Scars Ch. 03-05

"I want to see you do that, then I want to see you do the two twenty."

I didn't think I could do them back to back, but I gave it my best shot. I got through my forty reps at one seventy-five, and started the two twenty ones. I got to five and my arms were on fire. I was happy; I hadn't felt this kind of burn since being at the gym in my old town. I was just able to get out the tenth rep when my muscles started giving out. I set the bar back in its holder and just lay there for a second.

"Okay, that's all I want you to do today. Go get a shower and meet me in my office," Coach said.

I roll off the bench and climbed to my feet. I hurry up and get my shower and go to see Coach. He is waiting in his office for me, like he said. He looked up at me and told me to pull up a chair. We go over different plays, what they meant to me, what I was supposed to do, how they worked, everything that mattered, for the next thirty minutes.

When I looked at the clock, I realized school would be starting soon. "Coach, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow morning, same time. School's starting in ten minutes and I go to go by my locker."

I rush off to get to my locker. Brady, Colin, and Emily are standing there waiting for me. I look at them...suddenly suspicious. "Hey...what are you guys doing standing by my locker?" I ask them. I grab the lock and check it to make sure it was still locked. It was.

Brady answered for himself. "I'm here because you bailed early this morning without even waking me up. What where you doing at school that early?"

"Oh, I was meeting with Coach. I can't make all the football practices so he asked me to show up early. I worked out and went over different plays with him. He was explaining what each play means and how it would affect me depending on which position I was playing," I explain.

"Cool, you coulda woke me up. I woulda gone with you," he said to me.

"I meet with him every morning so if you want to come with, then you set an alarm and get your fat butt out of bed." I chuckle.

Colin looked at me. "Hey, I wanted to tell you, Coach asked me to help train you as a second string quarterback and an ace in the hole. You have some good moves and as long as you can throw the ball and make split second decisions, I think you will be pretty decent at it."

"Thanks Colin that would be great. When do you want to do it? I work this afternoon, but I'll be at practice tomorrow. Mr. Connors gave me the day off tomorrow since all they will be doing is putting the shrubs into the places we make today."

"Coach wants you to do it at practice, that way you can see what it's like under the pressure of people trying to tackle you. I think you will do great. We will test you out tomorrow and then we can jump into the scrimmage. That sound good?" he asked.

"Sounds fine to me. Thanks for helping out Colin."

"Anytime bro, anytime." He waves it off as if it was nothing. He didn't know how much it meant to me that someone was helping me. Not very many people helped me out, at least not many that actually wanted to help me.

Colin and Brady walked away to their respective first periods. Colin looked at Emily questioningly. "I have the same first period as Dylan, I'm going to walk with him," she told him.

I look at her, surprised. I thought, even after apologizing, that she was still mad at me. The fact she was willingly walking with me was surprising. I might be getting a little popular, just from being friends with the football guys and from getting on the team, but walking with a cheerleader who was so far out of my league it wasn't even funny was very unnerving. 'There must be something behind this,' I thought.

"Earth to Dylan, where did you go? I asked you a question." Emily was definitely perturbed that I hadn't been paying attention to her. I thought it might be good that someone doesn't follow her every whim, being popular can go to your head when you expect everyone to just listen to you and do what you say.

"Sorry, I was thinking. What did you ask?"

"I asked how you were doing. There is obviously something more important than a beautiful cheerleader standing next to you going on up there. I would hope it has relevance to something that actually matters," she laughed off. I guess she was making a joke, though she obvious wasn't shy about knowing how she affected most guys. I wasn't immune to her looks, but I wasn't interested. She had a boyfriend and I didn't want to piss him off. He didn't scare me, but I don't want anymore trouble than I normally got. I wasn't going to purposefully add to it.

"I'm fine. Your dad is a pretty cool guy to work for," I say as we arrive at class. I walk to my seat on the other side of the classroom. I hoped the day would pass quickly. It didn't. It felt as if every subject I didn't like, which was most of them, took extraordinarily long and the one part of the day I liked, lunch, passed by too quickly. I was annoyed by the time school got out and I headed out to my car to drive to work. Emily caught up to me before I got there.

"Hey, do you mind giving me a lift. I'm going to see my dad, too, and Colin gave me a ride this morning. I'd ask him to give me a ride, but he's at practice and you are going that way anyway," she spewed.

"Slow down. You are talking ninety miles an hour as if expecting me to cut you off. Sure, I'll give you a ride, as long as Colin won't mind. Will he?"

"No, he won't care. He's cool with you now. I think he realized that day at practice that you really could have hurt him if you guys got in a fight. I don't want you to fight though," she says, still talking way too fast.

"You don't have to worry about it. I won't do anything unless he does and he won't do anything unless I do. It's a classic stalemate. Happens often with guys; we have a truce based on mutual trust that we won't stab the other in the back," I explain. Yeah, guys are weird and we just have that kind of connection.

I open the passenger door for her to get in, then hop into the driver's seat. I make the ride over to work in silence for the most part. I was hoping to keep it that way, but alas, Emily was not going to have it.

"Can you pull over real quick?"

"Why? We're almost there," I say.

"Just do it. We need to talk," she snaps.

I pull over to the curb three blocks from the house we were going to. "What is it? What is so important that you couldn't wait until we got there?" I ask, indignant.

"What is your problem? Did I do something wrong? Have I said something to upset you? You avoid me on a daily basis and I had to seek you out this morning and even when I tried to talk to you, you zoned out. What gives?" She was definitely mad. No mistaking the tone of her voice.

"Well...I don't know. I don't really talk to many people in the first place. I never really had real friends. Brady is the only friend I've ever had. I never got along with all the other kids. The fact that I was ridiculed for not having a dad around all the time was bad, then when he died it got worse. It didn't matter to them that he was a soldier fighting for them. It didn't matter to me much, all I knew was my dad wasn't home most of the time.

"He was deployed for six to eight months a year, then after nine-eleven, he was deployed for a whole year. We didn't hear from him at all. The only way my mother knew he wasn't dead was we were still getting paychecks in our bank account. When he came home we found out that he went on a classified mission, several missions actually, with the SEALS and that he wasn't allowed to contact us in any way because it could have compromised the mission. After he died, it just got worse and I started to hate him myself, for leaving my mom and I.

"I have reasons for being antisocial; maybe not the best, but other people and I usually tend to not get along. I have more reasons, but I don't want to talk about them to you...or anyone for that matter. The only people who know about it are in my old town. I want it to stay that way," I say looking at her. I was being dead serious. She looked at me and nodded.

"To be honest, I didn't come with you to see my father, I wanted to talk to you," she told me.

"I know. It was obvious. You need to learn how to hide your intentions better," I tell her.

I put the car in drive and finish driving the rest of the way to work. Mr. Connors looked a little surprised to see Emily with me. As she got out of the car I told him she wanted to see him and asked me for a ride. With that I walk out back to the crew. I might have thrown Emily to the wolves with that, but she had played me...even though I told her that I knew I hadn't been sure, so I had let her come. I had hoped she really did want a ride.

The crew knew what needed to be done and I got to work immediately. The work was simple and I just let it take my mind away from everything. I got caught up in the work and didn't even notice Emily watching me. She must have been there for quite a while.

I glance up and see her staring at me. "Can I help you with something, or do you just like what you see," I joke.

Emily blushed, which stunned me, and looked away. "I just came out to tell you that it's time to go. Daddy says the work is done and he will see you next week. You...I'll see you at school tomorrow." She darts off.

I didn't know what just happened. I made a joke and she went from confident to unsure of herself in the matter of a few seconds. "Okay..." I say to no one in particular.