Friday Night Midnights

Kinda Obvious

Kaylie looks the same as she always does. Bright smile, blue eyes, messy brown hair. Only this time, she's not wearing her usual tight jeans and heels with a face full of makeup. When her eyes meet mine, her smile grows. You can tell she wanted to run over but the guard that was standing behind her held her back. When she sat down in front of us, I finally looked over at Mom to see tears running down her face. "Mom?" I ask.

"I'm fine. Don't worry Ryder. Just hard to see my babygirl here." Mom didn't take her eyes off her daughter sitting in front of her.

"I'm sorry Mom. I swear I didn't mean for any of this to happen." Kaylie apologizes.

"I know baby. I know." Mom sniffles and wipes her tears away, "We're not hear to discuss why you're here. We missed you at the house."

"We did?" I jokingly ask. There's too may heavy feelings in the air. Gotta lighten things up a bit. Feels like we're in jail or something...

"Oh shush you." scolds Mom.

"Ryder. How's the weekend been? Joel? Aaron? How's Lisa?" Kaylie asks. Of course she'd ask about Lisa. I swear those two are practically sisters. No idea how Kaylie gets along with her.

"Weekend is fine. Coach decided to switch the team's positions for Friday so we're probably gonna get killed, but we'll see what Coach says after tomorrow. Joel and Aaron are fine. Normal. Joel can't tackle and Aaron can't catch for the life of him. And how the hell would I know how Lisa is. I don't talk to her and Joel can't stand her."

"Coach is switching the team's positions? So like, the hot seniors will get off the bench?" Of course that's what she focuses on.

"I don't know. Maybe?" Oh god I hope not. Hadn't even thought about that option.

"Anymore nights outside Ryder?" I can tell she's worried about me. Don't know why she's worried. Aren't I supposed to be worried about her? She's the one in jail.

"Ya but I'm fine." I know Kaylie and Mom hate it when I sleep outside. I can tell Kaylie doesn't believe that I'm actually fine but she starts talking to Mom while I zone out and start daydreaming about Friday.

I imagine standing in the pocket seeing 18 in front of me guarding instead of 35. I see the seniors' numbers on the field instead of the guys I'm constantly looking for. I'm looking for a pass in the couple seconds the untrained blockers are giving me. There's no one open. I tuck the ball under my arm, put my head down, and start to run. I hurdle the first guy only to be taken down by the second while I'm flailing in the air. I come down hard, 6 yards behind the starting. Great. Now it's 16 and 3 with a few minutes left in the fourth and we're down 2 touchdowns. The worst game we've had since I started on the team.

"Ryder!" I'm brought out of my daytime nightmare... daymare?

"Huh?" I respond intelligently.

"We were talking about Mrs Hailty and Kaylie asked if you've seen Rebecca at school lately. Normally we hear about her quite often." Mom answers. Mrs Hailty, Rebecca's mom.

"Oh. Uh I saw her at Hermann yesterday but other than that not really." I'm 100% lying. I see her at school every day, but I don't exactly want Heidi trying to be the matchmaker right now.

"Oh. That sucks. I like Rebecca."

"Kaylie. You don't even know her. I don't think I've ever seen you talk to her."

"Well, I like hearing about her. How's that."

"Fine"

"Good." She comments happily. I swear, she's the only one that can be happy while sitting in an orange jumpsuit in jail. "You can't leave me hanging here Ryder. What'd you guys talk about?" Oh. I thought she was done. Guess not.