone in a simple description. It seems easy. It always seems easy. But not one creative writing paper of mine came close to his simple description. It stirred inside of him, and I could see him fight to suppress it with that last word, trying to keep his disguise on, but it was no use. At heart, Derek wasn't just an amazing goalie. He was a writer. A storyteller. A painter with words.
He piped up again in a quieter, but jovial voice. "Sorry. I can assure I'm not a homosexual."
I laughed at him. "I know that."
"Good. Don't ever speak of this again."
"Why?"
"This is just between you and me."
"But that was...I don't know how to explain it. Good. Better than good. You came up with that on the spot?"
"Yes. But it was just a description." Derek rolled over onto his belly, crossing his arms in front of him and laying his head down. He seemed to be lost in thought.
I propped my head on my elbow, ending up about a foot away from each other.
"Thanks." My arm reached out to fix his hair. I combed it out, brushing it to the side so I could see his face. He had his eyes closed, resting, and I could tell he was almost asleep. "Thanks for your description, then."
I continued to brush through his hair, sending him more and more relaxed, the moment controversially perfect and completely messed up at the same time. I really hadn't been aware of what I was doing. Whoa...what in the hell was I doing? My surge of unknown confidence and sense of serenity drained as I pulled my arm away quickly, as if touching hot lava. His eyes opened again, eyebrows slightly raised.
The soft padding of feet on grass awoke us from our moment of peace. His green eyes filled with alarm before running for cover, me following closely behind. We watched and counted each player go by, keeping as still and quiet as possible. My heart pounded faster with each pair of cleats and the embarassment of strangely combing through his hair. When we thought everyone was gone, I could feel his body relax with mine. I just wanted to wrap my arms around him, just once, just for the moment, just to forget about it the next minute, but cleats echoing on concrete shook me out of my fantasy.
Someone was coming.