Blind Ambition | ✓

09 | Run, Dallas, Run

Dr. Fontanella, my AP Lit teacher, was definitely at Woodstock in the 70s. She wore way too much colorful swirly printed clothes, and I was sure I smelled pot in her desk once. But she liked me - like most teachers did - and gave me a warm smile as I handed her my summer reading pop quiz before leaving class.

"So which book did you enjoy the most?" she asked, casually reading through my quiz.

None of them. Our whole summer reading list was inundated with dystopian-themed fiction, and if I was actually interested in any of that depressing shit I would have just watched the Hunger Games or something.

"I'm gonna say Never Let Me Go." I rocked on the heels of my loafers. "It didn't feel so...outdated as some of the other ones."

"Quite sad." Dr. Fontanella purposefully nodded, marking a big red 92 on my quiz. "Most love triangles in fiction are abysmal, but this one was done artfully."

"Eh, I wouldn't know," I shrugged.

"I noticed your name was absent from the student tutors list this semester." She looked up at me over the frames of her large, tortoise-shell glasses.

I let out a sigh. "Yeah uh...I just don't think I have time in my schedule for that now. Between football, college stuff, and uh...other extracurriculars."

"Oh nonsense," she gave me a chuckle. "Just put your name down, I'm sure you can squeeze in once a week. Besides you only need to sign up for one subject, you don't need to do them all. You know it looks great on all your applications."

She produced the sign up sheet from her desk and fluttered it in my face. I worked my jaw so hard I felt the little veins in my forehead pulse. I was sure Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Florida State did not give one single fuck that I was a student tutor this year, but I took the sheet from her anyway and scribbled down my name in barely legible chicken scratch. Dallas was game. Dallas was king. Dallas could handle anything thrown at him.

✗✗✗

I must have done something seriously shitty in a past life to end up with Kaia in my last period gym class. I mentally kicked myself at my total lack of foresight - most athletes had gym the last period of the day so we could all just scatter to our respective practices afterwards, so the probability of being with her was higher than usual. Thankfully I also had Chris, who nudged me as Kaia walked out of the girls' locker room with two of her field hockey groupies in tow.

"Look, I hate to do this to you guys so early in the year, but I figured we'll get it out of the way and then go back to pretending to jog around the track for 45 minutes, alright?"

Mr. Baxter, in his outdated 80s track pants, paced in front of the 12 of us, identical in our grey NLDS t-shirts and black shorts, like dominos lined up and ready to tumble.

Early September in Connecticut was still warm enough to hold P.E. outside on the turf. The problem was that turf was naturally 10 degrees hotter than the outside air, so despite the tepid afternoon, I was sweating my balls off. I should have felt more at home here than any other place in school, standing tall between the two uprights on the football field, but Kaia's presence made my sacred space unholy. I glanced over the row of heads to my left at her, eyes forward and chin up, her dark hair pulled back away from her sweat-slicked forehead. Discomfort was never Kaia's style. She'd walk through hell in long strides with her head up, like she owned the fucking place.

"You all know how the pacer test works, I don't need to explain it. Blame the state of Connecticut, not me."

A collective groan came from the class. Chris and I pretended to do some semblance of stretching as Mr. Baxter set a row of bright orange cones up on the 15 yard line, then another row at the back of the end zone. Chris jabbed me in the side.