How to Forget

haha i love sports!!

As I approach the curb to the parking lot to wait for my father to take me away from my first day back to this hell on earth, a voice calls my name from behind me. I turn, and it's Nat Kingsley, waving at me excitedly.

I'm still a bit freaked out by his behavior at lunch -- and by "a bit" I mean I couldn't stop thinking about it during my afternoon classes, but I can't really call it a distraction, because I don't remember learning any of the current or previous course material -- but I play it off. "Hey, what's up, Nat?"

While walking over to me, he makes the proposition of a lifetime. "You should join me and my friends for a friendly game of baseball on the field."

"As much as I'd love to get sweaty and dirty with boys twice my size, my mom drove me to school today, so she'll be here soon to pick me up."

"Text her then, and I'll drive you home." When I don't look convinced, Nat pushes some more. "Like you said, you need to build a life for yourself, and staying at home isn't going to do that."

I roll my eyes. "Fine."

Giddy, Nat takes me by the hand and runs with me to the locker room, where he tosses me the spare set of clothes from his locker -- a basic pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt of a band from the 80s, judging from the style of it -- and pulls his own outfit out the computer pocket of his backpack. "These aren't the best clothes for sliding, so we'll just have to try and avoid that." He strips his shirt off while I just look around shyly. "You forgot everything but your self consciousness?" Nat teases. I don't respond, so he just points towards the other room. "The stalls are in there."

I nod in thanks.

When we're both suited up in athletic clothing, we meet Nat's friends on the field. I recognize them as the people he was sitting with at lunch before he came to sit with me. They're not nearly as welcoming as Nat was, which I decipher from the way they stare at me without breaking their gaze as they pull Nat into a loose huddle and start whispering violently while I stand there awkwardly without enough information to interject or even understand.

"Dude, first you sit with him at lunch, then you invite him to our game. Why are you doing all of this?"

I've been asking myself the same thing since lunch.

"Yeah, bro, for real. You did a complete 180."

Stone cold, Nat replies, "Maybe you guys should, too."

He's pulled out of his huddle by a kiss from an attractive woman whom I didn't notice until she entered my unmoving line of sight directed towards the huddle. "Hey, Nat, baby," she coos as Nat's friends cheer like the heterosexual men that they are. Their attention goes from berating Nat to egging him on. It's strange how straight guys change when girls are around.

"Hi, Tessa." He doesn't sound very enthusiastic for whatever reason, but that's his business, not mine. "Are you here to play baseball with us?"

"You're funny. That's why I like you." After tapping his nose playfully with her index finger, she slides out of his arms and commences her journey to the bleachers.

"You know it," Nat says as Tessa relocates herself. Once she's out of conversational earshot, he swivels to me. "You ready?"

"No, but this is as close as I'm gonna get."

He scoffs, wraps his arm around my shoulders, and leads me away.

~~~~~

The game went fine -- not too emotionally or physically stressful -- but my already terrible baseball ability was worsened by both the animosity everyone but Nat stored for me and by the thoughts whirring through my head. I know Nat will be a healthy addition to my life, but he sure is perplexing me. I'm just glad the game is over and I can go home. Just because I got outside and did something productive doesn't mean my mindset has been completely shifted in favor of other activities like it.

I'm cooling off thanks to the air conditioning in Nat's car while he plugs my address into his navigator. I check my phone and find an additional text from my mom, written shortly after the one I actually saw where she gave me permission to play baseball. It expresses how happy she is that I've found friends already.

Speaking of friends, I'm still not sure how I acquired my first. "Why did you sit with me today? Was it to soothe your guilty conscience?"

Having finished the task of inputting my address, Nat has moved on to changing the gear, but his hand halts on the shifter, while his jaw clenches for roughly two seconds before being released to allow for speech. "Yeah, something like that." He puts the car in reverse and backs out of his parking spot.

~~~~~

A/N: i still dont know the name for the thing u use to shift gears so I took a suggestion from Yahoo answers

~Dakoot