The Starting Quarterback Steals My (?) Girl [Seiro]

Seiro

“Guess who’s part of the o-line now?” Kevin and I were walking home from practice on a Tuesday, the day after I had arm wrestled Mia.

“Aaaaand no more touchdowns for you,” Kevin said, laughing. I wasn’t sure if he was laughing at me or with me.

“But I’m still a tight end. Maybe I have a few more TDs in store.”

“I don’t know, man. They’re definitely just using you as a makeshift sixth lineman.” That’s what I was worried about.

“Don’t say that! You’ll make it true.”

“At least you’ll be blocking for me. I’m tired of there being no gaps in those damn o-linemen.”

“True.” I said that, but I didn’t quite believe it. I think our o-line is pretty good, actually. I knew from Danny that Kevin and the o-line didn’t get along, but I wanted to fix that. After all, a machine doesn’t work when its gears are rotating against each other. “What’s up between you and the o-line? You guys just don’t seem to like each other.”

“The o-line? Well, to start, Danny and I tried to date the same girl back in eighth grade, before I liked Mia. That never really smoothed out between us, even though the girl moved. And King just can’t get over whatever dumb grudge he has for that one play on the JV team in sophomore year. I don’t really know Bell, Chen doesn’t like me because King doesn’t like me, and Freedom’s injured half the time anyway, so I never see him.”

“Who’s Freedom?” Is it the guy who left the o-line meeting to go to the bathroom?

“Freedom Jones. He’s the starting left tackle. 300 pounds of pure muscle, but he’s had knee problems since forever ago. No doubt he’s gonna go down again and little Kris is gonna have to step up.”

Kris? Oh, yeah, Kevin and Mia are best friends, so of course he’d know Kristoff. “And do you have bad blood with Kristoff too?”

“No, he’s chill. I’m worried King is going to influence him.”

“Oh.” I lost my words and suddenly the conversation went stale. I didn’t want to talk badly about King behind his back, but I also didn’t want to disagree with a friend.

Trying to swing into a new topic, my mind scoured for ideas. One came to me and I blurted it without much consideration. “Do you have the numbers of the rest of the football team?” Kevin’s eyes lit up excitedly, like he was pouncing on the prey that was a decent conversation topic.

“Yeah! I have all of the running backs plus Kris and Ian. Speaking of Ian, uh…” Kevin slightly derailed his line of thought, but that was fine by me. “I caught him taking a phone call from his girlfriend on the bus. Or, he said it was his girlfriend. I couldn’t hear the voice. But anyway, get your phone out, because here are the numbers…” Kevin’s words faded out as I slowly came to a realization.

Mia had cut me off for another phone call while we were on the bus. If Ian made a phone call at about the same time… and knowing that Mia has a chance of liking Ian…

“Oh, sorry, I zoned out, haha…” I laughed off my weird pause and typed in some of the numbers Kevin had- Ian’s especially. I wasn’t gonna text Ian to see if he and Mia were dating, but… I was totally going to text Ian to see if he and Mia were dating.

I sat down on my bed, worn out from Wednesday afternoon practice, which ended up just being weightlifting. I had put it off until now, but I needed to text Ian to make sure I wasn’t crossing any boundaries by pursuing Mia. It could make things worse between Ian and I, but, then again, I didn’t really want to take the chance of dating Ian’s girlfriend.

“Hey, this is Cat,” I typed, punctuation and formality included. I wasn’t often the type that texted like this, but this was someone I deeply respected and didn’t want to piss off. “I heard from someone on the team that you and Mia Karlsson are dating. Is that true?”

I proceeded to wait for two hours before I got any sort of reply. I was making dinner for myself (Maruchan noodles) when I saw the message he had left me.

“Yes, piss off.”

Well, great. Not only were my chances with Mia ruined, but Ian also seemed mad at me for asking. Oh! That’s why he was so sarcastic earlier in the storage room! He must’ve already been dating her before I walked in and spouted the dumbest nonsense ever! My brain went into a spiral of death, assuming that Ian would stop passing to me, then stop talking to me altogether, then rally a group of guys against me… I wanted to shrivel into a ball and die, and I did just that, minus the dying part. My noodles steamed their heat away inside the microwave as I cringed in despair on my mattress.

I knew I would have to do something about this- after all, who was I to be crushing on somebody that’s taken? I started solemnly conjuring ways to rid myself of the attraction that had taken control of me like a cancer. Maybe Kevin was right? Maybe I am caught too deep in that web? If so…

I need to get out of it.