Charlie
Iround the corner near the athletic wing, with my duffle bag hanging over my shoulder. Practice starts in less than fifteen minutes, and I’m already running late. The double doors to Coach Storms’ office slams open so hard they bounce back on their hinges.
Brody comes out first, jaw tight, fists at his sides. They're scabbed over, flaky with blood. Ryder was right behind him with a big, fat, bloody lip. Neither of them notices me, at least not yet.
“Don’t walk away from me!” Ryder hollers.
Brody turns on his heels, smirking like he wants the fight. “You don’t wanna drop it do you?”
Ryder grabs him. Fists curl in front of Brody’s jersey, slamming him back into the cinderblock wall with a loud thud. Brody grunts, but doesn’t shove him back. His eyes flicker towards Ryder’s hand at his collar, and he starts to laugh.
“You’ve known for years what she means to me!” Ryder growls, his face inches from Brody’s. “You think you can just do whatever you want to her?”
My heart pounds so loud its erratic rhythm is in the tips of my fingers.
Her? The hallway spins as the weight of it all presses against my chest. “I gave you my damn answer! I’m not deleting those pictures.
She played Roulette and I’m not going to bend the rules over some little crush you’ve put into a damn closet for years.
You’ve been waiting for her to be of legal age so you could finally fuck her! ”
The door flew open again.
“Enough!” Coach Storm roars through the hallway. “Cut the shit! Both of you.”
Ryder shoves Brody into the wall, letting go of his collar, and holds up his hands. He backs off, still breathing hard, his fists twitching at his sides. Brody adjusts his collar like nothing happened and he wasn’t thrown against the wall.
The coach stalks toward them, his whistle swinging on his lanyard. “You two wanna piss away your chance at getting drafted over some bitch? It’s your senior year! Grow the hell up.”
Ryder licks his lips with a humorous smile, but Coach cuts off his attitude with a glare. “You got something to say, Henderson?”
“Not a damn thing.”
Brody smirks, cracking his knuckles. “We're good, Coach, just hashing it out like you said.”
“Well, I don’t give a damn who she is. But the second you two are fighting against each other at practice, you’ll be best friends with the bench. You think the NFL is looking for a hot-headed locker room drama, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
Both of them mutter, “Yes, coach.”
I take several steps back, stepping on one of my shoelaces that magically came untied.
My duffle bag plummets to the ground, and all three of them glance over at me.
Ryder tilts his head to the side and runs two hands through his hair.
My stomach twists, churning, and I swivel around and make a break for it to the girls’ locker room just feet away from where I stand.
When I get inside, I’m overwhelmed with the stench of lotions and perfumes.
Lockers click open and slam shut as I walk down the rows with the duffle bag biting into my shoulders.
When I spot Payton, she’s wearing a long shirt too big for her tiny frame, and a pair of basketball shorts that go past her knees.
I drop my duffle back onto the bench littered with clothes, makeup bags with toiletries and a million phone chargers that don’t belong to me.
“You're wearing my brother’s clothes,” I say.
Payton’s face breaks out in a sweat as she jimmy-opens her locker. Now I have less than ten minutes to get ready for practice. I dig into the side pocket of my bag, pull out a black scrunchy and comb my fingers into my hair to put it up in a ponytail.
“He lent them to me. So what?” Her lips are the color of paper ash.
She either saw the devil climb out of her own reflection or she needed a toilet bowl to hurl into.
It smells here, but the stench of half-damp towels can’t be the reason she looks like death.
She hasn’t exactly been herself since Roulette, and her sudden distance has spread like a nasty bruise inside me.
It’s quiet between us. There are sharp bursts of laughter in the other side of the locker room, conversations rise and fall in sharp bursts but when it comes to us who usually squeal and talk about everything, it’s just silence and only the hum of fluorescent lights buzz overhead.
I change into my uniform and plop to the cold bench next to my duffle bag.
“Are we okay?” I ask as Payton fights in shutting the locker closed. Her eyes stare at the combination lock, playing with the dial.
“Yeah... we are fine.”
That’s not a reassuring answer. Now my thoughts clang around my skull unanswered, like text-messages left on read. “Please talk to me. What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing!” She throws the shirt over her head, tossing it into the locker, then shimmies out of the shorts.
“There’s something wrong.”
Payton throws on her spandex and cheer skirt.
“I’m fine. We are fine. Everything is fine.
” She tosses on her cheer top and slams her locker shut before placing her foot on the bench and tying her white shoes.
“I’m tired. Let’s just get practice over with and our stupid meeting.
Okay?” She says before marching off. The door slams open hard enough to rattle the metal benches.
Noah: Hey, I need to talk to you about something.
Charlie: What's up?
Noah: Will you come hang out with me tonight?
Charlie: I’d love to.