"This is all your fault, director's pet. This is a play. I'm not falling in love with you, and I would never ever go out with you, Jack Garrison."
Jack and Shayna can't get through a rehearsal without fighting.
Cheerleader Shayna loathes perfect Ja...
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The halls of the school felt hollow. I'd arranged with my coach to skip practice and work on catching up on what I missed in class before rejoining the team.
The coach's wife, Mrs. Willownbury, was hosting me in her home economics room two hours before school started. My stack of homework contained a few algebra worksheets, some physics, and about seventy pages of The Grapes of Wrath to read.
It wasn't enough time. Not even close. I was reasonably certain that I wouldn't bomb today's reading quiz as long as I could focus. If I could focus.
Teachers gave me pitying looks. Students murmured around me. My history teacher, Mr. Kugler, announced to the whole class that I could take all the time I needed to catch up.
No one was brave enough to say anything directly to my face. No one asked what happened. Plenty of whispers followed me around. Theories were swapped about my dad, sisters, and even my mom.
I'd managed for almost my entire high school career for people to overlook my mom's diagnosis. Occasionally, someone would ask how she was doing, but everyone seemed to forget she was in the hospital for the most part. No,w it seemed my classmates were betting on when she'd die and upturn more of my life.
During algebra, I got called to the front office. The principal wanted to remind me that he was doing his best to squash the rumors and that I shouldn't talk about anything that happened to me. His exact words were that he'd "hate for the school to be a place for rumor-mongering and bringing up more unpleasantness."
He tried to get me to see the guidance counselor. I told him I already had a therapist and would see her after school. It was only a half-lie. Ellie and I had scheduled another appointment for tomorrow.
The real nightmare started at lunch. With half the student body swarming over the cafeteria, it was a breeding ground for whispers and shouts. Attempting to avoid all the gossip, I decided to eat in my car.
That's how I found half the football team. They were all sitting around the parking lot, conspicuously gathered near my jeep.
"Jack," Chad called. "Where you been all day, man?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Trying to catch up after missing a few days."
"Coach was saying something about an injured throwing arm," Brandon said. "So, is that true?"
The graze on my arm from the bullet was already healing. I wasn't worried about it, and it wasn't on my throwing arm. I wondered who started that rumor and hoped it wasn't anyone I was close with.
"I'll be fine," I said. "I just came out here to escape the cafeteria."
"When are you coming back to the team?" Chad asked. "There's no way that Reeves will have a good throwing arm when we have to play in two weeks."
