Broken Fairytales (5 page)

***

A few
hour
s
later
Keely was still in my room
.
We’d listene
d to the
Liar’s Edge
album
twice
befo
re she begged me to change it.
She
agreed that they were great but requested variety. I obliged, putting ‘
Angry Rock
2006
’ back on
,
but
turned
it down
so we could talk
. 

I didn’t have much to share
, so I just
half-
listened
to her
talk about everything from cheerleading to
her friends to boys she liked
since
my mind kept flitting back to the lead singer of
Liar’s Edge
and his beyond perfect voice.
I couldn’t remember what he looked like, but I’d cr
eated a nice image in my head.
I was imagining what it would be like to kiss him when I remembered
that I had a boyfriend and thinking about kissing someone else
was a
n incredibly
crappy thing to do.

So
then
I made a
mental
list of all the things I loved about Ben in an effort to convince myself t
hat he really was a great guy.
If only he
played the guitar, he would be perfect.

Okay,
that was uncalled for. Ben’s talents lied on the
football
field, not on a stage, and I couldn’t fault him for that. I wouldn’t. In actuality, my
favorite thing about Ben w
as watching him play football.
It was t
ruly where he was at his best.
I could
easily
picture him lined up on the field, sweat glistening on his face, a look of fierce determination as he wat
ched the center snap the ball.
As soon as it was in the quarterback’s hands, Ben would be off like a shot, down the fie
ld, looking back for the pass.
He would
catch it. He always caught it.
He was good. 

I
spent many afternoons watching him when I was supposed to
be concentrating on cheering
back in high school
.
Our squad always practiced by the field
house near the east end zone.
We would set up facing the field, which allowed us to face the players, giving us something to cheer for, but in reality, it was more of a hindrance, as most of the time the guys provided more di
stractions than not.
Ashle
igh
Ballast
, our captain
,
always had to snap us bac
k into focus, as more times than
not, we’d be caught staring at the football players when
we were supposed to be saying ‘Go T
eam’.

I, personally, felt like I had an excuse, as it was hard to pay attent
ion when Ben was on the field.
He was incredible to watch, and I loved the way he put ever
ything he had into every play.
No matter how tired he was or
how much our team was down, Ben focused on each play like it was the most im
portant one of the game.
That was why he was the best, why he
had gotten a scholarship to play at
UNC
,
and why I’d noticed him in the first place.

It was hard not to notice him.
He transferred to our
high
school at th
e beginning of
our
junior
year.
Most people in
my group of friends had known each other for years, and the boy pool was pretty dr
y as far as we were concerned. So,
of
course, we noticed fresh meat.
It was actu
ally Ashleigh
who saw him
first which was just fitting.
She
was the person that you didn’t want to get
the new guy
, but since she worked as an office assistant first period, she was there when Ben walked i
nto school for the first time.
As a new student, he had to check in, and Ashleigh
was the one who got to do it.
It was inevitable that she would make a move for him.

By second period, the entire cheerleading squad knew
that
the new guy was gorgeous, and
Ashleigh was in love with him.
She went on and on about his blond hair, blue eyes and
pecs that she wanted to kiss.
Ashleigh was,
and
in fact still is,
a bit of a slut, so this
comment didn’t shock
any of us.
She claimed him for herself, calling him like he was shotgun
,
which usually would have annoyed me, but having not
yet
seen
him
, I
wasn’t really objecting.
If he was as gorgeous as she said, I figured he was mo
st likely a cocky jerk anyway.
Plus, I had been engaging in a minor flirtation with Andy Callum, a senior soccer player, so I wasn’t interested in the new guy.

As other friends had classes with Ben, they weighed in on everything from his voice to his posture in class to the fact that he seemed to keep to himself, although when he did speak, he seeme
d to have a coy air about him.
It seemed every girl I knew was co
mpletely smitten with a guy
I had yet to lay eyes on. 

Apparently none of our classes were the sam
e, and he didn’t eat
lunch with our group.
I had to go off of what everyone else was saying, but
I told myself it didn’t matter.
Andy had been sending me flirty text messages all morning, and at lunch he stopped by to talk to me
just before the bell rang. I
knew he was going to ask me out. I just wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.

Then, that afternoon as we stretched by the field house, I watched the football players jog out onto their practic
e field.
It was hypnotic in a way, as they came off th
e sidelines together, broke
into offense and defense an
d lined up for the first play.
There was chatter all around me, but I wasn’t paying much attention to anythin
g the other girls were saying.
I was too engrossed in what
was going on across the field.
I watched, enthralled, as the
play started, the ball was handed off and a player took off runnin
g toward our end of the field.
The defense tried to catch him,
but they weren’t quick enough.
With Trace Beckham, the fastest player on the defense, sprinting after him, the player crossed into the end zone with ease. 

“Wow,” someone next to me said.

“I know,” came Ashleigh’s breathy voice.

“Incredible,” someone else said.

The player jogged
toward us, pulling his helmet off to reveal blond hair that hung dam
ply to the middle of his ears.
He shook his hair out, causing drops of
sweat to fly out from the ends
and grinned at us. 

“Ladies,” he said, as he circled past, making his way back to his teammates.

At that moment, all thoughts of Andy Callum flew from my mind and
were replaced by the new guy.
I watched him jog all the way back to mid-field, and all I could think about was
that he’d looked right at me.
When he’
d addressed the collective group o
f us, his eyes had been on me.
For three brief seconds, his blue eyes had locked with my brown ones, and I was completely smitten.

It took a shove to my
shoulder to pull me out of the trance
I’d fallen into as a result. A
s I righted myself, I looked up to see my Rachel standi
ng above me with her hand out.
It
was
a minute
before I
realize
d
where I was and wh
at I was supposed to be doing.
I reached up and took her
hand, letting her help me to a standing position.

“He’s cute, right,” she said, nudging me slightly, as I lined up next to her in the back row. 

“Yeah,” was all I could manage to ge
t out. He was more than cute. He was
gorgeous.
 

“You might want to wipe that dazed look
off your face,” she whispered.
“Ashleigh’s staring.”

I looked up to see Ashleigh glaring at me and remembered then that she’d already cl
aimed the new guy for herself.
Her look told me that she’d
seen him looking at me and was not happy about it. I
quickly wiped the smile off my face, since Ashleigh
sort of scared me, and
I didn’t want her to think I was
encroaching on her territory.
If she wanted
him, fine, she could have him.
I
nside, though, I was gloating.
Out of the sixteen girls
on our squad, he’d smiled at me
.

Over the next few weeks, Ashleigh desperately threw her
self at the new guy, whose full
name
was Ben Grayson.
She sat next to him at lunch, flirted with him after practice and made a point to seek him out before the first game started to wish him good luck, comp
lete with a kiss on the cheek.
It was pretty shameless, but app
arently it
worked
.
According to her, they’d made out at the first two parties of the year which had me pouting since I hadn’t gone to either of them, having been grounded for
missing curfew because Rachel had gotten too drunk at a party, and I’d been taking care of her
.
I’d been caught
sneaking
in
late
by my none-too-happy father and promptly sentenced to two weeks of no social
life
when I couldn’t provide a valid excuse for being late.
It wasn’t like I was going to rat Rachel out, so I took my punishment in
silence
.

The good news was that my pouting spell ov
er Ben didn’t last long
.
Then
I internally smil
ed for a full week after that.
I was partially smiling because my grounding had ended, and I was finally free, but
there was also another reason.
I had a sec
ret – a secret that was so good
that even Ashleigh bragging about
how she was going to sleep
with Ben at the party after the
next
game didn’t faze me.

What I hadn’t told anyone was that I’d run into Ben at the gym – the first place I’d gone
after regaining my freedom.
I’d been com
ing in, and he’d been leaving.
I smiled at him, thinking he probably wouldn’t recognize me, but I cou
ld at least be polite.
He’d joined our group at lunch on the second day of school, but it was a large group of football players and cheerleaders that sprawled over three
tables, so it was possible
he wouldn’t remember
me.
We hadn’t actually
been introduced
, and since I’
d been out of the soci
al scene for two weeks, I wasn’
t exactly afforded the opportunity to catch his attention outside of school.

He did remember me though.
He stopped me when I smiled, an
d we talked for a few minutes.
Then, shock of all shocks, as I completely though
t
he was semi-seeing Ashle
igh, he
asked for my number. He
proceeded to call me every night over that next week, and we’d spent close to an hour on
the phone each time we talked.
By the time Friday came
around, I wasn’t sure what we were
, but I was pretty sure Ashleigh wouldn’t be doing
anything with Ben that night.
This was unbeknownst to her, though, as I had the joy of listening as she bragged about what she was going to do to him – very graphically, I might add – as we stretched before the game.