Friday Night Lights: Utah Edition

First Day of School

I lined myself up on the line across from Cottonwood's cornerback on a cool September evening. I was running a quick slant, but he didn't know that. The ball was snapped, I turned immediately and ran directly towards the center of the field. The ball was thrown, but a little high. I jumped up and barely got a fingertip on the ball before the linebacker's shoulder pad hit me square in the chest and slid up, popping my helmet off and sending me hard to the artificial turf.

---------

My alarm went off in that blaring, terrible noise that only alarm clocks can make. I clicked it off in one fluid motion without looking as if it were second nature. The room was left in silence and I could have easily stayed there for the better part of the day, but it was the first day of my senior year of high school. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed and sat there trying to rid myself of any sleepiness, wondering if it was even worth it to be awake.

I finally stood up, showered, and got ready for the day. Then I remembered the conversation I had had the day before with a fellow senior in my ward. "My dad found this pink bus, and he thought it would be fun to drive a group of us to school tomorrow for the first day," she had said.

Now that it is the tomorrow I'm regretting having even agreed to that. I'll be stuck at the school with no car on my first day as a senior. Looks like senioritis will not be happening today.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

That was the door, now they are here. I opened the front door and the pink bus was sitting in the cul de sac in front of my house. It wasn't hot pink like I imagined, nor was it as long as I had imagined either. It was a dull pink which looked more like a tint to it than an actual coloring. It was also more like an oversized square-shaped van.

"You ready, Jordan?" the girl asked.

"Yeah," I responded simply. I grabbed my one binder with nothing but blank paper and a pen. "Let's go."

I climbed into the bus and I seemed to be the last one that they were picking up. There were already eight other people sitting on the small bus.

It was only about a five minute drive, if that, from my house to the high school. There were no other stops, so I guess I was the last one. We arrived at the school and pulled up to the front doors. I hadn't even stepped off the bus yet I knew that every eye was already on us. We got off the bus and people were standing around trying to decide what had just happened.

"Jordan Abel," I heard a voice call out. I turned to see who it was. "Nice entrance."It was a taller kid with short brown hair and blue eyes. He hadn't changed since the last time we were at school. He was still sporting his thin chinstrap beard.

"Derek, what's up, buddy?" I asked. "Thanks."

Derek was one of my good friends who was also a senior. Of our group of seven friends, only five of us were still in school. Derek was standing next to his two wingmen, Josh and Jared.

Josh is a little shorter than me and has bleach blond hair with whatever kind of facial hair he would choose for that day. His facial hair grew so fast he liked changing it up

.Jared is about my height. He had been best friends with Derek for a really long time. Jared was the quiet one that wasn't as quiet as you thought once you get to know him.

"Nice bus, Abel. I didn't know you rode the short bus," Josh said with a laugh.

"Shut up, Josh," I spit back quickly. Like all good friends, we always made fun of each other. "Are you all ready for this last year?"

"Yeah, man. It's gonna be a party!" Derek basically yelled as we walked through the front doors of the school. On the floor of the main entrance between the offices was four giant letters, PVHS, for Pine View High School.

"Are you ready for this last year of football, Abel?" a new voice said as we walked past the offices. I turned and saw Justin, our quarterback.Justin is about Josh's height, which was surprisingly small for a quarterback. He also played safety, which I thought was his best position anyway, but he was still the best passer on the team.

"Pshh, you would know the answer to that better than I would," I said with a chuckle. "You're the one that has to throw the football to me."

"True, but you have to catch the bad passes I make," Justin responded as we took our usual spot to meet by the glass trophy cases. "What's this I heard about a party?"

"Whatever, Ence," I replied quickly. "I'm more worried about just dropping everything you throw my way."

"Just that this year is going to be a party because we're seniors," Derek said as the bell rung for us to go to class.

We split up and headed toward our separate classes for the day, meeting between each class period in our spot by the trophy cases, we never really designated it our spot, but we always just met up there.

"Does anyone know what Zack and Austin are up to?" Derek asked as Jared, Derek, Josh and I headed to lunch with Ryan. Justin usually didn't come to lunch with us because he had his girlfriend, Jesslin.

Ryan is a ridiculously skinny towhead that had been good friends with Josh for a long time. Zack and Austin were both good friends of mine. They also had hung out regularly with Derek and Jared. Zack graduated last year and Austin dropped out a couple of years ago.

"Austin is still living in Glendale. Zack is still here in St. George, working with his dad at some company called Viracon. He's dating Sarah Paxman," I responded as we climbed into Derek's truck. I figured he was asking me since I was about the only one that had much contact with the two.

"No way, Zack's dating Sarah?" Jared repeated. "Yeah, man, he loved her all last year. He wrote his number in her yearbook and she called him. How lucky is that?" I said with a laugh.

"He's way lucky because she's a redhead. That's exactly what Zack wanted," Derek said.

The first day of classes always ended early because we did the sophomore orientation assembly. Since I was a senior, I didn't need to go, but I didn't have a vehicle and I had to be at the school for football practice which didn't start until after the assembly anyways, so I just hung out with Justin at the school until practice started.

"How far do you think we could go this year?" I asked as we the topic made its way to football.

"I think we have a good enough team to make state if no one gets hurt," Justin responded. "We've got you and Robert catching passes and Viliami is going to be a force in the backfield. Our defense is always solid also."

"Yeah, I guess that's true," I said deep in thought about Pine View finally returning back to the state game. "What about Timpview? They knocked us out of the playoffs last year. Can we beat them?"

"I don't know, man. I'm just going to focus on the game against East."