Fall for You

Chapter 2

The bathroom fills and then empties.

Everyone has gone back to class, except for me. I'm too busy crying in the last stall, reevaluating my life choices.

How can I ever show my face in these halls again? What did I ever do to deserve this?

I said yes, for starters.

I knew Brody wasn't a good fit for me. We have nothing in common. I'm not a cheerleader, a star athlete, or at all popular in his circle. Aside from a little theater dancing, I'm about as athletically uninclined as a girl could be. He's a year older than I am, likes cars I can't recall, teams I couldn't do more than name, and beer I can't stomach. I knew of him before we started dating, because the football players are treated like celebrities, but any attraction I felt for him never amounted to much. Our paths never seemed to cross. No connection was ever made. I'm not the type to swoon over someone so out of reach.

On Brody's end, I doubt he would have ever given me a second glance, either. There are a lot of attractive girls in this school. The diversity is impressive. Truly, you could find almost anything you're looking for. And most of them treat Brody as if he were some sort of God.

This all changed when I was asked to sing the Star-Spangled Banner at the Homecoming game. I stuck the landing, musically speaking, and became the it-girl of the moment, I guess.

Our football team annihilated the competition that night, and the performance high Brody and I were both experiencing made his forward manner seem charming. I was flattered he took notice, and I was eager to get over last year's heartbreak—a singer-songwriter acoustic-guitar player who I thought was my soulmate.

After a bleak summer, "something different" seemed appealing for the new school year. Gavin was pursuing his dreams on the opposite coast and having some success with it, or so I've heard—he hasn't said a word to me since his two-sentence text-message goodbye. And I was dating the school's star quarterback. It wasn't a fair trade by any means, but for a day or two, I was "moving on" with the person who would bug Gavin the most, assuming he still cared, which was no guarantee anyway.

And then the new reality set in. Once the Homecoming buzz wore off, I got a better sense of who Brody really was off the field, and I wasn't enamored. He's prone to jealousy over the stupidest stuff, insecure, and emotionally unstable.

I've followed all the girlfriend rules to the best of my ability, but I don't live in a bubble. If someone is looking for trouble—like today—they can usually find it. I wasn't the intended punching bag, but it doesn't matter. I have a small cut on my face and a puffy cheekbone. Add that to my soiled sweater, water-logged singing voice, and likely social media assassination, and it is easily the worst day of my high school career. "Next time" with Brody won't ever come to be, though, and it provides the faintest silver lining. If the rest of my life had not been ruined too, maybe I could find it in myself to stop crying.

When the bathroom door opens, I don't think much of it. I'm locked in the last stall, and there'd be no reason to come over here if the other stalls are open, and at this moment, I believe they still are.

I muffle my sobs, and intend to wait it out, like I've done a few times before. It's a big school, everyone has concerns of their own, and I'm as far away from the spotlight as I could feasibly get. If it isn't interesting, no one cares.

The footsteps keep coming, though, and I'm a bit startled by the shoes that appear. They're nice ones. Male ones. Not sneakers.

This is bad. My first thought is teacher or administrator. Not only is this the worst day of my life, I'm also going to get in trouble for skipping class.