~Sab~
I wake up with Jasmine screaming in my ear, but when I open my eyes, I'm alone in the basement. I look around only to realize that the voice yelling at me is in my phone. That bastard changed my alarm.
I stop the alarm and check the time. It's only six o'clock in the morning. What does she expect from me at six in the morning?
I roll out of the blankets and stumble up the basement stairs. I walk on the cold tile floor to my kitchen, where I'm greeted with the sight of Jaz and Lils, both already dressed and about to eat breakfast.
"I hope that's not milk I see," I say, walking over to the fridge and getting Jaz the almond milk. She's not killing herself on my watch.
"Ew, really? Almond milk and Lucky Charms? Do you even know what almond milk is?" Jaz whines. She's never been know for following her dietary needs.
"Water and crushed almonds. Not dairy. Good for you." I answer.
She huffs and I take a minute to take in her outfit. On her feet are gray combat boots, untied of course. She wears jeans with way to many holes in them for a winter in Deleware, and a black long-sleeved t-shirt under my basketball jersey. Does she even have clothes of her own?
"I'm coming to your game tonight." She anounces, looking at me like she deserves an award.
"Congrats, want a cookie or something?" I put a bagel in the toaster and turn to Lils. "Put cream cheese on this for me? I'm going to go get dressed."
"Yeah, sure," she replies and I run upstairs to throw on some decently clean clothes.
When I come back down, my bagel is on the counter and Lily is behind Jaz, braiding her hair.
"Um, excuse me. I thought I was curling your hair?"
"You were going to, but I wanted my hair braided. I'm still curling yours though, don't worry." Jaz says, a bit too cheerful for six seventeen a.m.
I let out a low grumble along the lines of "fine, whatever" and eat my bagel in a minute and thirty seconds. I rinse off my plate as Lily finishes up Jasmine's hair.
"Ok, let's get this over with." I trudge into the bathroom and sit on a stool in front of the mirror. Jaz stands behind me and plugs in a curler.
"Before we start, is the a certain song you'd like to hear on repeat all morning?" This is a rhetorical question. When one of us says this, it means, "get ready for All Star by Smashmouth to start and never stop."
I nod and she presses play. We whisper the lyrics while she twists my hair around a hot, metal, torture device.
"OW! Don't tug so hard!"
"Don't be such a baby!"
"Don't be such a brat!"
"Oh my God, Sabby, that's so third grade."
"Yeah, well, your face." I say and hear her start to grumble and watch her roll her eyes in the mirror.
After about fifteen more minutes my hair is done and she's trying to stab me with a mascara wand.
"Its so close to my eyeball!" I yelp.
"Well, that's where your eyelashes are." She rolls her eyes, again. When I squirm for about the fifth time she puts the cap back on her mascara. "You're hopeless!"
"Hey, hey, why don't you just calm down, I won't flip, and you can do my make-up. Sound good?" I take her hand in mine and rub my thumb across the top of it. When this doesn't work I crack a smile. "Come on! Make me pretty!"
She does my mascara with less difficulty, but God. Did you know, eyeliner is an actual fucking pencil? Like, honestly, it terrifies me. However, here I am, letting Jaz jab at me with a stick of make-up.
"I'm not gonna poke your eye out."
"Okay, but that's like, really hard to believe."
"Hey guess what? I'm done."
I turn to the mirror to see my face before remembering I'm blind as a bat. I grab my glasses - there is no way in hell I'm putting in contacts today - and put them on my face. When turn to look this time, my only thought is that I look fucking good. Like, really fucking good.
"I know right? I'm an artist." Jaz smiles, packing away her make-up.
"Hell yeah you are! Look at me!" I exclaim. My flat, rust colored hair is curled and piled on my head like a birds nest. It actually looks kinda amazing though. My pale blue eyes, now outlined in black, look electric.
"Well, I'm glad you like it. Now go get your keys. I have to be at school early today." Jaz tells me, marching out of the bathroom.
That's why I woke up at sick o'clock? To give her a ride to school EARLY? She's lucky I'm so nice, otherwise she'd be walking.
_______________________________________
All day long people couldn't peel their eyes away from me. The attention was good and bad, and it was obviously because the make over. Some people stared at me like I sprouted an arm on top of my head. Others, mostly girls, were drooling so much that I actually saw some of them rub saliva off their chins.
I was standing in the locker room, still debating whether to take the make-up off for the game or not, when Coach came in.
"Bus leaves in five." He says. When he realizes why I'm still in here, he chuckles. "I have a daughter, so trust me, that's not enough time to get that stuff off your face. Looks like its stuck there for a while." He pats me on the back before taking his clipboard and exiting the locker room.
I gather up my bag and head to the bus. Luke saved me a seat in the back so I join him, Garret, and Nelson at our seats. I plop next to Luke and lean my head against the seat.
"Jasmine's coming tonight." Luke announces facing me, but it was directed to Garret.
"Yeah, we know. God, that girl could be a cheerleader. She's so loud!" Evan chuckles and glances in my direction. When he sees the annoyed look on my face he swallows and asks, "Are you and her together?"
"No. But jocks aren't her type. Just ask Luke." I point over my shoulder at the freakle covered blonde.
"Yeah let's not talk about that," he forces a laugh and exaggeratedly rubs the back of his neck. It's what he does when he's uncomfortable.
"Um, story time please?" Nelson cuts into the conversation at the sense of Lukes unease. Nelson's a good guy, but when it comes to embarrassing Luke, he's not so great.
"Ok we were in sixth grade and I tried to show off by doing some special shot I was working on, right?" Here Luke pauses to blink a couple times before continuing. "Long story short, I threw the ball, it hit her head, she fell, and uh, she had to get stitches. I still feel so bad."
That last sentence was cut of by the laughter of the boys. Nelsons odd sense of humor had him in hysterics on his seat. Because of this, he was basically in Garrets lap. So, naturally, Garret shoved Nelson to the floor.
"Dude! How many times did you have to apologise for that?" Garret shouts over Nelson.
"He still says sorry at least once a week." I grin as we pull into the opposing teams parking lot.
The team gets off of the bus and heads straight to the locker room. JV plays first so we stay in the locker room, joking with each other, till our game.
When we head onto the court for warm ups, Garret makes an obvious point of looking for Jasmine. He spots her and I follow his eyes.
An uncontrollable grin spreads across my face as I realize that in her hand is a copy of Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell, which she was probably reading during JV. The best part though, is the book that sits to her side on the bench. Between her and Lils sits a basketball rule book. She most likely still won't be able to follow along, but I'm proud that she's trying.
My team plays well and I score a couple baskets. Some human giraffe took me out during the last quarter, though and now I have a black eye. What a joy.
When the game ends, we shake hands and head down to the locker room. I realize that Garret never came down and roll my eyes. Of fucking course. I finish getting dressed and hurriedly run to the gym. What I find was totally unexpected.
Jasmine stands in front of the net, on the foul line, with a ball in her hands. Garret stands behind her, probably appreciating the view as she bends her knees and crouches down to jump and take a shot. She misses by a mile and he smiles slightly.
"Your form is off. Here," he says, stepping closer to her. He puts his hands on her waist and adjusts her stance. It makes me sick.
She takes the shot again and it gets closer to the net, but doesn't go in. Garret is about to correct something else she did wrong, when I clear my throat.
"Hey Jaz. How was the game?" I ask, interrupting their little "moment."
"The game? How are you? Is your eye ok?" She touches the side of my face and I take her hand in mine, just to piss off Garret.
"I'm fine. Thanks for caring so much." I say as she swings our arms back and forth.
"Do you want to go to Friendly's to celebrate?" She questions me, but she has to be joking. We only eat there on Saturdays and we never miss a meal there.
"We can go Saturday, like always." I remind her, and she bites her lip nervously.
"Actually, I told the girls we could have a little girls weekend. No interruptions." She pauses here and hesitates to continue. " No Friendly's."
"Um, excuse me? No." I say, schrunching my eyebrows together. Friendly's is a sacred tradition. We met there.
"I'll go. It sounds fun." Garret shrugs and pretends to be chill about it, but I can tell he's really fucking pleased with himself.
"Then I'll be there." I say. No way in hell I'd let Garret and Jaz be alone. Not. Happening.
Jaz laughs like this is the funniest shit in the world and says, "Okay, losers whatever. To my car!"