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THE LOUD SCREECH OF BOBBY FINSTOCK'S WHISTLE shook Callista out of her thoughts. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about the party the previous weekend. More specifically, a certain leather-clad not-so-stranger.
Stiles was often her ride home, so she stayed almost daily for lacrosse practice. When she wasn't talking to Bobby and watching the boys, she would work on her homework, though admittedly she often didn't get past taking the papers out of her backpack.
At the moment, she had abandoned her homework to stand beside Coach Finstock and watch – more like scream at – the boys. Scott ran the goal, and with more aggression than skill Jackson shoved him to the ground so hard that they heard a loud thud from the impact. Callista winced at the sound. That had to hurt.
Scott got to his feet, but Bobby was the last person who would let something like that off the hook. "My grandmother can move faster than that!" He cackled. "And she's dead. You think you can run faster than the lifeless corpse of my dead grandmother?" Fueled by both his hatred of Jackson and his coach's taunting, Scott began sprinting down the field. "McCall's gonna to do it again! McCall's gonna do it again!"
Callista watched his alarming speed with a worried frown. He was heading straight for Jackson, and Callista understood enough about physics that Jackson would not withstand the momentum and force Scott was collecting. She could only hold her breath as Scott got closer and closer in only a matter of seconds.
What should have been a display of skill and reflexes as he maneuvered around Jackson's advances turned into Scott barreling into Jackson, knocking them to the ground.
Callista immediately rushed onto the field, worried that one of her friends was injured from the play. Scott was hunched over and clutching his head, but Callista was more concerned with Jackson, who was clutching his shoulder in pain on the ground.
Callista dropped to her knees by his side. "Hey, you're gonna be ok, Jackson." Bobby was already running onto the field to check the scene. "Danny, go get some ice. Coach, he needs to see a doctor. This looks really bad."
"All right, everyone, give him some space! Move back!" Coach Finstock ordered, motioning the boys to step back. Danny ran off to grab some ice from the nurse. "Someone needs to take him to get that checked out."
"I'll call his girlfriend. She has a car and can take him," Callista offered. She then turned back to Jackson and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Everything is going to be ok." Reaching for one of her orange-beaded bracelets on her left arm, she took one off and slipped it on his uninjured arm. "To feel better."
"Thanks, Lis," Jackson said sincerely. He knew what Callista's bracelets meant to her, so giving one up to make him feel better was touching.
"Anything for you." She then got to her feet and jogged back to the bleachers so she could contact Lydia.
