Count On Me(70)

I’ve been trying my best to keep my head in the game, focusing on exactly what I’m going to need to do on the field, but I can’t. It always seems to come back to her and how eager I am to see her when she finally gets here. How it’s going to feel, looking up in the stands and seeing her there, along with her little brother, smiling down at me.

She doesn’t realize it, but a couple days ago I took a video of her. She thought I was taking a picture and I just let her believe it, but I taped her as she did the most mundane things. That’s what I’m looking at now. That’s my pre-game ritual. Watching her run her fingers through her hair, the wind blowing it in a million different directions and her laughing as it does. The way those eyes of hers lock straight on me for a split second and she smiles so bright that I’m sure she’s giving the sun a run for its money.

Yeah, I’ve got it pretty damn bad.

I’ve been playing her voice file a lot, but not because of the laugh anymore. I have her laughing in the video and that suits me just fine. I listen to this file because she made it for me. She stepped out of her comfort zone that day, doing something I’m pretty damn sure she’s never done and in doing it, changed the course of everything.

She changed the course of me.

I wish I taped her last night before I left. Giving her my jacket, knowing what it means, at least what it means to everyone at school was a huge thing for me, but no one deserves to wear it more than her. I meant what I said. She really is the star and I need everyone to see that, just the way I do.

It was so huge on her that I debated taking it back, but by the end of the night she wouldn’t let me. You couldn’t see her hands, unless she rolled the sleeves up a dozen times but she didn’t seem to care. She just laughed every single time she did it as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

I’m still blown away by the way everything’s happened with us. How one day, I went from not even registering her existence, to being completely consumed by it. The way she said my name that one day changed the course of forever for me. When I’m with her, everything feels like it’s the way it’s supposed to be.

If Isabelle Reagan can take a guy like me, turn him into someone worthy of respect, then it’s mind blowing to think about what she can do for the rest of the world. Or even what we could do for it together.

We might be able to change it.



Belle



We’ve been here for ten minutes and I can already feel eyes on me, no matter what way I turn.

This is actually what I expected when I got here. I hoped that because I had Tristan with me, it might have been a little bit different, but I knew it would still happen. People can’t figure out what the retard is doing here, wearing one of the players jackets no less. It’s wrong to them because it’s not normal.

Wearing Kayden’s jacket is sort of like putting a big old bull’s-eye on my back, but there’s no way I’m taking it off. It might only be a jacket to some people, but I can tell with the way he gave it to me, it’s something more so I’m going to wear it proudly. Even if doing it earns me death glares from practically every person here.

The sad reality is, it’s not just the people I go to school with that are doing it. It’s their parents too. Their noses are all turned up at me, like because of my diagnosis; I’m an alien to them. I’m not like their sons or daughters so that means I’m not worthy of respect. It’s been like this forever and no matter how hard my mom fights, it never changes.

“Stupid people, their faces are gonna get stuck that way.”

I hear what Tristan’s saying, but I don’t register exactly what he means until I turn and see what he’s looking at. Amy’s parents are about three rows up behind us and just like their daughter does when she’s at school, they’re sneering in our direction.

I hate that he has to see this. With him being in the elementary school, he’s separated from me for the whole day, so he’s safely kept away from what I deal with. I want it to stay that way. He deserves better then to be judged because of who his sister is.

“Come on, I see Kayden.” I say, ignoring what I’ve just seen and pointing to where I see Kayden making his way toward us.

“Yes!” he yells and I can’t help but laugh. It seems like Mom was right earlier. Kayden might be dating the both of us after all. It’s actually the first person I’ve seen Tristan get close to besides me. It’s nice.

“You’re here.” Kayden says the minute he reaches us, immediately wrapping me up into his arms, before reaching down and shaking his hand through Tristan’s hair. “And you brought the midget too.”