Battle of the Captains

timeout

It was a bad day to be a Northwood cheerleader. It was an even worse day to be the 'star' quarterback– the star quarterback who wasn't shining so brightly and who'd just gotten pulled out of the game for his lousy performance. I would've laughed if it weren't for the tension around the field. Austin had never gotten pulled out of the game for lousy performance.

Blake Richardson was enjoying his early victory way too much. We were down by two touchdowns. But Blake found more satisfaction in Austin's demise than in the statistics of the game.

What was worse? As much as I wanted to blame Austin, it was my fault– all of it.

He was messing up all the plays, looking like he didn't know the first thing about catching or throwing a football. A newborn could catch and throw a ball way better than that.

To my defense, I fully intended on talking to him right before the game. I came to the field an hour early and I waited. When he finally arrived with the rest of the team, he walked far ahead and ignoring me fully.

After the other day, I knew it was my turn to tell him how I felt especially since I opened the door a second too late. He wasn't taking my calls and I wasn't going to confess through text. This time it was he not giving me a chance to explain myself.

Before halftime, coach already had the backup quarterback on the field and the other one benched. He didn't even attempt to put up a fight. He was practically running towards the sidelines like it was a safe zone.

He had his sights on handing Eastmoor's ass over to them. They were beating us by a mile and he didn't care. Blake was mocking him, practically doing victory dances on our own soil and he didn't care.

I was already on the sidelines trying to psych up the crowd. Oh, who was I kidding? No one was actually paying attention anymore to anything that was going on that field. People were using the phones, covering their eyes or leaving. Not even our best performance could get the crowd on their feet. Everyone knew that things were really bad when the golden boy gets pulled out of the game.

I stared at the rest of the girls who seemed just as disheartened as the rest of our school. This was our home field and we weren't even putting up a fight.

Shaking my head, I pushed past the girls in my squad and started toward our football players in red and white. As I passed her, Liz's eyes widened and she started after me.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Where does it look like I'm going?"

"You look like you're going to try to talk to Austin right now," she said. "But I'm really hoping I'm wrong because it's a really bad time."

"You always said that you were never wrong."

"He's already feeling terrible. Don't make him feel worse by yelling at him."

I raised my hands in surrender. "I'm not going to yell."

"Kody, wait!"

As soon as I got to a close enough distance, Jake and a few other players including my own friends made a human wall in front of me. They stood in a defensive stance that told me not to bother taking another step. Still, I dared.

"Just let me talk to him," I demanded, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

"He's not really in the mood," Jake glared at me.

"Do you want your captain back on the field or not?" I said. "Did you guys see Blake's face out there? It's pissing me off so much." Clay opened his mouth to say something. "And no, I'm not bitter about him cheating on me. Let me through so I can talk to him."