Hanging With the Senior Boys

II

The dry heat of August still held onto the town even as it began coming to a close. It was out of character for us since not only did we live on the lake, but the temperatures had already started dropping up north. No one was complaining. Especially me. The outdoor season for track was beginning soon, but more importantly, conditioning was coming to a close. The coach paced around watching us train, judging us. As if my heart wasn't beating fast enough. It was no surprise that Terra was conditioning too, trying to grab attention wherever she could. Organizing little practice races against others trying to make it (not me of course) and even trying to work with the upperclassmen and suck up to them. It was pathetic. I jogged in place by the benches next to the track trying to warm up, secretly watching her on the other side of the track as she laughed with Katie and Damien, two of the seniors on varsity. Also two of the coach's favorites. Then she engaged the coach in whatever discussion it was. The whole, "socially active" act. I could feel the heat grow in my chest as I sat on the asphalt and stretched my legs.

"You know you're a shoe in right?" said a voice from behind me, "she's not gonna take it from you."

I sighed as I turned around to look at him.

"I'm not worried about her taking it from me," I responded as I stood up and dusted off my butt, "I'm just making sure she isn't trying to kill me again."

Jack smiled, putting his hand on my shoulder and patting it.

"Don't worry, I've got you covered."

Jack was a sophomore on JV, also the coach's nephew. He was the only one involved with track who I socialized with. I thought it was a little pointless he showed up to practice since his uncle would probably let him in no matter what. He said his uncle cared more about the reputation of the team than him, so he'd cut him if he ran just .3 seconds slower. And though I had rarely talked to the coach, based on the interactions we had, I didn't have a reason not to believe him. He was a tall man who was a weird mix of muscle and fat, who claimed he beat the world record for the 200m dash when he was practicing alone at the park, and no one believes him because they're idiots. And as most coaches, he was a pretty big misogynist.

"He's posting the list tomorrow you know?" Jack said.

"Really? Why not Friday? We still have a long time before the first meet."

"My guess is since there were so many people he's going to do two rounds. Or he's doing it so we can work on teamwork longer for the relay. It's usually our worst category."

"Wait, look," I pointed, "who's that?"

Walking up to the coach was a handsome, lean boy with medium length mousy hair messily combed over. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his joggers, eyes straight ahead and shoulders back. He looked too lax for approaching intimidating man, yet you could see in his air it wasn't something he cared about. The coach looked at him with his hands on his hips, cocking his head to the right. We all knew what was coming next.

"Well look who we have here," his voice boomed throughout the field, "finally decided to show up huh?"

"Oh that's Levi," Jack said.

I'd heard the name before, and even walked by him every now and then in the hall, but I never fully paid attention to him. I heard he did track, but I figured he quit or something since most of the guys training didn't seem to live up to the rumors of him, so he must've not been there. He was the type of kid that had the school talking, most of it the girls wanting to sleep him already doing so. The only reason I'd caught a glimpse of him was because he hung out with Dewy a lot in school, and with Claire's infatuation with Dewy growing more and more unhealthy, I would look to see if she was in fact staring at him during lunch, and he was always there. It made sense though. Everyone had some reputation at that table. Jasmine the cheerleader, Dewy the basketball star, Sydney, the girl who everyone said was a shoe-in for prom queen, so on. But then there was Levi. The track star to some and the charming prince to others. The track star being the only relevant one, as he set the school's record the last two years in the 100m. It was my best dash too.