Marching season is out, but the competition is only heating up.
⋆☆⋆
Section leader applications for the next marching band season at Halston University are officially open, and percussionist Bay Rodriguez wants the role.
Bay's only competition is Ca...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
LATELY BAY IS MY SUN, all my thoughts orbit around her, and I'm motion sick.
I've never felt like this before about anyone. I've had crushes and flings and situationships, but no previous experience has prepared me enough for this utter mindfuck. I want her but I fear her coldness, I'm addicted but I don't know if that's healthy. When we first arranged to be enemies with benefits, she stipulated that our behavior towards each other doesn't need to change; does that mean it can't?
Would she push me away if I wanted more? Am I just rocketing to some heartbreak that can be easily avoided if I keep the situation the way we agreed: sex and nothing more? I've been debating what to do with these feelings ever since I realized them.
I occupy my days with distractions. Over Thanksgiving I fixated on my family, helping to prepare dinner, playing video games with Christian, watching Hallmark rom-coms with Mom. Back at Halston, I fixated on my spring enrollments and the software engineering internship I received at a financial technology company, mainly working predictive software for stock trading. The internship is mandated by my degree and accredited as SOFTENG198: Industry Internship. Leading up to the Eclipse halftime show, I fixated on music and rehearsals.
Now our last show is done, the marching season is over, and Bay is hugging me behind the stadium entrance. The hug is a performative gesture because she doesn't want to seem exclusionary. It doesn't rouse suspicion because she's hugging everyone in the percussion section goodbye; she won't be coming to my after-party, and she ignored me when I asked, "Why?"
I hold her briefly in my arms, noting the rest of the drumline shrugging out of their marching uniforms and wiping the sweat and rain from their brow. It started pouring halfway through the show, but bad weather has never stopped the music.
"Let me walk you out at least," I tell Bay, stepping away when my hands start to get the urge to wander across her body.
She cocks her eyebrows, aloof as ever. "Fine."
That one, my heart seems to say, I want her.
It's been a while since the game ended. The Foxes lost, which means they don't need a playoff to determine their middling seventh place rank in the conference. Still, give that it's the last game, everyone attempted to keep the spirits high and celebrate their successes over the whole season. There will be a lot of drinking tonight.
The marching band stayed to play the post-game show, so it's only families and a few straggling students left at the stadium. My parents, waiting in the car park, want to see me (in Mom's words: "I want to squeeze you") before they drive back to Carsonville tonight. Bay and I walk all the way out of the student entrance and around to the car park.
