Over the Wall: A Collection of Short Stories (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Day 16: Genetically Blessed Child

Note: Another short one but I think tomorrow will be longer. Also, this is dedicated to volley17ball17 for all her help during NaNoWriMo :)

She would be late if the game ran much longer. She had to be home by ten at the latest. Then she could shower and hopefully be asleep by eleven, maybe eleven thirty. She had to be up by seven tomorrow and in the car by seven thirty and arrive at eight. If she was running late then she would still have time before her nine fifteen appointment. She didn’t want to be late, it wouldn’t be worth staying at the game any extra time. It was already nine forty. She would leave at nine fifty.

She was sitting by her friends, Ellie and Jasmine, on the thirty yard line. They had decided to stay away from the huge group of people cheering on the fifty yard line so they could just watch and not have to worry about all the assholes. Jasmine’s words, not hers. It was only halftime so she knew she wouldn’t be able to stay the whole time. Her friends would be pissed but they’d get over it.

“Look who’s here.” Jasmine said, grinning. Ellie looked where Jasmine was an grinned as well. She, Hanna, looked at them with confusion.

“Who’s here?” They were blocking her view. She nudged them out of the way and scanned the crowds. When she saw him she pushed them back in her way and leaned back, hoping he hadn’t seen her. That would seem pathetic.

“What are you doing?” Jasmine said, looking ready to begin mocking her.

“Nothing.”

“Oh Jas, leave her alone.” Ellie said.

“I can’t leave her alone! She’s hiding from the love of her life and you can’t get mad at me for trying to convince her to do otherwise.” Jasmine said, exasperated.

“He’s not the love of my life.”

“He could be.”

“But I don’t know if he is or not.” Hanna said.

“Go find out.” Jasmine countered.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

“Good thing I don’t care about what you say. Go.” Hanna was about to tell Jasmine exactly how much she cared about what she wanted her to do but Ellie cut in.

“Hanna, just go over there.”

“Go over where! He’s just standing there.”

“Then wave.”

“No.”

“Come on.” Ellie said. “Just wave.” She and Jasmine moved out of the way so Hanna had an uninterrupted view of him.

She caught his eye and waved, trying to smile as normally as possible. He grinned and made his way through the crowd towards them, exactly what Hanna had feared he would do.

He had a nice easy smile. Everything about him seemed relaxed and at ease. Maybe that was why he made her so on edge, he was just too comfortable. It was almost like she had to keep herself from settling in, making herself at home. Maybe it was because he had already made himself at home, in a corner of her life. It was probably because she didn’t know how to deal with that.

He weaved his way through the crowd, smiling and waving to people as he went, and finally sat down next to her. Jasmine thought it was a good sign that he still sat with them even though he had seen many people he knew, mostly girls, on his way up and hadn’t gotten distracted. Especially since Jasmine knew most of them were probably hopelessly in love with him. Ellie had to admit that he was a genetically blessed child.