Seen Her Year

Chapter 2

[Previously: Kayla accidentally overheard Aiden's breakup and made eye contact with him on the last day of classes.]

When finals ended, summer training for fall sports had started or for some, continued. Conditioning for tennis just ended and all her teammates had already left to hang or had been picked up. After tennis came football, so it was no surprise to see a bunch of football guys entering the school and going down to the weight room. Kayla took her time gathering her things from the gym and headed downstairs to refill her water bottle. Placing her water bottle on the grey machine, she let it do its thing. As water slowly filled her bottle, two football players appeared behind her, waiting to fill theirs.

"Dude, did you hear that Aiden and Emma broke up?" One said, breaking the silence.

Kayla's ears perked up, not because she felt guilty for witnessing the actual breakup, but because she recognized the owner of that voice. His name was Kevin. He was that one popular guy that always sweet-talked the teachers and got away with anything with that humor of his. There was no way Kayla didn't recognize that voice. At the thought of this, she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"Really?" It was the other guy, but she didn't know him.

"Yeah, I feel sorry for Emma though." Kevin went on.

"Why?" 

Kayla silently thanked the other boy for asking the same question that she had in mind.

Yeah. Why Kevin? Don't tell me he-

"I heard he cheated on her."

And there it was. Another 'he cheated on her' thing that Kayla had been hearing recently. She didn't know who started the rumors, but they got around school pretty fast even when the school year was at its end. Now it was summer and people were still talking about it.

Kevin. Kevin. Kevin. Oh how you've got it all wrong.

Kayla let out an inaudible sigh as she took her water bottle away from the machine and twisted the top back on.

"Seriously?" The boy looked at Kevin in disbelief.

"Yeah, who knew that Aiden was a damn player." He chuckled, "But now that Emma's single, maybe I should give it a shot, 'cause she's hot, man. I would love to tap that a-"

"Hey." A stern voice interrupted.

The two boys looked over to see the girl in front facing them. She gave Kevin a fake smile before casually saying what she's been dying to say to him for the past three years. "Shut up."

Kevin looked taken aback and a bit offended, but he recovered in a split second. No one tells him to shut up; no one aside from his parents or coaches. They were the only ones who he tolerated those words coming from. Anyone else would've been looking to pick a fight. So it was a bit of a surprise when he found a girl at least a whole head and a half shorter than him to be the one who literally just interrupted him to tell him to shut up.