I hadn't planned on falling in love anytime soon, especially with my best friend.
"Greyson, come on son! Get your shit together, and grab the ball!"
"I'm trying coach!"
I hadn't expected my heart to beat ten times faster each time that he'd come around, each time that he'd smile at me.
"There you go, there you go! Good hustle!"
I was his best friend.
He was the one person that shouldn't have been running through my mind every second of every day.
"You're losing it again!"
But there I was, falling.
"What the hell! Why are you on the ground? Stop tripping over air, and get your behind up and hustle!"
But what made it worse...
"Get your head in the game son!"
It never got any easier to hide my feelings.
Coach Sunny blew his whistle, a shriek that brought time itself to an abrupt halt.
Breathless, I found my eyes on him as he his glare bored through me like the jagged edges of daggers.
Even from the other side of the field, I could feel the anger in his stiffened stance and frown that only deepened as I looked on, mouth agape.
He finally gestured for me to come closer, a petrifying sight as his it seemed those last moments of heavy breaths were about to be my last.
I slowly made my way across the field, not acknowledging the good lucks and be careful statements from my teammates—as if anything I could say or do at this point would save me from whatever lecture I was about to get.
Here we go.
He seemed to calm himself down as I approached him, his seemingly tight grip on his clipboard loosening—the rapid tapping of his foot slowing.
Up close, his eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his skull, the hickory brown of his skin glistening with sweat more than likely from anger and not the heat.
I didn't know if it was my innocent face or the knowing look in my eyes, but Coach pressed his lips together as if to hold back his slue of insults, taking in a deep breath instead.
"Greyson, what the hell is wrong with you today son?"
A deep, rich voice rattled through my ears and even shook my bones as I stood there, helpless.
Say it's because of the heat.
No, he won't fall for that... I used that excuse last time.
Say you're just tired—no... because he'll say something like 'I'll give you something to be tired about'.
What about—
"Hello? I asked you a question son."
His piercing brown eyes cut through me like a knife, and I couldn't just say nothing.
So I did what any person in my shoes would
do.
"I-I... it... we... you see, I was just... and then the wind. The heat... no, not the heat, but the play, I mean... no, the play is good but I—"
Holding up his hand to silence me, coach
tightly closed his lids and huffed.
He opened them to stare at me, a little less harsh than before as his features softened.
"Tell me the truth... what happened... are you oka—"
"I-I don't know coach... it's... I'm fine, I promise."
Looking past me, he watched as everyone looked on in curiosity, as if trying to read his lips to see what he was telling me.
"Stop promising me that you're fine when you continue to do horribly at practice," he whispered.
I slowly nodded, averting my eyes to the turf.
"Grey..."
He placed a hand on my shoulder, coaxing me to look up into his fatherly gaze.
"I don't know what's going on at home... if there's something personal going on with you or anything..."
He trailed off... seeming to rethink what he was about to say.
"Listen, I won't bench you... you're one of my best players, but you have to do your part and pick up your slack. You're fumbling the ball, tripping over your own shoes... it's stressing me out just to look at you today. And with the game being this weekend, I need you to be on your game, because this one... this one is important; it's the last game of the season."
Silent, I sucked on my bottom lip and furrowed my brows.
"Listen, if you need to talk about something... anything, come to my office whenever okay?"
I nodded, watching his smile fade as he looked past me to see everyone fooling off.
"Hey, did I say stop practicing? Get your asses back to it eh!"
Patting me hard on my back as he turned to wink at me, he laughed as I nearly fell forward because of weight of his heavy hand.
"Take five. Oh and make sure to tell Tyler we desperately need him," he deadpanned.
I nodded, walking over to sit on one of the benches near the bleachers with a plop.
The sun from the cloudless sky beamed down like the heavy hammer of Thor as I sat on a scorching bench.
Taking in a deep breath, I squinted up at the sky and sighed, letting my gaze drop to the tuft seconds later as I drifted into my thoughts.
Tyler reigned over my mind, his smile and soft features brewing up a warm sensation in my gut.
Even his name was just enough to make me speechless... thoughtless too.
One time, he surprised me with a visit at my house... brought me a gift and everything just for the heck of it. It was just a football, but it meant the world to me.
The hug afterwards was so... it was so much that I forgot where we were, what it felt like to stand on ground and... I felt safe.
On that day of practice, he'd be coming home from a trip, which of course left me as lonely as one could be.
But what made every mistake that day and every trip up, even my fall, worth it... was that I'd get to see to finally see him.
"Hey man," a familiar voice shouted, literally tearing me from my thoughts by the hair of my scalp.
I glanced up from the ground, and blinking away the sweat on my lids to squint, I saw the most annoying smirk of the most exasperating face one could ever see.
"Hey... Ellie..."
I didn't mean for my greeting to be lack luster... no wait, I did.
He sat next to me and nodded toward the cheerleaders practicing near the end of the football field.
Here he goes.
"I have my eye on the blonde with the gorgeous legs."
With a smirk and a voice full of maliciousness, he nudged me in the arm.
Please don't touch me.
Ellie was one of Tyler's friends, one that thought that by association he was my friend as well, which of course wasn't the case.
I mean, he was nice, but he was always talking about girls... like I ever had any input.
To be honest, I just tolerated him because Tyler liked him around.
Looking to the field to see who he was talking about, I nodded without even looking for more than a millisecond.
"Yea, she's so hot..."
"I'd so beat that in, I'm talking about straight smashing that as–"
"Are you still coming with Tyler and I to the party tonight," I asked, sounding a bit more harsh than intended.
But with Ellie, social cues didn't mean anything.
"Yea man, yea, I'm coming. I can't wait," he bit his lip, giggling.
"Mmm hmm, me either," I mumbled.
"Hey Depree, Manson, get back to it!"
Coach yelled from the field, not needing a bullhorn as his voice shook the earth.
"Ah man, he's working us hard today," Ellie whined as he stood.
I stood as unwillingly as a sloth, letting him get a bit far before I started to follow him.
Please let him trip.
Tyler |
The sound of my zipper ripped through the air as I stood in my room, getting ready to unpack my clothes.
The contents of my luggage consisted of half drunken bottles of power aid, sweaty clothes I ran in over the last week, dirty white socks and those one pair of pants I wore with five different t-shirts.
It was a weird set up, but at least everything was neatly folded and intricately place, like always.
I huffed at the sight and grinned at I recalled all of what happened on the family trip.
It was crazy, because the first day, my mom and I—
"Tyler!"
My mom's voice rang through the house and broke its way into my room with an ear piercing scream.
Gosh.
"Mam?"
"I have a few more college letters and things for you that were in the mail."
"Slide them under the door," I yelled.
After unpacking, I picked up my suitcase to put it up in my closet.
Walking past my wall mirror, I caught a glimpse of my fitting black jeans, black high top boots and my black and white jacket, the sort of things I always wear.
Opening my closet, I picked up my suitcase with ease and stacked it on top of my bigger suitcase, unintentionally letting my hand fall to hit a clothes hanger in the shirt section of my closet.
My phone rang, and in an instant, I leaped from my closet and onto my bed to reach toward my nightstand.
Greyson.
"Hey Rabbit."
His voice was like music to my ears.
Standing from my bed as I went to walk and talk, I tripped over my bean bag, hitting the floor hard.
"Ah..."
I stood to walk slowly this time, reaching for my phone that was sprawled across the floor.
"Uh... hey! Hi... hey Grey, how've you been?"
"Honestly without you, I've been bored out of my mind," he said, huffing.
I smiled.
"I could say the same, the trip wasn't even as great as I thought it would be. I missed you. Not having someone there my age to talk to wasn't fun at all. There was these old women that kept calling me handsome and asking for back massages... it was weird."
He chuckled.
"That's too bad, but you're back now. We can catch up for lost time, I'm on my way to pick you up for the party right now."
"Mmm, are you sure you want to pull into my driveway with my parents being home?"
"Ah, your parents are still mad at me huh?"
A few weeks ago, Greyson came over and accidentally broke a couple of vases wrestling with me.
My parents were mad at me, because I didn't usually break anything or really do anything reckless; but they really got mad at Greyson for being a bad influence.
"Hey don't worry about them, I'll just come out and meet you further down the street; they know I'm catching a ride with someone. I just have to make sure they don't know it's you."
"That's heartwarming, but I'm sure they'll warm up to me again after a while, I'm a good kid aren't I?"
"Only good at football, not good overall," I joked. "But they're right ya know?"
"About what?"
"You being a bad influence," I said getting up to look out of my window as the sound of a car engine approaching got louder.
"I'm not," he whined.
"Sure."
I saw that it was Greyson pulling up into my driveway, and I started to walk out of my room to meet him.
"I thought I said I'd meet you," I warned as I carefully skipped down stairs.
"Well I'm here, just run out so we can go quickly."
I huffed.
"Tyler, are you leaving," my mom asked from the kitchen.
Glancing at her as she bit into an apple, I noticed she was staring into a book; but I could barely see what she was reading as I could only make out the words domestic and abuse among the other bolded words on the title page.
"Yes mam," I sang, grinning as she met my eyes.
"Oh okay... who's that on the phone?"
I shook my head, disregarding it.
"It's... Genevieve."
"Oh good, she's a sweet girl," she soothed.
I lied of course.
Genevieve was one of my other friends, except my mom thought we were dating, which was far from true.
"Well, have fun wherever you're going. I'll be here... doing nothing... waiting your return. Because you know, I don't anything to do whi—"
"Bye mom!"
I ran out of the house, hanging up my phone as I eyed Greyson's cheesy grin.
Jumping in the car, I watched his smile get bigger.
"Hey Rabbit, looks like you got a tan over there," he said, watching me.
"Really," I asked, looking down at my arms.
"I swear it wasn't intentional."
"It looks good on you," he deadpanned, finding my eyes.
"Well hey, I missed you," I laughed, reaching over to playfully ruffle his hair.
"Ah dude, I spent foreve–"
"Your hair looks good Grey, I made it better if anything."
"You're annoying," he whined, smiling as he adjusted his hair in his mirror.
Noticing my dad walk outside to eye Greyson's car with a frown, I tapped Greyson's shoulder and watched as he quickly peered at my dad from underneath his mirror.
"Oh crap," he uttered hysterically, instantly backing up to quickly turn his wheel, making us lurch to the left.
We both laughed as he sped off down the road.