Flowers and Pop Rocks

23

p o p p y

I'd spent a lot of the past week and a half with Caleb, and it was a lot of fun, to say the least.

Most of it was just us goofing around while trying to get some work done for that paper we had for English class, but some of it was actually productive.

He'd even managed to get on my mom's good side one time he went over to my house. He brought a pie from the bakery at the mall, which just so happened to be one of her favorites.

Our paper was due today, and Caleb told me he'd already given it to our teacher in the morning. He had a class near her room and gave it before the first period.

We actually had English after lunch today, but we figured it would be better to give it to her earlier so that we wouldn't forget.

Our teacher tended not to remind us we have things due. She just expects that we know and doesn't ask to collect things on the date we have to submit them.

Asher was actually the one who told me about that, and it was easily noticeable since our first assignment with her. He had her as a teacher for senior year too, and he knew how I was with deadlines.

I was in the locker room, changing for PE, and I was dreading it. I had no close friends in this class except for Grant who was going to be with everyone else, and our teacher was the basketball coach at our school.

Actually, he knew Ash really well because he was on varsity for all of high school, but that didn't stop him from torturing me. He was good friends with my dad too. That probably didn't help.

In fact, I think he enjoyed messing with me more because he knew I was Asher's cousin and my dad's daughter.

"I said run, not stroll at the mall, Williams," he yelled. "Come on, it's just a warm up."

"Yes, Coach," I managed to say as I ran past him.

He was really enjoying this, wasn't he?

Eventually, the whole class finished running around the gym three times over.

"Dodgeball, let's just have the same teams as last week," Coach called out. "Red team, right and blue team, left."

I was still recovering from my sprints around the gym, breathing heavily, but I made my way to the left side anyway.

Coach blew his whistle and balls started flying in the air. I let out an involuntary squeak as I tried to dodge the ones headed straight for me.

Honestly, I was proud of myself and so thankful my cousin liked to play dodgeball for fun at our house since we were kids. Sometimes, he just threw a basketball at me for fun.

I was part of the last five standing, two in my team and three in the other.

With just my luck, in the short moment of me basking in all my glory, I managed to miss a ball zooming straight towards me.

"Poppy, move!" was all I heard before I got hit in the stomach, knocking all the wind out of me.

The force was strong enough to make me fall on the floor. I was about to get up when another ball landed in front of me and bounced, effectively bonking me on the head.

Noticing that I was clutching my head in pain, Coach blew the whistle and called for a time out.

He walked towards me. "You good, kiddo?"

"I'm gonna ask my dad to come here and beat you up, Coach," I joked. "I'm fine."

"Okay, get up," he extended his hand out to me.