The Wild Side | Stiles Stilinski | One

4 - An Invitation

Friday came faster than I could have imagined. The week had been a whirlwind of party prep, lacrosse talk, and last minute school work. Before I knew it, I'd survived my first week at Beacon Hills High School. Now I just had to survive the weekend.

At the final bell, students flooded the hallways in high spirits, but instead of storming the parking lot, almost everyone walked out the back doors to the field. It felt like the entire student body was there. Even people who didn't normally care about lacrosse were coming to watch the scrimmage. The crowd was buzzing with anticipation, everyone talking about the same thing: Scott McCall.

Allison and I might have been new students, but the novelty had worn off in the wake of Scott's stellar performance on the field. He was new in a different kind of way, someone who'd apparently been in Beacon Hills the whole time, but had flown totally under the radar. Until now. And now that everyone knew who he was, everyone seemed to have an opinion. Some, like Jackson and his jock friends, insisted that something was up. No way someone got that good that fast, even with months of training. Others were just happy to have another great player on the team to help secure the championship title. But most people—the benchwarmers, the nerds, the theater geeks, and all the rest—they'd come to the scrimmage to watch someone take down Jackson Whittemore.

In face of a potential regime change, Lydia had finally put aside her fascination with Scott to take Jackson's side.

"He better step up his game today," she muttered as she, Allison and I moved through the crowd. Lydia was elbowing people out of her way to get us a good spot on the sidelines. "God, this week has been bush league. It's embarrassing."

"Didn't you say he was the captain?" Allison asked. "He'll make first line either way, won't he?"

"I'm not worried about him making first line. I'm worried about making a statement. He needs to remind all these people why he's the team captain. Scott McCall may be good, but he's not better than Jackson Whittemore."

"You mean he's not allowed to be better than Jackson," I added slyly.

Lydia shot me a nasty look over her shoulder and shoved a senior out of her way.

We made it to the sideline just as the players were huddling up. Allison caught Scott's eye and gave him a little wave. Scott waved back, only to get singled out by Coach Finstock for not paying attention. He fell into line with the rest of the team, listening to what seemed to be an extremely enthusiastic pep talk from the coach. I watched the man grab a player by the face guard, rattling his head around until the poor guy nearly fell over. Finstock always looked a little unhinged, between his wild hair and large eyes and exaggerated motions. Then again, you probably had to be a little unhinged to be a gym teacher.

A cheer went up on the field, signaling the start of the scrimmage. The excitement was infectious, and I found myself clapping and whooping the with the rest of the crowd. I'd learned to enjoy lacrosse during the summer. It was violent, so it was about as entertaining as football. I'd watched a few breakdown videos with Jackson, just so he could explain the rules. I'd watched him and his friends throw the ball around at the beach, and now I'd sat through a whole week of practice drills, but this was another level.

As we watched the first few bouts of the scrimmage, it became clear that Jackson hadn't been lying: the Beacon Hills Cyclones were good. Really good. Even the boys who were clearly benchwarmers had pretty good aim when they managed to get the ball. I was having a hard time following it from a distance. I was used to looking for a football, several times larger and a lot easier to spot on the grass, but when the tiny, white lacrosse ball was thrown up into the grey sky, it was anyone's guess where it came down. Eventually, I stopped trying to watch the ball and just tried to figure out as much as possible by watching the movements of the players. It was obvious some boys were there for their swiftness, while other boys dominated the field with brute force.