Mark My Words

84 | Codependency Contract

Rosalie had never been carried bridal-style before. She attributed it to the fact that she had been in strength training since she was in middle school, and before then, she had always been taller than the rest of her classmates. So when Dylan Cox swept her off of her feet, she felt her survival instincts kick in from the sheer instant of weightlessness, and the sensation of having Dylan's arms tight around her abdomen and legs.

"Ah! Put me down, put me down!" she cried, but couldn't stop grinning like mad. Ray took a picture of them like that, and she knew it from the obnoxious camera sound effect clicking from beside Lennie, who looked unamused but pleased. It wasn't often that she even saw him smile.

The loudspeakers around the stadium clicked, an a moment later, Weezer started playing. Dylan dropped Rosalie's feet, and she hit the ground staggering. He steadied her with two hands on her shoulders as Rosalie said, "Coach is gonna annihilate Jamie-Lee..."

She passed a hand over the side of her face as students from around the stadium whooped and hollered. With the sun behind the stadium, they could all see Jamie-Lee jumping up, fists in the air, through the Fortress glass. Coach Maguire was already on her way up the stadium steps to the very top of the stands.

Rosalie turned to Joanna, smiling so wide her cheeks strained to keep up. Joanna was staring at her openly, looking thoroughly confused, as if she couldn't quite stick to the present where they would be going to prom together.

Rosalie leant towards her, an arm out, and hooked it around Joanna's shoulders. She dragged her up beside her and Dylan, who gave them both a squeeze with his massive, football biceps. Rosalie giggled and Joanna groaned against Dylan's left pec.

Coach marched into the Fortress and shut down the operation, and thus was how Jamie-Lee wound up with a week of detention—for good reason, according to him. It was a miracle Coach didn't tack that sentence onto her as well, but she was convinced it had more than a little to do with her status on the soccer team.

Practice came to an end after Coach walked Jamie-Lee down to the field and out of the stadium. Jamie-Lee pumped his fists in the air as he passed the group of track gets getting lectured by their coach, and they all threw their arms up and laughed when their coach told them to stop enabling Berry.

When they were dismissed to the locker rooms, Rosalie was more than a little relieved to find Joanna walking in step with her up the grassy hill to the propped open door down the hall from the locker rooms. She felt it deep beneath whatever facade she was wearing subconsciously then. For the moment, everything that had kept her mind occupied and distracted during classes faded into a dull, distant fog at the back of her mind.

She knew it was an obsession just as powerful as the hold Arden had on her mind, but for now, she could tolerate Arden Dodge as nothing more than a particle in the fog.

The soccer girls were dismissed around the same time as the track girls, and as they walked through the locker room, rows of lockers were occupied by track girls, who had no shame in staring when they passed. Rosalie grinned as she caught Joanna glaring at them, and at the first compliment to Rosalie's promposal, Joanna flipped them off.

Rosalie pushed open the soccer girls' locker room door and stepped through to an onslaught of their teammates clapping. The concrete walls and metal lockers made it echo for ages even after Rosalie blushed and cried in embarrassment, "Stop! Please—don't make a big deal out of it."

Brynn got up on one of the benches, cupped her hands over her mouth, and screamed, "ROSALIE'S GAY FOR JOANNA—"

"I'll punt your ass to Mars, Fox," Joanna snarled from behind Rosalie. Rosalie stepped to the side, looking back at the fierce look Joanna had on her face that had the underclassmen in the soccer room and out "ooo"ing scandalously.