Becoming Flynn - Noah's Story

Four - Protection.

Mom is the best. She called me in sick at school for the rest of the week but I had to agree to go to school again on Monday. This was more than I had expected of her. After the fight with Lee, I ran off without talkingto her or anyone but she must have gotten a pretty good picture from whatever Lee (and maybe Elle) had told her. I was not expecting her to be this understanding but apparently she had waited for me to fall in love and have my heart broken for quite some time. Well, that time had definitely come. After the phone call, a small wave of relief flooded through me but the feeling did not stay long.

I heated a can of mac 'ncheese, sat on the porch of the beach house and stared out in the now dark night. The cool air somehow calmed me down. My mind still needed to come to terms with what had happened. After really seeing Ellefor the first time, I began to notice more and more things about her I liked. But in the beginning, it was just that – things I liked about another person. Then it was hard to see her so unhappy when her mom died and I dreaded the long time afterwards until I heard her laugh wholeheartedly again. I guess that was about the time I started to feel protective of her.

One day at football practice, the coach made us run five miles. The day was unusually hot for fall and we took a break afterwards watching the girls' soccerteam play. Elle was on the field but I only started paying attention after I heard some whispered remarks and laughter from the guys. Looking across the field, I noticed Elle must have gotten hot and left the field to take off her long-sleeved shirt. She got completely tangled up in the shirt. In an attempt to wiggle out of it, she had pushed her chest out and bent back making her cleavage pop out. It was laughable and so typically Elle. I could not make up my mind whether to laugh at her, pity her or just role my eyes until I heard Brandon whistle next to me. In a final desperate move to pull the shirt off, she had managed that her top had ridden up, exposing the bottom of her sports bra. Once she was decent again, she got back in the game without noticing any of the hormonal turmoil she had caused.

I was not the only player on the football team and Elle now suddenly had a bullseye on herback. I at least prided myself with not lying to the girls to get what I wanted, Brandon, a senior, did the opposite. His locker room stories were full of the tales he told girls to get them laid. He had promised three different girls to take them to the last prom, only to go stag with his boys.

When I got out of the shower after practice, Bradon was thinking out loud about the best way to ask her out and Warren advised him: "Just tell her you go to homecoming with her!"

Everyone laughed and came up with more good advice for Brandon. Suddenly, I had it. A picture of a sad-faced Elle lying crying on Lee's bed flashed before my eyes, a scene I had seen to often in the recent past. Before I could even finish that thought, I had pushed Brandon against a closed locker door, pinninghim down with my underarm across his throat.

"You are not going out with Elle Evans."

Emphasis on the 'not'. Brandon's eyes widened only for a split second, then he got me in the kidney. The fight that followed was ended by our coach before I could clearly win it. Nevertheless, I had apparently made myself clear enough, no one immediately approached Elle.

Only a little while later however, some guy from the tennis' team decided it would be a great idea to ask Elle out. His girl-friend had picked me to cheat on him and even though I was clueless at the time and it was entirely not my fault, he needed someone to blame. Obviously, he had decided this would be a good way to pay me back. News however travel fast in our school and I twisted his arm so hard, he missed the next two tournaments.

Soon after, I found out that my message had been received loud and clear throughout our school. I was standing in line for lunch in the cafeteria when I overheard two geeky sophomores in front of me debating if one of them would dare to ask Elle out and how he would handle the 'Flynn situation'. I cleared my throat and step in close enough to breach the comfort zone of the daring one and glared at him. He gulp, hisfriend made a funny sound, and they both left the lunch line without a word. That was the last I heard of anyone attempting to date Elle until that idiot Tuppen made his move.

It was never my intention to keep Elle from dating entirely, it just should not be the wrong guy. Not necessarily me, that had not been on my mind until quite some time later. Just no jerks, idiots, or someone who was generally wrong for her. Now, it had turned out she thought I was wrong for her, too, and I could not entirely blame her. If I had just stayed in my room, maybe things would have gone better between Lee and her. But maybe she would have played things down to avoid hurting him. For a tiny moment, I had been glad that it all had been out and a slight feeling of anger crept up in me. Why was my dumb brother so upset about us? He had a girl-friend and Elle better dated me than some douchebag. If he weren't so selfish as to want her all to himself, we could have just been happy.

The anger was soon followed by exhaustion. Tomorrow, I would figure things out but now,I just wanted to sleep.