𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐒ᵃʳⁱᵃⁿᵃ ᵍʳᵃⁿᵈᵉ

twenty six

twenty six - safety net

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"i still can't believe rob kicked you off the team. like what the fuck, dude?" darion, one of my best friends from my old team huffed, his back against the locker next to mine.

"sarah went off on him last night when i was over, though." sarah was darion's girlfriend and also rob's oldest daughter. since darion was dating his daughter, rob was always weird about and tough on darion.

i chuckled as i closed my locker and started to walk away with darion, his arm slung over my shoulder. "i'm forreal!" darion groaned as we walked into our shared cooking class together.

"well, there isn't much i can do about it. i've cleaned the court floors a thousand times, licked his fucking shoes, and coach won't even look my way. it's like he's ashamed of me or something."

i sighed as i put my things down at the back of the class. we weren't aloud to have our stuff on the tables because we worked with food on most days, and having dirty school shit so close to food is gross.

darion and i washed our hands before going over to the table we usually used. "that's fucking stupid. none of us work good when someone's missing. do you remember that one game last year that we fucking bombed because bryant was gone? holy shit."

darion was right. last year, we had a game against one of the worst schools in our district, but we bombed it. each person on our team was like a puzzle piece. and if one of the puzzle pieces was gone, the whole puzzle is fucked up and ruined.

"yeah, well, rob doesn't think so. i don't know, we'll just have to see what happens." i shrugged my shoulders and we ended our conversation as our teacher took her place at the front of the classroom.

she started to blab off as i zoned out.

my essay was due in a week and a half and i have no idea where i'm going with it. i still thought this entire fucking project was stupid, but it got me ariana, so i'm not complaining i guess.

i only had a small introduction and i had written down things that i wanted to put into the essay, but that was it. but it shouldn't be too hard to write about ariana, because she was literally ariana.

speaking of ariana, she was thinking about joining the cheerleading team. one of the girls on the team had moved schools a few weeks ago, so they were holding try-outs to fill in their missing spot.

i thought it was odd for her, but i told her to go for it. she wanted to do something different for our last year of high school, which was what she told me.

and i have to be honest.

i've been avoiding her for about a week and a half.

i had sunk into a deep depression since i was suspended two weeks ago. i felt lost, like i didn't know what to do with myself. i was ashamed of myself because of what had happened with pete.

i was angry, and i snapped. i shouldn't have snapped.

i've been struggling with anger issues since i was a kid, and my parents put me through classes to get past it and learn to control it. i was doing really good for the last few years, and i had learned to never take out my anger on someone else.