Not Your Typical Running Back || nh au

Five: "Large pepperoni for a beautiful girl like you?"

Today my father died 6 years ago. I'm staying home from school today but tomorrow I have to go again because we have the last game before Christmas brake, which is my first game with this team. The bad thing is that we're playing against my old schools team. I'm scared of the defensive players because they really hurt me in practise sometimes.

"Max, you should go now. I'll go when you come back. Just make sure you take your little surprise for dad", mom shouts.

I look in the mirror one last time. Black skinny jeans, a black AC/DC t-shirt because they were my dads favorite band, a black jacket and black vans. I grab the card, the jersey from my football team and the flowers I got for him and head out the house with my car keys. I don't like to go to the cemetery alone but my mother said I'm 17 and old enough to finally go alone. She's been annoying me for 4 years to go alone but I was too scared. The thing I hate most about cemeteries is that the woman laying next to my father died the same day as my father and I have to see her family. The man who always comes has a son but he doesn't want to go to the grave of his mother. I have to drive about one and a half hours to get to the grave of my father. It's so far away because of our house in Texas. we decided to lay him in the middle of America, so we can easily reach him, wherever we are.

Soon I arrive at the cemetery. I grab my presents for him and walk to the white gravestone with the name of my father written on it. Jason Manning, Jason Manning was my father and he was one of the best people I've known. He made me laugh whenever someone told me "A girl can't play football".

"Hello Max", Mr Gregory smiles, as he walks up to his wife's grave.

"Long time no see, Mr Gregory. How've you been doing?"

"I'm okay but was worse. It's just my son has attempted suicide and failed luckily. He's in therapy now", he says weakly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I know how he feels. I've had the same feelings."

"Thank god he finally agreed to come to his mothers grave but he's sitting in the car, waiting for me", he says.

"Let's just send prayers, so he'll recover", I smile, as I lay my flowers down and the other stuff.

Mr Gregory soon leaves the cemetery, so I sit down next to my father. Every time me and mom came over, we would talk with him and tell him stories, so I just start blabbering.

"Hey dad, haven't seen you in a long time. I just hope you're doing great in heaven with grandma and grandpa. So I have to tell you something. Mom and I moved to Pensylvania and I'm in the boys football team. There's this boy called Niall and he's really nice. We're going to Homecoming on Friday. We have a game before Homecoming against my old school. I hope you'll be there and watch because it would make me happy. I'm number 18 in the team. I still know how you said that you think I'm a great Runningback, so now I'm the coaches favorite Runningback of all time. He said I could run as fast as Usain Bolt. I like my new team. They're all cool and fun. Michael broke up with me just a few days ago. This Niall boy is the Quarterback and he's really good looking."

*****

My mother's been gone for 3 hours, what's pretty usual when she's with my dad. She loves to talk to him while crying. On my way home, I stopped at school to at least get my homework from my teachers. They know about my dad and the school allows all students whose parents died to stay home from school on their death days. Suddenly the doorbell rings. Maybe it's just the pizza guy or the guy from UPS. I run down the stairs to get the door and rip it open, as I stand in front of it with money in my hand.

"Why do you want to pay me?", an all too familiar voice speaks.

I look into the blue eyes.

"I ordered a pizza", I smile at him.

"Do you mind if I come in?", he asks.

"Nah, come in. You can eat with me but you have to tell me why you came by."

He settles down on my couch, as I lay the money on the table next to the door, so I have it right away when the pizza guy arrives. He's taking pretty long and I don't want cold pizza for supper. Niall looks at an old picture of me when I was about 4 years old with my dad.

"So why did you come over to my place?", I ask Niall.

"I wanted to check on you because you weren't in Maths, History or at practice. Why weren't you there?"

"I... Uhm...", I don't know what I'm supposed to tell him.

I don't like to talk about my dad because it's a really touchy subject with me. Maybe he'll tell me something about him in return.

"I didn't feel like coming today and I had a huge headache this morning", I lie at him.

He looks at me suspiciously. Oh no, he knows that I'm lying directly in his face. The doorbell saves me from my misery. I get the door and find the pizza guy right in front of me. He smiles at me with his pearly white teeth. He looks like bad news.

"Large pepperoni for a beautiful girl like you?", he asks.

"Yeah", I smile.

"That'll be 12.55$ and your phone number", he smirks.

"How about I say 14.00$ and no", I smile falsely.

"Come on, how can you say no to this handsome guy in front of you?"

"I said no and that's that."

"Come on, babe. I'll take you out on a date", he smirks.

Suddenly a warm corps presses against my back.

"She said no", Niall says angrily.

"And who are you supposed to be?", the pizza guy scoffs.

"I'm her boyfriend, so piss off before I smash your head into this wall. You wouldn't like that, would you?", Niall smirks at him.

The guy hands me my pizza and he takes exact 12.55$ and gives me the change. Like I would give that guy my number and a tip after that. Niall shuts the door behind him, as he makes sure that that guy is gone.

"Thank you", I smile.

"No problem", Niall says, while he sits down next to me on the couch.

I take a slice of pizza and start to eat.

"You still didn't tell me why you weren't in school", he states.

I need to tell him or he'll ask me until graduation.

"So, 8 years ago my dad was diagnosed with the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It's a sickness where your lungs slowly stop working and they collapse really slow. Exactly 6 years ago my dad died because his lungs decided to stop working and he left my pregnant mother and me here alone. She had a miscarriage a week after he had passed away. It would've been a girl. My mother had a few boyfriends since then but never really found the right guy. At the moment she's dating some guy in Texas. It's going on for at least 6 months and I hope he moves here. I would be so happy to see my mother happy again", I smile, tears welling up in my eyes.

I hold them back but Niall notices anyway. He lays his pizza down in the box and scoots closer to me, so he can lay an arm around me.

"Is that why you smoke?", he asks.

How does he know? I never smoke when someone can see. Not even my mother knows that I smoke. She thinks I stopped as we moved here.

"How do you know?"

"I can smell, you know. On Friday when we went shopping, I could smell it, as I hugged you. It's not that I think it's bad, I smoke too but I just want to know why", he smiles.

"I was 11 as my dad died and actually just cried until I was 15 and since then, I smoke like there's no tomorrow. before we moved here, I became depressed and smoked more. My mother knew about it and I told her I stopped before we moved here."

He hugs me to his chest. I hug back and smile into his chest. Niall's a really good guy. I kinda like him but I only know him since two and a half weeks. Tomorrow we have Homecoming and I'm going with him. I hope it goes well.