And So It Goes by Judy Colella (some good books to read .txt) 📕

Turning away, I went to Gina, told her to breathe, and picked up the basketball which was a few feet beyond her near the bleachers. Dribbling it (I would have spun it on one finger but my inability to do such a thing would only have resulted in deep mortification), I made my way to Lacy.

She took a step back as I got closer. “You are dead, bitch!”

“You keep saying that, but I have yet to find any evidence of it.” I tilted my head to one side and smiled. “I’m sure you aren’t such a baby that you asked your not-so-bright posse to attack me and Gina, right? But in case I’m wrong, and you do something like that again, I might have to get physical with you. See, you don’t know squat about me, Lacy, or what kind of self-defense training I’ve had. Do yourself a favor and leave me alone, okay? Let’s go back to the way it was before my speech this morning, which, yeah, was unbelievably stupid.”

The Queen of Airheads (Lacy) gaped at the Queen of I-Just-Made-All-That-Up (me) and nodded.

“Good. Thanks.” I didn’t believe for a moment that she was going to leave me alone, but at least she now knew I wasn’t intimidated. For all the good that would do me when I was being squished under her boyfriend’s pickup or being beaten to a pulp by the entire cheerleading squad and their families. Ah, well.

When the day ended – something I was beginning to think would never happen – I grabbed Gina by the backpack and hustled her off to the bus. We got on and slid into our seats long before anything that bore any resemblance to a cheerleader caught up with us. You know: she who quickly runs away will live to be beaten up another day. Sorry.

My mom was doing something in the kitchen when I got home, but it involved Wade and didn’t sound like cooking. Grossed out, I ran up to my room, stripped, took a shower to wash off gym sweat, and got comfy in a t-shirt and pajama pants. Now all I needed was a good book to read. I have no use for the internet or social media, since I also have almost no friends. Besides, why give dopes like Lacy a tool for continued torture?

After digging around under my bed, holding a brief discussion with the dust bunnies and removing an apple core I didn’t remember tossing under there, I found several paperbacks I’d been meaning to read. Picked one. Threw self on bed, started to read.

Smiley face.

I believe I started this with something about how the best-looking guy in the school wasn’t crushing on me, or whatever. I was wrong. Either that, or someone is playing the world’s meanest trick on me…entirely possible, considering the way everything else in my life goes.

Football is a game I associate with boredom and freezing my butt off. Why can’t they play it indoors? And why does it take thirty minutes to play two minutes’ worth of the actual game? Their idea of “one minute left to play” is like my grandmother’s idea of, “I’m going to hang up now, okay?” Sure, Grandma. Whenever we’re on the phone and she says that, I can pretty much count on at least another twenty minutes of random sermonizing and story-telling, often accompanied by “to make a long story short” (which I have come to realize is code for “you better not have to go to the bathroom, and I hope you have your sleeping bag and pillow out and ready, ’cause this is the longest story I could think of”).

Wait. What was I talking about? Oh! Right. Football. When they – why am I talking about football? Hold on. Ah, that’s it – the quarterback. Sorry. That came out like the demented rantings of a shipwrecked sports commentator. Let me start over.

Jacob (what is it with every cute guy being named Jacob? Ever since that movie about sparkling bloodsuckers came out, mothers have been racing to scribble “Jacob” on their newborns’ birth certificates). Wow. I need to slow down. Let me start again. Oy.

Jacob Wainwright is the quarterback on our school’s football team. He’s cute. He’s got a drool-worthy physique. Every senior girl who isn’t blind wants him, except me. I also consider him top-quality eye-candy, but he’s a quarterback, for heavens’ sake! You know, as in football? That game I can’t stand? The one where you have to sit on icy metal bleachers to watch a bunch of hefty guys grunting at each other, knocking each other over, and slapping each other’s backsides, and for what? Some ball that isn’t even round? So no. I’m not interested. And then this happens.

“He likes you, you know.”

I was putting books in my locker when Gina gave me this highly doubtful bit of news. “Sure he does. As what? A potential bet with his friends?”

“What?”

“You know – they take bets to see if he can convince me to go out with him, and then when I show up at whatever…thing…he’s supposed to be meeting me at for our ‘big date,’ all his friends and the whole flock of cheerleaders pop out and start laughing at me. Jacob gets paid off for winning the bet, and I slink off in utter humiliation. That’s what.”

It was Tuesday, the day after my basketball debacle with Lacy & Co., and so far, no one had stabbed me with a pencil, knocked me into the toilet, or pulled my pants down. Well, that last one might be because I was wearing overalls. Still. But now this garbagio about Jacob. For real? Sheesh.

“Why don’t you think he could like you, Shasta? I mean, okay, you dress a little weird, but you’re really pretty – prettier than any of the cheerleaders for sure.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes. Yes you are. Do you even own a mirror?”

“Several, but I rarely use them.” I finished putting my books away and closed my locker.

“Maybe you should. You have gorgeous green-blue eyes, your hair…okay, your hair is odd, but that’s only because you don’t wear it the same way as most humans, which means you’re not among the clones.”

We started walking toward class, and as I let Gina carry on, I kept a careful look around us for a possible ambush.

“You’re super slim,” she was saying, “and you could wear any awesome fashion you wanted and look better than Lacy and her friends put together!”

“If Lacy and her friends were put together, they’d never fit into any outfit.” I bit my lip, getting a sudden mental image of the cheer squad stuck together in a kind of ball, arms and legs and heads sticking out at strange angles, and a department store clerk trying to squeeze them into a dress. Awesome. I love mental images sometimes.

“You know what I mean, Sh- are you laughing? What’s so funny?”

I gagged. “Nothing.” It came out like a choked squeak.

“All right – focus, please!”

I swallowed, getting myself under control (hey, at least I don’t turn purple when I laugh). “I’m focused. Wait. What am I focused on?”

“Jacob Wainwright.”

“Why?”

“Because he likes you.”

I stopped, grabbed Gina’s arm and made her stop too, and face me. “Gina. Friend. Why on Earth do you think he likes me? Did the football fairy come to you in a dream and tell you this?”

“Funny, Shasta. There’s no such thing as a football fairy.”

“Sure there is. She’s the sister-in-law of the Cheerleader Genie, who’s the cousin of the Tooth Fairy.”

“You’re sick. That’s why I love you. But I’m telling you, Jacob is totally into you!”

“Ew, no he is not!”

Gina rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

I sighed. “Okay, then why doesn’t he ever talk to me? Come to think of it, I don’t believe he’s ever even made eye contact with me. And don’t give me any crap about him being too shy or afraid, or…or…whatever. He’s too egotistical to be like that.” I started walking again.

“He doesn’t talk to you because he’s afraid of Lacy.”

“How could anyone be afraid of Lacy?”

“Guys are strange that way, I think.” Gina shrugged.

I didn’t know what to say at that point. Nothing in me was in the mood to hope she was right about ol’ Jake. Fact is, I don’t like him. He fell off my radar with a dull thud the day I overheard him say to one of the cheerleaders that it was her “lucky day” because he was going to take her to the movies that Friday. Movies. Sure, Jacob. Yeck! Did he honestly believe he was that much of a prize? Heck, he didn’t even qualify as a parting gift as far as I was concerned.

We got to class a few minutes early, which meant only the geeks were already seated. Everyone else was congregating in the hall, a few standing around near the back of the room, and no teacher in sight.

“There he is,” Gina told me in her ridiculous side-of-the-mouth hiss. How embarrassing. “Don’t look.”

“I wasn’t going to – and why tell me he’s here if you don’t want me to look?”

“He’s staring at you.”

“I doubt that. If anything, he’s looking at you hissing at me like we’re in a bad movie.”

“Don’t be mean.” She gave a sudden, brilliant smile, and did one of those close-to-the-chest waves.

“He’s looking at you, isn’t he.” I wasn’t asking.

“No…” Grin. “He’s looking at you, girlfriend.”

“Don’t call me that. Why did you call me that? Are you trying to sound cool?”

“Remind me to smack you later.”

“Sure.” I went to my desk and sat, opened my notebook, and took a pen from my backpack. I needed to doodle. I do that when I don’t feel like dealing with something. Defensive Doodling?

“Shasta, right?”

I didn’t need to look up to know that the voice hadn’t come from Gina’s throat. Biting back something that would have made page one of Epic Sarcastic Comebacks, I put my pen down and raised my eyes. One eyebrow shot upward in what I hoped was a quelling query…sorry. I didn’t speak. Well, no, I did. I said “yes.” But that doesn’t really count, does it? Freaking guys named Jacob…

“Sorry to bother you,” he said, crouching down next to my desk, one hand on its surface. “I just had to say something. I – I think you’re the first person I’ve ever seen stand up to Lacy, and I wanted to tell you I think you’re pretty awesome.”

Wait – when had he seen me do that? He wasn’t in the same gym class, and the other times I’d spoken with her was in the hall and… “Dude! You weren’t hiding in a stall in the girl’s bathroom the other day, were you?”

“Not hiding, no. I was, um, with someone.” He gave me the strangest smile I’d ever seen. I do believe the handsome hemorrhoid was blushing! Ha!

I shook my head. “Um, yeah. I have no words right now…”

“You won’t mention that to anyone, will you? I mean, um, crap. I walked right into that, didn’t I.”

Or stepped in it, whatever – I hate potty humor.