The Whisper Seekers

Friday Night In

By Friday, I don't know how I am going to make it another week without Liam in any of my classes. We text throughout the day, but it still isn't the same without him being here. There hasn't been any drama for the past two days with the exception of Harper finding out about the fight. She asked me a million questions and even tried to call Liam, but she still has no idea why Liam attacked Derek and I let it stay that way. The energy in the halls is more somber compared to the first game and I know it's because our star quarterback was suspended from school, therefore unable to play in tonight's game.

I decided to drop off my letter yesterday after cheer practice. I waited until the school was quiet and stealthily made my way to the office. The large double doors were shut, so I shoved the folded piece of paper under the door. Ian, Marissa, and Elijah are still at school, so I don't think anything's been done about my tip.

At lunch, all the cheerleaders get together to create a large paper banner for the players to run through at the start of the football game. The girls are still quizzing me, just as interested as Harper is about the fight and why no one knows why it started. I try to convince them I haven't spoken with Derek, so I really have no idea.

Harper is quick to tell the rest of the girls about how she and Liam are still good together but now she is dateless. She makes it seem that Liam wanted to go with her, but now that he's suspended, he's just broken up over not being able to take her to the dance. She also doesn't hesitate to throw in how I volunteered to go with her. Lily and I exchange looks knowing it's far from the truth, but we don't say anything to make it seem otherwise. That and Liam isn't here to contradict her, so nothing is preventing her from running her mouth.

After our last class, we all meet up again for a team dinner but this time at my house. My mom has our dinner catered in and we all sit around the kitchen, talking about our homecoming dresses and dates while we cram pasta and salad into our faces. After our plates are disposed of, we help curl each other's hair and put navy and yellow HPH stickers on our cheeks. I thought homecoming was going to be the main topic of conversation tonight so I am bummed when they suddenly want the scoop on "the Derek break-up." I try to keep it as simple as I have when I talked to Lily and Harper about it.

"Derek wants to go to Stanford for college and I realized that I don't. We kept arguing about it and realized the longer we stayed together, the harder it was going to be to break up. And neither of us wanted a long-distance relationship so we got tired of fighting and just broke up," I say with a shrug. I thought it sounded reasonable and I figured our break-up would be old news by the time Derek returned to school on Monday. All the girls that have eyed him from afar will finally have their chance with him, so they won't stay focused on me for long. They all give me the sympathy nods as I try and act sad about it, but just as I thought, I hear a few girls wonder if that means Derek is officially up for grabs. I want to tell every girl here they can have him but I decided to stay quiet unless it comes it.

When we get to the game, Harper returns to her normal spot next to me and Lily stands to my left. The crowd is much smaller from the last game, so we use the game as practice time for our stunts. We do basket tosses and pyramids and we even manage a full squad back tuck without anyone injuring themselves. Harper's confidence must be back because right before halftime, she asks if she can tumble to a cheer again. She executes her back tuck perfectly and I hear her wish that Liam saw that one.

When the halftime buzzer signals, all the ladies quickly disperse into the crowd, but I stay back to grab my phone from my cheer bag. I am about to text Liam when I swear I see him standing by the fence away from the stands. People are heading up to the concession area, so no one notices me leave the field.

I quickly trot over to the small chain-link fence but must have been mistaken when I don't see him again. I'm standing right next to the bleachers when I spot something moving underneath the side of the stands. As I am slowly walking over to investigate, I feel a hand grab onto my arm and pull me under the dark set of bleachers. I am about to scream when I see it's Liam's hand that grabbed me.