Page 11 of My High School Rebel Boyfriend
“So,” Titan said, as we headed to the gym for another session of our restorative justice punishment, “how’s your volleyball moves?”
“Were we supposed to practice?” I asked.
“Coach Barber said she wanted us to join in the game. Help the girls learn how to play against some height.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he smiled, “it’ll be fun. You know, I’m thinking that getting snitched on has been a good thing for us.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” I rolled my eyes, bouncing the ball along the corridor and faking a shot.
“Oh yeah.” Titan raced passed me, taking the ball off of me and turned to throw it at me. But I’d gotten distracted. Coming in the other direction were a few of the girls, Maddie the captain, the twins and Harper, the snitch.
Only Harper looked different. Her hair wasn’t tied up in a ponytail like usual, but it was hanging straight and long and the copper color was certainly not natural, but it made me look twice. And stare.
And that’s when Titan’s ball caught me in the head.
I spun around quickly to retrieve it, but I’d already heard the giggles.
Coach Barber put the girls into a warmup routine and explained the drills to us. It was a similar routine to the previous training, so I felt pretty good about that.
As the girls took a water break, for some reason I started to get nervous about Harper coming into my group. I’d seen her on the weekend. She’d been on her bike at the park near my house. That’s what worried me; I didn’t know what she’d seen, if anything. I mean, maybe she hadn’t heard me screaming into the wind, a tirade of abuse aimed at the unfairness of life. I hoped she hadn’t.
I’d pretend she hadn’t.
She was the first back to the workout area, and I straightened the ladder needlessly, avoiding eye contact for obvious reasons. But she put her water bottle down on the floor as I bent to move the mat an inch to the left.
“Are you—” I said at the same time that she said, “Did you—”
We both paused, and I carried on, “Are you ready for some punishment?” Better not to show weakness, to pretend I was in control.
“Yeah, I am,” she said, unfazed by my tough words. “Did you have a fight with your basketball?” She stared directly at my eye as she twirled a strand of hair that wasn’t tied back and smirked. “Guess the basketball won.”
Quite frankly my mind went blank. There she was, a piece of golden hair wrapped around her finger, her pert, pink lips pretty, her deep blue eyes burning into the depths of my broken soul. Or that’s what it felt like.
I had no witty reply, no sarcastic remark, nothing to utter.
Her cheeks blushed with a rosy color, matching her lips which I was staring at again. I turned away, picking up a small hurdle and replacing it further along, totally pointless, totally flustered.
I tried not to look at her after that, concentrating on the tasks, saying very little other than counting or telling them to move to the next drill. When my eyes flitted to her, I was overcome with a weird feelingof butterflies in my stomach—and Mitch Finlayson didn’t do butterflies, not over girls.
No, girls were not on my agenda, I’d admire from afar, but I kept my distance. Easier that way, all part of the ruse, the tough boy act, too cool for school and all that. Better to keep my complications my own, let the unattainable label enhance my reputation. There had been no shortage of girls asking me to the Homecoming Dance, but Mitch Finlayson declined them all.
My rule was simple: Keep girls at bay.
So, I couldn’t understand why my eyes were glued to her as I watched her attempting full pushups. Oh yeah, it’s because I wanted her to fail. She’d sink to her knees and I’d stand over her and embarrass her—taunt her into completing a full set.
But not only did shenotstruggle, Harper continued past ten and did twelve full pushups, and I was standing there in total awe. When she finished she slumped to the floor smiling, not at anyone or anything, but with an inner sense of satisfaction. I was too slow at looking away; she caught me staring.
I nodded my head curtly, as if to signal it was time to move to the next exercise, but the pounding in my chest was bizarre and I was hot, scorching hot. It was like an impending heart attack or something. I had to go in search of my water bottle.
The end of the rotation couldn’t come fast enough and I was considering telling Coach Barber I was feeling ill, but she was organizing us into game practice and she wanted Titan and me to play against the starting line-up.
It seemed that some of the girls were hoping to be seen by college scouts, so Coach wanted to test them against some height. Tanchia Goodwin, the school’s sprint star was the tallest in the team, a lofty five eleven, but apparently there were girls six foot and over in some of the teams. I guessed that Harper, who came up to around my chin, was too short forthe sport.
It was similar to basketball—height mattered. There would be the occasional guys who made it to the top level who were five seven or five eight, but they had to have something extraordinary about them. Generally, if you weren’t over six foot you didn’t stand a chance.
I’d basically been pushed into basketball, ever since sixth grade when I started to inch above my classmates, and then by eighth grade it was a no-brainer. Coach Cairns spotted me, saw my potential and put my future in his hands. He’d get me a scholarship, that I could count on, he said.
