"I hate him." Is the first thing I say to my friends as I reach our table in the overcrowded cafeteria. Honestly, I don't see why there's only two lunch periods considering there's over a thousand students here, but I guess that's a problem for the overdressed student government kids.
"Who do we hate?" Drew says sounding overly friendly, as he suddenly appears beside me, going as far as to even put his arm around my shoulders. I look up at him in disgust before knocking his arm off of me as if it were the plague.
"You, Andrew. Now if you could kindly fuck off, I would greatly appreciate it." I tell him as I see his eye twitch from me calling him by his full name. He's always hated his full name, saying it sounds like an old butler's name, but I usually use it to spite him considering his presence is enough to spite me.
After about twenty minutes Oscar finally shows up and heads towards us, a look of nervousness across his face. I don't truly understand why, but I'm guessing it's because of the fact that we've never spoken to each other before today. He points to the seat next to me with a questioning glance as if asking can he sit there, to which I just nod in confirmation. He visibly relaxes before smiling at us in greeting.
"You do know that you didn't have to ask to sit with us, right?" Levi asks as if reading both of our thoughts. Oscar looks honestly surprised by this and just shrugs. He seems way more quiet than he was this morning, but I guess he's just a morning person or something.
"Okay, so I'm thinking that for the skit we can just meet up afterschool. Then we can all go to Jack's house and work on it there, because I don't know about you three, but my mind is about ready to explode." Esme says, as everyone agrees except me, considering my house was just assigned the meeting point.
"Why my house? Every time you guys come over I have to restock my kitchen." I tell her as she just rolls her eyes at my complaint.
"That's only because you have the best snacks, and we only did that once because your cousin came over." Esme retorts as Levi nods in agreement. I sigh because it's true, but what do you expect when you're sent to get your own snacks?
Suddenly Levi shoots his head up as if just remembering something. He looks over at me with a wicked grin before saying the one word that brings the same facial expression upon my face.
"Newbies."
You see, every year on the first day back our soccer team has a practice where all of the varsity players, those being me, Levi and some other guys, have a game against the new players. Usually the losers, always the newbies, have to run extra laps for the next month of practice, but this year coach is letting us varsity players pick the punishment. It's literally the only thing we look forward to on the first day back. I wonder how we almost forgot.
"So I guess that means we'll have to meet up after you guys get out of practice, or Oscar and I could just watch you guys practice and we can all leave after and get food. Only if you're okay with that." She says, looking over towards Oscar to make sure he's okay with that. He takes out his phone and types something before nodding in agreement.
"As long as I'm home by dinner, my mom's okay with it." He says before we fall into casual conversation on which superheroes would make a good team together.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Okay, all newbies out on the field. You'll be grateful for the practice time later." Our captain, Matt, says before signaling all of the new players outside while all of us varsity players sit around and catch up with one another.
"I don't know how we always win, considering we don't even warm up." Levi says to me, causing us to laugh because that statement couldn't be any more true. We practice for every other game we have, winning the state championship for the past few years, yet when it comes to the newbie game we don't even lift a finger until the game starts.
"Guys, it's all because of my Irish luck." Says Ryder, our goalie, as he tosses his arms around both of our shoulders, making his point by shaking his slightly long ginger hair out in front of us.
"Sure, that's definitely the reason Ryder. Is that why Emily rejected you?" Matt says, causing a chorus of ooo's to follow as Ryder turns bright red, struggling to make up something witty to say. In the end he just gives up, causing a round of laughter to follow considering he was stuck even though he usually has a come back.
"Dude, you've gone too far." I tell Matt as I see that Ryder still has his head down and his shoulders are slumped in defeat. Everyone begins to quiet down and look over towards him in concern to which I signal them to leave and give him space. They all oblige, beginning to walk towards the field when Matt turns back and approaches us.
"Hey, I'm really sorry man, I didn't know it was that serious or else I would've never spoken about it." He says, honest sorrow showing in his eyes. He looks towards me for help, but I can't do much so I give him a reassuring smile as he nods and walks out to the field. I look back over to Ryder to see that his shoulders are now silently shaking as if he's crying. I move over to him and pull him into a hug which only makes him cry harder. We sit in this position for a few minutes until he finally calms down.
"Can I trust you with a secret?" Ryder asks as he looks up at me with such hopeful eyes that I couldn't tell him no even if I wanted to. I nod and wait for a few seconds before he sighs and whispers in such a low voice that I couldn't even hear him. He must realize this because he says a little louder "I think I might like guys". Now this is pretty shocking news, but only because of the fact that I always took Ryder as one of the straightest guys on the team.
"Just curious, but why did you decide to tell me out of everyone?" I ask him, honestly curious considering we never talk much except during practice and occasional waves when seeing each other.
He scratches the back of his neck, almost as if he was embarrassed before saying "Well, you're probably one of the only guys I know who could actually help me, and I may also sorta kinda haveacrushonLevi." He says, rushing the last part so that I wouldn't hear, but I still do. It puts a huge grin on my face before I can't contain my excitement anymore and I pull a lost Ryder into my arms while squealing in too high pitch of a voice for me.
I begin to ramble about ways to get him and Levi together and how cute they would be together. After about five minutes Levi comes in, nearly scaring me and causing a blush to show on Ryder's pale skin, as he tells us that they're already half-way in the game that I totally forgot about for a second time today. We rush out soon after, definitely not wanting to miss out on the excitement that comes with playing in this game each year, nearly forgetting about the things we talked about just minutes ago.
