It was a beautiful night. I was looking out into the distance, until I felt the presence of someone behind me. As I slowly turned my head around, I saw it. The piercing blue eyes, lightly covered by the curly, blonde mess that was his hair. "Noah," I mustered out , avoiding eye contact with the person in front of me. "What are you doing here?"
"I had to see you. Before I left. I need to tell you something." Noah looked down, slightly biting his lip before he spoke again. "I still love you, Al. I don't care about some big, fancy college. All I want in the world is...well...you." My eyes slowly moved up to meet his as I took a small step closer to the love of my life. "Oh, Noah, I still love you too." I said lovingly as he smirked and stealthily moved in for a kiss. Closer, and closer until finally, we—
"Alex? Alex. Alex. Alex. *ahem* EARTH TO ALEXA J. MITCHELL!"
I jumped out of my seat in shock, bracing for the apocalypse, when I realized it was just my best friend, Danielle. "Ughh—what do you want Dani?" I grudgingly asked as my swollen eyes scanned the room for clues about where I was. "You fell asleep again," Dani chided. "And, besides drooling all over your table, you kept on saying Noah's name. What did you expect me to do, leave you there to rot?" I groaned in response. No matter how much I hated to admit it, my best friend was always right. At least about things like this.
Okay, so that you're not COMPLETELY lost, let me introduce myself. My name is Alexa Jameson Mitchell, or Alex for short. My best friend is Danielle Ross, and she has been since we were in diapers. Since she's known me for that long, she's obviously seen my weird, and sometimes psychotic side of things.
One of which included my 5-year crush on Noah Stevenson.
Ever since he helped me pick up my books when I was hobbling around on crutches in the 6th grade, he had been my first choice "hunk"(as 6th grade Dani would call him.) Unfortunately, this was unrequited love, as Noah only saw me as a sister, and nothing more. Still, having a crush made me feel somewhat....mature, so I stuck with it. But I didn't want anybody to know. So, as I awkwardly got out of my seat, I mentally punched myself at the thought of saying Noah's name out loud. "Cmon, let's go to calc, otherwise Diaz is gonna make us run again." Taylor yelled at me, already rushing through the crowded, green hallways. As I ran down to follow her, the west thing happened. No. Worse than worse: I....accidentally....sort of.... tripped. But something broke my fall. No. SomeONE broke my fall. There I was, in the middle of the hall, with everyone staring at me. On. Top. Of. Noah. Freaking. Stevenson. Staring into his green eyes, a slight smile on his face. "You should watch where you're going, Al." He said with a smirk. After a few seconds of pondering what in the world of Christian Minecraft servers happened, I started to feel a blush creeping up my cheeks. "Oh. My. God. I am so sorry." I exclaimed, embarrassed that something like that just happened, to which he gave that laugh that brought out his dimple on one side. That laugh that made my knees wobble, and my heart flutter. As I quickly got up, I heard the clippity-clop of boots. Drill team boots. "Babe, we are going to be late to practice." said Taylor, Noah's girlfriend. Yes. Girlfriend. I have a crush on someone with a girlfriend. I am a horrible person, I know. Noah rolled his eyes jokingly, and put his arm around Taylor, who was shooting daggers at me. "Oh, did Alexander cause any trouble?" Taylor snarled, still looking at me straight in the eye, to which Noah replied with a solid shake of his head in annoyance. "Whatever Taylor. Anyway, I have to get to football practice, so.. I guess I'll see you around, Al." He smiled and ran off, Taylor quickly following behind him. As I sighed and began to walk away, Dani jumped on me. Yes. I literally mean she jumped on me. "What was that?" she hiss-snarled at me. " You're going to give up so easily?" I responded with a shrug of my shoulders; there was nothing I could do, except watch Noah from the sidelines. Not in a creepy way though. As I explained my reasoning to Dani, she slapped my shoulders playfully. "C'mon, I think we should give Taylor a run for her money.". Aaaaannnnd there it was. Dani's devious plan for breaking up couples #28. As I gave her a look that implied that she was crazy, she ignored me, and instead giving me the look of begging. "Look, just try to find an activity or something that you could be with him in," she begged. "That way, you wouldn't be 'breaking them up', per se, but causing a distraction. It's genius!" I chuckled at her enthusiasm. This "plan" that she had was so stupid, but Dani had done a lot for me before, so I decided to humor it. "Okay, Sherlock, what do you want me to do? The only thing Noah ever does is play football, which doesn't have a girl's team, and there's no way on earth Taylor would let me onto the drill team with THIS face and my THREE left feet.".
And that's when I saw it.
A small poster outside the fine arts area, decked with tiny stickers of instruments. 'JOIN BAND TODAY' the poster read, a big smiley face on the bottom. As everyone knew, the marching band played school football games, and, sure enough, rehearsed with the football team and drill team. "Marching band, huh?" I thought to myself as I made my decision to go talk to the club leader. But, then, the late bell rang, ensuring my 2-lap-around-the-school protocol for being late to Mr. Diaz's calc class.
Great.
You're probably wondering why I'm so chill about joining band. I don't play an instrument. Well, I don't... now. When I was young, my mom signed me up for clarinet lessons because she thought I was "musically talented." After she died, I didn't have the heart to continue playing, so, I stopped. But not after 6 years, 3 lessons a week, and never missing one. Single. Lesson. So, I had a little experience here and there. Just a little "dabble". But anyway, as I made my way to the vacant storeroom where they had their practices, I heard the most beautiful sound. It was a saxophone. A tenor. I could practically feel the fingers pressing down on the keys. I stopped right outside the door, placed my ear on it, and felt the harmony. The chords, the scales, the pride I felt, holding an instrument. It was all coming back to me. I got so engrossed in the feeling, that I didn't notice the music stop, and the sound of footsteps moving closer and closer to the door. And so, my ear still pressed against it, the door swung open, causing me to lose my balance. Startled, I rubbed my head in pain as I got up, muttering curse words under my breath until I saw a beat up pair of vans right in front of my head. I slowly looked up to find a wide pair of gray eyes looking at my onyx ones, and a saxophone reed in between his lips. He stared me up, and down, his curly brown mess of hair slightly flopping around. It had been a good few seconds until he took the reed out of his mouth, chuckled slightly, and opened his mouth to say something.
"Yo. I'm Logan. You interested in joining band?"
And that, my friends, was the start of the best, and worst, football season of my life.
