Just

Chapter 15

Spirit week is, without a doubt, the best week of the school year.

                It starts the Friday before the official Spirit Week. That Friday was Prep Day. We do it in “honor” of our rival school, Fullard. Fullard is the rich school of the area. Basically walking through their car parking lot is like walking into a Porsche dealership. Most of the guys wear dress shirts with black slacks while the girls wear dresses with dumb little cardigans. Fullard, to mock us, usually dress up like Beach Bums, which is a fairly valid way to represent Waterview.

                Friday there was also a home football game, and Niall finally asked me to Homecoming.

                *Flashback to last Friday*

                God damn it’s so hot. It had rained earlier today, as well, so the air felt like I was breathing in water. The humidity was killing me. And more importantly, it was messing up my hair.

                The team was winning fairly easily against their opponent. They led at the healthy distance of 27-10 by halftime. As halftime came around, we took our normal lap around the lap, smiling and repeating stupid chants that have been engraved into our minds.

                Chance fell into step beside me, smiling widely as we walked past the opposing team’s bleachers. They had their own little chant going. Something along the lines of “I believe that we will win” and they just kept repeating that. Over and over.

                As we rounded the curve on the track, I saw about a fourth of the Waterview crowd bunching together. When I pointed it out to Chance, she giggled and shrugged.

                “I dunno.”

                “That’s bullshit,” I said, but it was hard to take me seriously while I had this fake smile plastered on my face.

                As we got closer, the other girls would look back at me, smile, then face forward once again.

                Then I saw it. The whole front row of the bleachers was holding a banner which said, in Niall’s messy handwriting: HOMECOMING?

                And standing next to it was my handsome boy, holding a bouquet of pink roses. Ah how I love pink roses. He knows me so well. Red roses are too cliché and white roses are bland. Pink is the perfect in between.

                The rest of the cheerleaders parted so I could make my way over to Niall.

                He handed me my flowers, putting an arm over my shoulders.

                “So is that a yes?” he asked, smiling down at me.

                I smiled and nodded.

                A few kisses and dozens of pictures later, halftime was over and I was able to keep a genuine smile on my face for the rest of the night.

*Flashback over*  

                That following Monday was ‘Merica Monday. You know, like America. But we got clever and decided to abbreviate it to ‘Merica. Clever, I know. Basically everyone wore red, white, and blue. Niall almost wore the Irish colors, but I told him if he did that I would never talk to him again. An ampty threat, yes, but it worked because Niall showed up that Monday in his red, white, blue. Day 2 of Spirit Week was a success.