The Greatest in the League

Five

Noah Miller

It's seven in the afternoon, and I've been working with my new personal trainer since school let out early.

He's an alright guy, I guess. He's thirty-five and looks it, but that's not in a bad way. If I'm being honest, I'm not mad about the amount of time we're spending together solely because he's actually the worst trainer I've ever had, and I love it so much.

We spent half the time walking on a treadmill (which helps nothing), and the other half talking about which characters we would be in the multi-spider verse. Odd conversation to have with a fully grown man who's supposed to be getting me all hyped up to go pro and all, but still entertaining nonetheless.

We're inside my dad's indoor gym, and he's telling me something about his niece as I lift weights. I'm vaguely listening, but my mind is mostly on what I'm gonna have for dinner. All of a sudden, my phone chimes while I'm mid bench press, so I look over to him.

"Hey, Zach, that's probably my dad. Can you check that for me?" I ask because I am unfortunately not an interesting enough teenager to put a password on their phone or have a fear of adults going through it.

Some parents find porn on their son's phone; however, the riskiest thing I've ever searched was probably 'how to tell my dad that I think I'm sick enough to pass out without making him mad that I have to miss practice,' and even then, I used incognito mode. God, I need a life.

Zach, my trainer, nods with a small chuckle and reaches over to turn on my phone screen. There's a long pause of silence, and unreasonable worry fills my stomach. What could it be? Is something wrong? Is my dad mad? Maybe it was my mom, but why would it take that long to read? A million thoughts of panic swarm through my head before I decide, approximately four seconds later, that I need to find out immediately what the text said.

"What did the message say?" I ask, raising up and putting the weight on the floor, looking over to him where he sits across the gym on a mat.

He just shrugs, turning the screen off. "It was a follow request from Instagram." Oh, never mind, everything's fine, calm down. I take a deep breath in, and deep breath out, and feel my mental alarm start to wind down.

"Did you see from who?"

"I think it said Blake gets baked? Funny ass username-" I cut him off with a surprised gasp, jumping up from where I laid and running towards him to grip my phone and turn it on.

I think I re-read that notification twenty times before clicking on it.

Blakegetsbak3d.16 has requested to follow you.

The message rings in my head, is this the Blake? Nah, maybe it's the Blake in my math class. Blake Matthews would never be caught dead following me.

But, I click on the profile, and sure enough, there's photo after photo of Blake doing stupid stuff in his school's locker room, or just pictures and videos of him being high. From the lack of followers, it seems like it's his spam account. Of course, he would follow me on an account that no one would notice him following me on. I'm glad he made that choice. But why is he following me? Does he know who I am? He has to because I'm my own profile picture. It's a picture of me in my football gear; he has to know.

I gulp, my palms becoming slippery as I wait until the notification goes unanswered for an entire minute, then reluctantly tap accept, and follow him back.

***

It's been hours since I received that notification, and it's pretty well left my memory. Michael and Jonah are over at my house, and we're all chilling on the sofa in my family's cinema room, talking about anything and everything.