Gemma's POV
"Alright, everyone ready for this?" Blisters asks, giving everyone an expectant look. The entire track team, boys and girls, seems to have gathered around, everyone wearing their school-coloured track clothes.
I don't dare ask her what exactly we're supposed to be ready for, wishing that somebody else will instead. Nobody does, though, they all seem to know what's going on.
"Alright then, let's do this!"
As if on her command, everybody huddles closer together. I get stuck in between some of the guys but I barely even notice any of it.
Except – well, I do notice him. Right next to me, his elbow pressing into my side. My body tenses up immediately and I wish for nothing more than for a big dinosaur to appear in front of me and eat me alive. An invisibility cloak would do as well, though.
My heart is beating way too fast, just as if I was about to be thrown on a stage half naked, humiliated in front of a full auditorium. Are we about to do some kind of dare, some stupid ritual to get us all suspended from school?
"Red Oak on three! One, two, three!"
I stay silent as the rest of the team roars the school's name, I can hardly breathe anyways, let alone shout.
"Let's go!" Again, Blisters is taking the lead, and again, everybody else seems to know what they're doing. I watch silently as she runs towards the fence that separates the track from the parking lot and then jumps. For a moment, I am afraid that she is just going to collide with it and get a concussion, and then we're gonna have to call an ambulance and everyone is gonna know we were about to do something illegal; she's gonna fall into a coma and never wake up again, they're gonna blame us, send us to jail for mur-
"Hey? You alright?"
Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I slowly take my hands away from my face and open my eyes. Blisters has her arms and legs wrapped around a pole of the fence and is skilfully climbing upwards while others start to run and jump, trying to get high enough to reach to not hit the concrete wall on which the fence is standing, but rather the wire-netting fence itself.
"Ever done this before?"
Only now do I notice that he is still standing beside me. Loser. Except that unlike me, he's probably not enough of a loser to totally fail this stupid trespassing-dare or whatever it is.
"No" I answer, my voice sounding way too high and squeaky. And not about to do it either, if I may add that.
"It's not too difficult" he says reassuringly. His hand is still resting on my shoulder. He can probably hear my heartbeat from where he's standing. See the sweat on my forehead. Would he notice if I casually tried to wipe it away?
Keep dreaming, honey. Gemma Cunningham and casually don't go well together.
"I – I don't ..." I trail off. Everyone else is already climbing the fence, it's just me and loser still standing around.
"We'd better get going, otherwise we're going to miss half the warm-up," he laughs softly, "Not that I'd mind, not the -not-running-part, at least, but, you know Blisters. She's going to make our lives a living hell if we don't get over there right now."
He turns around and I think he's about to start running, which would leave me as the last person not on the track. I could just turn around and drive off. Go to sleep. Preferably a sleeping-beauty kind of sleep where you don't wake up until a thousand years later, and when you do, it's because prince charming kissed you awake.
No prince for me though, I'm afraid.
Before he starts running, though, he turns around one last time.
"You coming, Crazy?"
"I ... don't think I can ... I don't know" I stutter. Guess I'm still trying to comprehend the fact that we're doing this for a workout. Breaking rules, risking punishment, probably breaking laws or something, just to trespass onto the prime location for all of our worst nightmares.
"That's alright", he mutters quietly, turning back around to face me, "You don't have to if you don't want to. It's probably crazy anyways."
It's probably crazy anyways.
Well, damn it, boy, so am I.
Author's note:
Vote! Comment! Follow! Don't use too many exclamation marks! They are awful! I hate them!
(Why am I so weird?)
YOU ARE READING
About a Loser
Romance"They call him a loser cause that's what you become when you meet him." *** Gemma Cunningham doesn't do people. If you wanted to look up social anxiety in a dictionary, you'd probably find her name listed as a synonym. She doesn't talk to anyone, do...
