Trophy Child (On Hold)

Chapter 6

Everyone was talking about us. Just like we'd wanted, but not for the reasons we'd wanted.

Videos of our performance had spread across campus, and we'd all gone from the middle to the bottom of the high school social pyramid almost instantly.

Well, all of us but Phil.

Apparently, stabbing your friends in the back in front of an audience was funny enough to gain a few extra points. The more you know, right?

Of course, I'd been getting the worst of it for my breakdown on camera, but I'd seen people bugging Eric and Benny throughout the day too. Eric because he'd messed up and run, and Benny because he'd written the song and been involved with the loser band that played it.

Benny was trying his hardest to remain positive about the whole situation. He'd spoken to me only a couple of times, but that was because he was trying not to pick a side and, chose to just check in on each of us periodically. Eric and Phil, on the other hand, were both avoiding me.

At first, I understood it. They had a right to be mad. I'd screwed up our chance big time. But as the day wore on, feelings of betrayal crept up on me.

The majority of the school was mocking me. Friends were supposed to stick together and have each other's backs. Friends would face it together.

But under the pressure of all the teasing and the whispering, my resolve to hate the guys for what they were doing broke by the end of second period. Which I hadn't been able to focus during at all.

I decided, with an odd sense of drive and clarity, that I wanted things back to the way they were. I wanted Eric and Phil to fight over the bathroom at Benny's place during a practice session, and for all of us to complain together while we watched a bad movie with Eric's dad. Which meant that it was up to me to fix things.

I finally managed to get one of them alone during lunch.

I would have preferred it to be Phil, because I had a bigger problem to sort out with him, but it wasn't.

"Eric. Eric, talk to me."

He didn't. Instead, he fidgeted with his hands for a minute before moving around me to continue on his path to his locker.

I kept pace with him and tried again. "Eric, come on, we're a team, right?"

"Look, man, I just don't know right now. Phil's real mad, and I don't... I kind of am too. My parents were there, Casey. That might not sound like a big deal to you, because at least they were, but it was really embarrassing. I didn't want them to see me that way. More than that, have you seen the looks everyone's been giving us? Have you heard what they're saying?"

"Yes, I have, but we'll prove them wrong. We can't just let this split us."

How could Eric just throw away everything we'd worked for for so long?

"Casey, just... Not now, okay?" He said and licked his lips nervously. "I don't think we should be hanging out until this blows over."

His words crashed into me, but it wasn't the way it's always described in books. It wasn't physical. Not like a brick to the face, or a truck ramming into my chest. It was mental, like my brain shut down. For a while, all I could hear was the after-echo.

"Eric-"

"I'll see you around."

He turned to walk away, and I didn't follow, but I noticed that he didn't have his drumsticks in his back pocket. It made me think-

No. It made me hope that I wasn't the only one that was hurting.

Because I was selfish.