I'm In Love With The Football Player

5. Death Threats

Tuesday night I received a message from an unknown number. It read:
You better watch your back Zac Belington.

On Tuesday I was thinking about the message all day in 7th period, Bree noticed me looking at my phone with a concerned look.

"What's wrong?" Bree asked.

Without saying anything I give her my phone and she read the message. I saw how her eyes went to the phone number at the top.

"Hold on." She said. She took her phone out and opened her contacts. She skimmed through and stopped on Cale's phone number. "It's Cale!"

For the rest of the class, Bree had an angry look on her face. I honestly wasn't bothered by the text, but it seemed like she was.

The bell rang and everyone was dismissed. We both walked down to the 1st floor where we parted ways because she had Football practice.
I walked slowly to my house. I observed how Bree instead of going to the lockers, she went straight to the field. I stopped when I saw she was walking to Cale's friend group. I knew exactly what she was going to do and I don't think he was going to like it.

Bree stopped just 5 inches behind Cale and angrily tapped his shoulder. Cale turned around and his world kind of stopped when he saw that it was Bree.

"What the heck do you think you're doing!?" She yells so loud that I can hear her from the gate.

"Talking to my friends?" I read his lips.

"You know what I'm talking about!" She shouts in return.

"I'm just protecting you!" He shouts now.

"From what?" She shouts back. "Protecting me so I can get back with you?! You know that I will never get back with you!"

"I never said that!" Cale shouted.

"You're such a liar!" She shouted. "You may have not said it, but that's exactly what you're doing."

Cale got defensive and raised his arm to punch her, but his friends grabbed his arm. One even got in front of him. Not even when Cale was about to hit her did Bree flinch.

The coach saw this and came running to them and got in front of Bree to protect her.
"What's going on here?"

"Bree is being a bi-."

"Don't yell at her!" Coach yelled at him. "Especially when she's the most valuable player in the team."

Cale seemed to get offended at this so he stayed silent. He looked over in my direction and sent me a glare. I continued to walk home. Somehow I still felt Cale's stare burning my back.

I entered my house and saw what was happening from my bedroom window. It seemed like Bree had gone to the lockers to change because she wasn't on the field.

5 minutes later the doorbell rang. I was home alone so I ran downstairs and opened the door. I was kind of confused when I saw Bree standing there.

"Bree?" I asked confused.

"Coach sent me off home but my parents don't know that so, can I please stay with you until 5?" She asked.

"Yeah, sure," I say.

She steps in and I closed the door. I guided her to the living room and she sat on the couch and waited for me.

"Here" I offered her a water bottle.

"Thank you." She says.

 I turned on the tv and MTV appeared. I left it there.

2 hours later Bree received a message. She checked it and laughed sarcastically. "Great! Mom and dad can't make it until 8 p.m."

"So you would have had to wait 3 more hours at school?" I ask.

"No," she says. "They told me to stay with Cale until it was time."

I stared at her confused.

"They don't know that we are not a couple anymore, yet." She explains.

"Why?" I ask.

"They said that if I didn't last more than 4 years with him, that I wouldn't be able to date until I was 20." She said.

"That's so... stupid."

"Apparently they think I'm just fooling around with relationships and that I should learn to appreciate it." She rolls her eyes.

We stayed silent for another 5 minutes. We seriously need to stop being silent around each other. It's just awkward and no love story has ever been so awkward. Like instead of "maybe Okay will be our always" like TFIOS, it will be "maybe silence will be our always" which just sounds plain stupid!

Bree receives a message. "What do my parents want now?" She says thinking it was her parents.

She read it and she stared at it for a couple of seconds. "Look at this."

She gave me her phone and I read the message. "You are so dead for trying to be smarty pants with my boyfriend."

"You messed with someone's boyfriend today?" I ask.

"No." She said. "I don't even have her on my contacts. It's an unknown number."

She got another message from the girl.  "You better sleep with an eye open. I know where you live."

I showed her her phone and she started to panic. "Zac, what do I do?"

"I don't know," I said. "When this happens you usually defend me so I don't know what to do."

She laughed and I knew that I was doing perfectly by bringing humor into this.

"Seriously though, who is she?" She asks concern about the text.

"I don't know?" I say. "Why don't you ask her?"

She nods and types the message. "Done."

We waited for a couple of minutes while watching tv, but that person never responded. Before we knew it it was 7:30. We both started getting sleepy, but I had to wait for Bree's parents to come pick her up.

I tilted my head back on the couch and closed my eyes for what felt like 5 seconds. Before I knew it, I was asleep. I opened my eyes and noticed that Bree wasn't there anymore. Instead, there was a note that read:

"Dad came for me. You were asleep so I didn't want to wake you up. See you tomorrow at school :)"