Disconnected

November 22nd 2014

Nov. 22nd, 2014

    The week following Karson's eighteenth birthday was tense. Karson was avoiding everyone and so was Andi. Andi and Lydia started eating lunch in the chorus room. Karson, Colin, and Alice were eating lunch in the seminar room with the rest of student council (yes, they were on it). Audrey and Bradley were the only two that still talked and they really only talked because they had no one else.

    Bradley was surprised when the day after it all went down Audrey showed up at his lunch table and dropped her lunchbox down on top of it. "What's up buttercup?" The best part was Audrey never pretended like everything was fine, but she didn't bring up the incident at Sonic either. Every day after that Audrey showed up at lunch and the first thing she always said was, "What's up buttercup?" Eventually Bradley developed this habit of responding with, "Buckle up buttercup." It went along with her greeting while still sounding a little bit more dangerous (this was his man pride speaking). One day though Audrey showed up at lunch with Karson. Bradley didn't know why, but he wasn't really mad about the whole Karson having a thing for Andi thing. He just wanted his friends back, but because his man pride (and admittedly all man pride) is fragile he couldn't be the one to reach out first. Bradley was relieved when Karson sat down at their lunch table. He felt even better when Audrey popped her standard, "What's up buttercup?"

    Nonchalantly Bradley responded with, "Buckle up buttercup." He and Audrey shared a small smile; she was definitely his best friend that was also a girl. Besides Andi of course.

    Karson gave both of them a weird look and they started to laugh. "You guys are strange. And we have a plan for the big basketball game coming up. We're going to surprise Andi."

    The hardest part for Audrey was not spilling the beans to Andi during theatre class. Andi had apologized to Audrey the morning after for dragging her into her relationship issues. Audrey had accepted the apology but asked for some time to recover. Andi, being an awesome friend, complied. They continued to be partners and text occasionally but that was it.

    Andi, who hadn't talked to Karson or Bradley since the Sonic incident was surprised to see them in the student section at the big game. Karson went all out for school spirit, Bradley was in skinny jeans and a flannel. Both of them had huge goofy grins on their faces. Andi tried so hard to not look at them, but then Audrey burst through the doors to the gym and ran up the bleachers to sit with them. She was wearing a maroon tee shirt with skinny jeans, gold ballet flats, and some awesome maroon and gold face paint. She was the in-between of the two boys. Andi focused on tightening her ponytail and tying and retying her shoe laces. After the basketball players were all on the court and Andi could sit in the bleachers until halftime she stopped being able to focus on cheers and basketball and instead kept turning around to see what her friends were doing. They kept laughing and she couldn't help but to be a little jealous. This was the first, and probably, only game any of them were going to come to and none of them were speaking to her, except Audrey when she had to.

    Halftime came faster than Andi wanted it to. When she set foot on the court with the rest of her squad she looked up and saw that they had a huge sign that said, "Andi, never ever take your spanks off. Your butt looks great!" It made Andi and a couple other cheerleaders giggle, but the principal saw it and confiscated it because it was inappropriate. Andi performed their cheer dance the best she'd ever done it.

    They lost the big game but that was alright with Andi because four very significant things happened. 1) The coach finally told her she'd nailed her toe touch. 2) Audrey tackled her in a koala bear hug after the game. 3) Karson gave her a high five and apologized for the vulgar sign. 4) Bradley kissed her for what felt like the first time in ages. It was a good kiss too.

    The next day there was an announcement made about how signs at school sporting events needed to be G rated so the school didn't look bad. Karson stole their sign back. It was given to Andi as a souvenir at the end of basketball season. It's been taped to her closet wall.