All Grown Up | jdb

03

TAYLOR

The dance team had prevented me from avoiding every football game, which was unfortunate. Junior year especially. The reason for this being that, football was a big deal at my school. Actually, scratch that, at every school. But, my school was just full of inconsiderate, rude and annoying students. The entire school came out to support Friday night football. As one may expect this meant that our student section was packed full of football fans with school spirit. Instead of sitting down like regular human beings, they stood the entire game and chanted things while jumping up and down. This meant that you had to stand as well if you wanted to see anything but your classmates asses.

The collection of student's that stood in a clump in the stands was diverse and made up of all different grades. The only thing they had in common was their social class. They were all popular kids. In the very center of all the popular kids was of course my brother as well as Justin, Chaz and Ryan. And under Justin's arm you could almost always find Selena. I stood behind this crowd, with Kelci and Abby usually, before I had to meet with the dance team when it was becoming close to half time.

During half time, we danced to half of Say It by Tove Lo and Flume (STWO REMIX). I loved the routine, especially because there were a ton of jumps that I excelled at. My favorite part of the dance being when it goes quiet and then the beat drops. During that time, I was the only one standing and the rest of the girls sat with their heads low. This was my mini solo where I did a couple of turns and then a large jump just as the beat dropped. Whenever this happened, the student section always went crazy, which I never understood because not a single one of the talked to me nor acted like they wanted to talk to me, besides Justin and my brother. Regardless, I appreciated the support.

Every few weeks we would change the song and routine to keep things interesting. Afterwards, I would leave the game with no interest to watch the turn out.

* * *

When the first month of school came to a close, Justin and I started talking during class regularly. Being his lab partner forced this but he also made conversation with me every day.

"I really don't get this." Justin turned to me during Algebra one day.

"How about this, I have 20 minutes before dance team meet if you would like to meet me in the library so I can help you out." I offered.

"I'm down, I'll see you then."

Little did I know, but this would eventually become a routine. I had dance team meets every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, on top of the studio I dance for outside of school, and for 20-30 minutes prior, he would come see me in the library. He didn't know, but I knew he was lying when he said he didn't understand something. I never understood why he would do this though. Eventually, he gave up the act and joined me just to keep me company. I appreciated it, and I enjoyed the conversations we would have. He was actually a really nice guy. And he was also really nice to look at.

* * *
JUSTIN

Zack started inviting me to his house more and more often. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of Taylor but usually I didn't. She was always either at dance or upstairs in her room, at least I assumed. But one day, I actually got lucky.

"Zack did you touch my laptop?" She came down the stairs into the basement where Zack and I were playing FIFA.

"Nope." He said not looking away from the TV.

"Hi Tay." I greeted her.

"Hey Justin." She said looking around the basement.

She never found it, so she had to ask Zack to use his.