Football players are assholes. I know; I'm related to their king. My older, and annoyingly overprotective, brother Jake is the star quarterback at Santa Cruz High School. I love him but hate living in his shadow. Everyone worshiping the air he breat...
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For the first time in three years and six weeks of high school, I skipped a class. Technically, Ms. Hernandez excused me from Government. Once my tears started, my eyes sprung a leak, and the floodgates wouldn't close. The whispers and gossipy looks were too much. I couldn't face anyone. After one look at my hideous, non-functioning state of being, I was given a pass out of my classes, along with the homework due Monday.
I should have taken Jake's car, but I walked home. It took forty-five minutes, and I wasn't even aware of which street was which. How could he? His supportive kindness lasted three days before he morphed into a version of himself worse than a nightmare. That's what his angry wrath looked like? No wonder I was left alone.
Shivering, I went where my feet led me and left tiny splotches of tears every few sidewalk squares. By the time my comforting pale yellow walls surrounded me, my tears were a category-five ugly cry. Congestion suffocated my nose, I sucked in ragged breaths, and my lips were dry and cracked. I toed off my shoes and burrowed under the softness of my blankets, heaving with violent sobs that I muffled into my pillow.
Hours of discomfort later, my face was raw. One look in my wall mirror showed my cheeks were red and swollen, my eyes bloodshot red, and my lower lip cracked white and shredded open. Mom's muffled voice accompanied her knock on my bedroom door. "Ellie, are you ready?"
"Almost," I lied from my curled up, side-lying position. At the squeak of the door, I hugged my knees tighter to my chest.
"Ellie?" The bed shifted under Mom's weight. Soft contact touched my lower back, where she rubbed small, gentle circles. "What's wrong?"
My shoulders heaved, and more tears dribbled over my cheeks. How did I have any water left in me? "Jake broke my phone," I squeaked between barked sobs. "Because he's an asshole and doesn't like... Logan." With my face smashed into my pillow, my words were, "hez af awfho an dozeit li... Wogn."
"He what?" Dad stood in my doorway. He shared Mom's expression of concern, but his chest lifted, arms crossed over it, and a frown creased between his eyebrows. Mom's round eyes looked at me like I was injured.
"Jake broke my phone." Congestion tickled my nose. I lifted my face off my pillow and sniffled loudly. "Because he's an asshole and doesn't like Logan."
His eyebrows squished together in total confusion as he asked, "Who's Logan?"
Oh jeez. Where do I start? "You know Jake's rival, Logan Hightower of Salesian?" Dad blinked with a face as blank as a piece of paper, but Mom nodded. I pushed up to sit against my pillows. "That's Logan."
"Logan Hightower, Salesian's quarterback!?" Dad exhibited enough shock in his voice for both him and Mom to share. He stroked his thumb and index finger in the motion of stroking a goatee, except he didn't have one. His eyes glazed over, and his voice filled with admiration. "All-American quarterback, MVP stats, great conditioning, legs like a shotgun, ultra-skilled playmaker, silky smooth spiral with the accuracy of-"
