Love Me?

14: Tryouts

BLAKE:

After school, I decide I might as well tryout for football. I am convinced that I won't get on the team, but Thomas has been bugging me so much about trying out that I decided to tryout just so that he will stop annoying me. Plus I need to play sports, and they don't have soccer and the basketball team is already really good. I head down to the guy hang out for tryouts. I haven't told Thomas that I am trying out yet, so he thinks I have come just to watch him tryout for football.

"Hey man, here to support me huh," Thomas says.

"No actually, I'm here to tryout," I say smirking.

"Your joking?"

"Nope, I thought about what you said. I mean there's no sense in waiting around for something that's not gonna happen. And there's no harm in trying out."

He laughs, "I told you."

"Plus, there is no way I'm gonna make it," I add.

He frowns.

I hear a whistle and tryouts begin.

~~~~~~~~~~~

For the past 3 days Thomas and I have been working our butts off at tryouts, but today is the day to see if it all paid off. Or in my case, if I was right about not making it. The coach comes over and hangs a paper on the bulletin board. Everyone crowds around it to see if they made it. After all the other guys have left Thomas and I are finally able to read the paper.

"I... made it?" I say, "I'm the kicker?!?" How the heck did that happen? They must not have a kicker if they decided to pick me as their kicker. I'm terrible!

"I knew you could do it," Thomas says beaming, then his smile slowly fades.

"What?"

"I'm second-string quarterback," he says sadly.

"That's awesome, you never told me you were a quarterback."

"Dude, did you even pay attention to what I had to do during tryouts? Because I did a lot of throwing, not catching kicking or running."

"Um, not really. Your kinda short so I couldn't really see you with all the other players in the way," I say.

He shakes his head, "I'm not that short!"

"You kinda are. Anyways, Quarterback, that's amazing! Quarterbacks are like the stars of the game.

"Ya, well I'm not anymore."

I can tell he is really disappointed.

"Hey, second strings not so bad," I say trying to cheer him up.

"Trust me, it's bad when your second string QB. I will literally never play."

"You don't know that."

"Ya I do, last year Jerry was the second string and he only played for one snap the whole year."

"Jerry the quarterback?"

"Ya, apparently over the summer he got a personal trainer. And the quarterback they had last year graduated, so now Jerry is the QB."

"Bro, let me buy you some food. Food can cheer up anyone."

He laughs and we head to the "Man Pigout."

When we get there Thomas orders, "I'll get 2 hot dogs, 1 nachos, a soda, 3 fries, and a double scoop of moose tracks ice cream."

"Are you seriously going to eat all that?"

"Hey, you gotta take advantage when your friend offers to pay."

We laugh.