The Boy Who Fell (COMPLETE)

Scars and Silences

A lot of things were broken that day. My face. My pride. My relationship with Sam.

My face eventually healed. My broken pride was something I could live with. But the thing with Sam? What we had was something fragile, like a floating soap bubble. It was there, but it wasn't ready to leave the protective shelter being undefined offered it.

Sam and I were still friends. We still hung out together, but I'd be the first to admit that there was an awkwardness that wasn't there before. Like there was an invisible barrier surrounding her with a sign that said, "Personal space. Do not come closer than three feet."

To make matters worse, I couldn't even spend time with her alone. She was always with Trisha during lunch. She stopped waiting for me on my practice days, and she'd hang out with the other drama club kids on her club days. Even our weekends disappeared. She was always at someone's home, or they were at the Coronels'. My brain told me that it was just that they were busy with the upcoming play, but my senses said otherwise. She was AVOIDING ME, all caps.

• • • • •

I was quite surprised when I saw her by the football field. I thought she finally had time to watch us practice again. Until I realized she was there with the rest of the drama club, painting backdrops for the play. They had large corrugated cardboard sheets laying flat on the ground, as well as the paint cans and brushes. A lot of them were wearing ratty old t-shirts, prepared for an afternoon of painting. But not Sam. She was still in her school uniform, so she either forgot, didn't care to bring extra clothes, or she wasn't planning to be there, making my avoidance theory even more plausible.

Her presence was distracting. My body was doing warm-up exercises, but my mind was worrying about her splotching paint on her school uniform. My legs were running around the field, but my ears were straining to hear her laughter as she leaned close to one of the guys from the drama club. My muscle memory was pulling off practiced kicks, but all my attention was on how close Sam was to said drama club guy and how I wanted to pull them apart.

"Oy, Benjamin, what are ye, lad? A stookie? Waiting for me to strip ye?" Coach Ferguson shouted in his thick Scottish brogue, making the rest of the team erupt in laughter. 

"Psst, Ben, shirt off!" Luke hissed. Half the team, including Luke, already had their shirts off. "You better start paying attention," he warned as we started walking to join the rest of the shirtless guys squaring off against the shirts. I hated when we played shirts vs. skins. Why can't we just wear different colored shirts like normal people would? And why do I always get picked to be skins?

I stole one last glance at Sam, only to catch her looking at my general direction. But she quickly looked down, not even sending a smile my way. Hell, a frown would be preferable to her non-reaction. I could hear some of the girls wolfwhistling as we took our positions, one even went as far as screaming, "Marry me, Luke," but Sam kept her head down the entire time, too focused on the backdrop panel she was painting.

What's a guy to do when the girl he likes makes like he doesn't even exist? Channel his frustration on the game, that's what. I played football like my life depended on it. My passes were spot on. My dribbling was perfect. I was bending the ball like it was nothing. 

I wasn't the only one playing all fired up that day. We had an upcoming match with Preston High, so the regulars were playing their hearts out. Their excess energy spilt over to us, like an overflowing tankard of beer, so everyone was playing like it wasn't a friendly, but an actual league match.

But sometimes, our skills couldn't keep up with our enthusiasm, so when one of the strikers' kicks went wild, it wasn't really a big deal. Until it became apparent that the ball was heading toward the drama club.