Prologue. What do you think you'll end up caring about?
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🏓.
2005.
Art Donaldson isn't the biggest fan of public school football games.
He goes to a private school for boys who do the elite sports and the highest of studies one can pursue. His games were contained and energy stricken. High school football games felt like the next step to world environmental issues and the draining of a teenage girl's mental health. Someone's bone was going to pop out. Helmets are probably going to get thrown off and fights with the skin of faces splitting.
Plus, Art just simply hates football.
But he still comes, for a girl.
Alyssa Pedretti's never really been "just a girl" to him. While Patrick is his best friend, Alyssa is something else? His second best friend? The next best thing? She's just not Patrick. It's not a bad or good thing. Patrick is Patrick. Alyssa is Alyssa. She doesn't make fun of him as much as Patrick does and he hasn't experienced half the things he's experienced with Patrick with Alyssa—and probably never will. (That's a story for later.) She's just a good light in his life.
They've been friends since seventh grade. Nothing is going to change that. Including different schools.
Art just thinks it's quite funny how the Pedretti girls have been attending public school for years, when their father is more than able to pay for more. It's a question Art wonders, because Alyssa and public school just don't make sense... but he doesn't ask. He's not entirely sure why he won't. Maybe one day she'll finally tell him.
Art is at the front of the stands, he leans against the silver ashen fence next to a few other boys—that actually attend the high school. They're whistling at cheerleaders, and some giggle back at the attention. It makes Art's jaw click a little, because he's standing at this gate for a cheerleader too but with complete different intentions. He just wants to talk to his friend.
Alyssa is mouthing words, a little uninterested. There's pom-pom's in her hands that shake at the turns of her wrists. Back and forth. Back and forth...
Alyssa's eldest sister, Sunny, is long gone and graduated. She's off in college, Stanford, nearing the end of that journey as well. Alyssa's second sister, Cora, is at the patch of field with the rest of the cheerleaders. Difference between her and Alyssa, Cora is leading these cheerleaders. She's the loudest. Most confident. The cleanest. She's Captain, but graduating this year and her title is supposed to pass down to her little sister—who does not like cheer very much.
