Chapter Twenty: Big Enough to Make National Headlines

      “Thanks, Dr. G.,” I bid, hitching my backpack over my shoulder as I attempted to leave the room. Preston was texting away at the desk beside mine and Dr. G. was at the front of the room, flipping through some papers.

      “Of course, Ms. Ross,” the aging man said, shooting a warm smile my way. “You’ve been working on your writing, I assume?”

      “Lately I’ve actually been in more of a drawing mood,” I admitted sheepishly.

      Dr. G. was my English teacher, and somehow between in-class assignments, homework, and the endless amount of papers that I had written for the class, he had discovered that I liked to write, and was good at it. He had seen me jot down things in my notebook, and once interrogated me about it after the lesson, questioning why I had done such a thing in the middle of his class. I explained that when an idea or word or phrase popped into mind, my immediate reaction was to write it down. Being a writer himself, he understood perfectly, and allowed me to continue with my habit throughout the year. As for my drawing, he wasn’t exactly as lenient. I had been caught drawing a few times during his class, and each time I had been at the receiving end of one of his notorious glares. The writing he was okay with, but the drawing…not so much.

      “You’re a creative kid, Olivia, I’d just veer towards literacy rather than art if I were you. It’ll give you more options later in life,” the man advised.

      “I understand that perspective, Dr. G., though writing is a form of art, so I think that I’ll stick with the broader category and not limit myself to one field just yet,” I told him with a fond smile. He grinned back, nodding his head at me in acceptance of what I had said.

      “Yo, Liv,” Preston addressed me, “you in the mood to chill in the gym for lunch today?”

      I was about to respond to my best friend, though my favorite teacher did so before I had the chance. “Preston,” Dr. G. began in that tone of his that possessed a sprinkle of disappointment and a dash of sighing in it, “if you’re going to speak in my classroom—an English room, no less—please stick to at least the basic guidelines of the English language.”

      “Yeah, totally will, Doc,” Preston dismissed the educator.

      “Prest, he doesn’t want you to say ‘yo’ in his room,” I translated with an exhale of air. Preston’s eyes then lit up, as if only now coming to the realization of what our teacher had meant.

      “Got’cha, Dr. G.,” Preston said, lightly taking my hand and quickly leading me out of the room as to not get prosecuted for his “unique” speech patterns any longer. Based on the direction Preston was going, I deducted that we were headed to debatably my least favorite location in the entire school: the gym.

      We had made it a good way down the hallway from our English class, when we heard both of our names being called from behind us. “Preston Kent, Olivia Ross!” We both spun around (Preston more eager than I, for he was basically a hyperactive hummingbird and I wasn’t), only to face that girl from English who we had been partnered with for the long-term project on ethics. She was the competitive one who always wore headbands and was probably just another Elle Ross clone, only worse. And there she was, beckoning our very names. Lucky us.

      “Hi,” Preston called from where we were, not bothering to approach her, for she was already on a mission to reach us with the fast pace she had taken.

      “Have you two even started your parts of the project yet?” she asked, wasting no time getting down to business. It wasn’t going to be a conversation that explored the meaning of life or even the weather. It was purely professional.

      “No,” Preston said honestly, ready for whatever wrath she had in store for him. But because he happened to be Preston Kent and have the face of an “angel,” the future lawyer who would no doubt end up in therapy one day (if she wasn’t already) didn’t yell at him or even so much as scold him for his lack of progress. All she did was bite down on her lip, visibly surveying his body. I, on the other hand, was not as lucky.

      “Olivia, have you started your part of the project yet?” she then stiffly shifted her focus to me.

      “No,” I answered in the same manner that Preston had.

      “Are you serious?” she exclaimed, instead of checking me out like she had with the Kent twin. “Olivia! This is a serious project! I need to get a good grade on this! You better get to work on it soon!”

      “I will,” I told her calmly, “eventually.”

      She just rolled her eyes at me, sending a flirtatious grin at Preston, and then she was off in a huff, her arms crossed over her chest. Preston and I watched as she stomped back down the hallway in the same manner that she came, not entirely sure how to react to the encounter. Laughing didn’t quite feel appropriate, and neither did crying. Thus, we opted for an awkward silence, for it just naturally was able to fill the void.

      We began to walk once again, and after a while, a question surfaced in my mind, and I decided to verbalize it. “Hey, Preston,” I started, making sure that he was paying attention to what I was saying, “why are we going to the gym?”

      “Because it’s the end of basketball season and we have a team meeting and since Piper mentioned that she was having a chat with her clingy ex,” I was about to ask which, for Piper had quite a few exes that fell under that description, though Preston elaborated, “the American one named Matt or something, I thought we could chill with the team together.”

      “We have a basketball team?” I queried, genuinely unaware of information prior to now. Sports weren’t exactly my “thing,” so I tried to know as little about them as possible. Then again, with no cheerleaders, and the addition of only the most obscure sports like ultimate Frisbee and Ping-Pong, sports weren’t really THE Academy’s “thing,” either. If one wanted to excel at a sport, THE was not the place to do it. We weren’t exactly a “sports” school. We had them, the guys (and some girls) loved them, but they weren’t the main focus of our dear school—thankfully.

      “Yeah, Liv, we do,” Preston said in regards to THE possessing a basketball team. “I’ve been on the varsity team since I was a freshman.”

      “Oh,” was all I said, not feeling as dumb as I probably should have. “So why am I being dragged along to your team meeting?”

      “Because leaving you alone makes me feel bad inside,” Preston sighed truthfully.

      I flicked his shoulder at the reply, sticking my tongue out at him immaturely. “I’m almost always alone, Prest. Besides, maybe I could go find Luke or something so that I’m not alone,” I mused.

      “Exactly like I said: leaving you alone makes me feel bad inside,” he said, which I think was in response to my Luke comment. Even after spending thirty-six hours with the guy in the middle of nowhere (the shower I had taken when we got home was undoubtedly the single-handedly best one of my life), Preston still hadn’t fully warmed up to Luke. There was something about him that Preston didn’t like. Personally, I figured that it was just that Preston thought of Luke as a threat to our friendship, but that boy was nuts, so I would never know for sure.

      Preston took hold of my hand, and I sighed, accepting the gesture. He dragged me right beside him into the gym, and I just followed along limply, not even bothering to object when we entered the large space that smelled of crayons and sweat with an elk in the center of the wooden floor, for it was our idiotic mascot. Elks. Of all the animals in the world, an elk happened to represent the school that I attended. A freaking elk. Why not a “normal” lion or eagle? What was wrong with the cliché “wildcat” that probably wasn’t even a real cat? Elks. The THE Elks. Idiotic, really.

      When we walked into the space, I immediately noticed the clump of attractive boys assembled on the silver bleachers—where we were headed, no less. I had seen the majority of them around school over the years, so recognized some of their faces, but by no means did I actually know any of them. They were all relatively tall, just as basketball players should’ve been, and were in the midst of a heated debate, thankfully not paying any mind to either Preston or I. 

      Preston confidently strut right up to them, his hand still attached to mine, and made an introduction that caused everyone to peer our way. “Sup, dudes? Sorry I’m late, my AP English class can really interfere with my lunch plans sometimes,” Preston laughed, stressing the “AP” as much as possible, for to him and everyone else it was ultimately a joke. Preston Kent was not the type of boy who should’ve been in an advanced placement class. Ever.

      “AP my ass!” one of the guys called.

      “I am actually in an ap,” he said it as in the word “gap” or “map,” rather than saying the two letters, as standard, “class, but that’s just because not everyone can be as smarterer as me.”

      “You’re such an idiot,” another guy shouted, earning him a round of laughter from a few of the others seated.

      “Anyways, you boys know Liv, right?” He motioned to me as he made my introduction, and my stomach churned as all the eyes then shifted over to me.

      “No,” someone called out, “are you two screwing?”

      “F*ck, no!” Preston swore strongly. It was rare for him to use such a severe phrase as the F-bomb. He usually stuck to casual cusses—you know, the ones that a teacher would glare at you for if it slipped, though would never actually call you out. He only pulled out the big guns when necessary. I guess now was as necessary a time as ever. “Bros, this is Olivia Ross, my best friend. She’s single, but if you hit on her, I’ll break your neck.”

      “Why is she here?” the inevitable question that I, too, had been wondering was blurted out.

      “Because I brought her,” Preston said as if it were the simplest thing ever. And with that, he hauled me over to the big, scary bleachers with all the other adolescent boys, and began a conversation about basketball, completely dropping the subject of me.

      After a while, I got pretty bored of not being able to follow what the guys were saying, so resorted to pulling out my trusty notebook and flipping it open to a random page. I thought back to what Dr. G. had said earlier, and decided that instead of drawing something having to do with basketball or an abstract representation of it, I would write about it.

      Basketball, I began, messily scribbling it down at the top of the paper, but then crossed a large black line over it. I wasn’t in the mood for prose. I started again, writing “BASKETBALL” vertically, so that each letter fit on a different line. Then, not even thinking about it, I wrote the first thing that came to mind, somewhat in regards to the sport and corresponding letter, so that I was left with a neat little acrostic poem. It was pretty crappy, but so was topic, so it would have to do for now:

      Beads of sweat

      Are pouring down

      Safe and sound

      Kept out of harms way

      Even in the toughest of days

      Teamwork prevails 

      Because it hales

      All the way to victory

      Left without a contradictory, but rather

      Left with a win.

      It was no Emily Dickenson, but that was fine, considering she was a rather depressed poet who spent all her time locked up in her room, writing dreary poetry that often left the reader with a frown on their face. Sometimes I could write okay poetry, but I had to have the precise inspiration. The same went for drawing—if I had no muse, then I could end up drawing circles upon circles upon circles on a piece of paper for hours on end. Poetry was a lot like abstract art, because while it was still trying to convey a message, it was more up to interpretation. As for prose, it was more like realism art, for there was a basic idea that was clear, though some amount of speculation was still encouraged. Writing and drawing went hand in hand.

      Preston glanced over my shoulder, taking a quick break from whatever was concerning his team, and then read what I had written, his lips opening and closing as he quietly said the words to himself. It took him a good two minutes to finish reading the poem, and he was then left with an expression drenched in confusion. When it came to my art, Preston’s favorite form was drawing, because it was only visual and required the least amount of thought. Prose he could handle, though he didn’t really like it, and then there was my poetry. Preston Kent did not do poetry. He didn’t like it, and rarely was there ever a time when he fully understood the words that he was reading. Poetry just wasn’t for him.

      “I don’t get it,” Preston whispered to me, after having read my words over twice more.

      “It’s an acrostic,” I sighed, tracing the marks that my pen had made with the tip of nail.

      “It doesn’t make sense,” he stated densely.

      “It spells out basketball,” I told him, running my index finger along the first letter of each word, so that he saw.

      “Oh,” he muttered, that spark going off inside his head as he finally somewhat comprehended what I had done. “So it’s about basketball?”

      “Yep,” I said, just as a buzzing sound went off from within my backpack. I shut my notebook, and dropped it back into my bag, extracting my phone in exchange. Glancing down at the screen for a few brief seconds, I wasn’t sure if what my eyes saw was real, or merely a figment of my dark, dark imagination. I tilted the device so that Preston could view it, and his eyes widened as he snatched it right away from me.

      “No F-ing way,” he breathed, rereading the text I had received.

      “I know,” I blinked, still stunned.

      “Why does she always text you first?” he whined. “Why can’t the two of us just be on the same mailing list or something?”

      “Because she expects you to use your special twin telepathy to receive any new information,” I snorted, processing once again what I had read, not believing it.

      “Newsflash, Liv: twin telepathy is complete B.S. We figured that out, like, two years ago,” Preston said, skimming the words once more for himself. He just shook his head, handing my phone back over to me. Matt and i r back together!!!! Such simple words to be stunned by, but the sender had been Piper Kent, so to me, shock was a mild reaction.

      Since about fifth grade (maybe fourth) when Piper Kent began “dating,” she had never once “gotten back together” with the same boy. Once she dumped a guy, he was done—and done for good. Piper would only “date” a guy once, the reasoning being that if she was willing to break up with him the first time, it would inevitably happen again. It made some amount of sense to me, just not a ton. In summary: Piper never “dated” the same guy twice…until now.

      Unless Piper’s text was referencing another “Matt” or a different variation of the term “I,” then chances were good that Piper had actually meant that she and “Matt” were “back together.” Then again, it was Piper Kent, so maybe she just meant that they were “back together” in the sense of basic spatial boundaries. And then on the other hand, Piper wasn’t one for ambiguity, so chances were good that the text was stating exactly what I thought it was: Piper Kent and Matt Something were “back together.”

      “Uh, Preston,” I gulped, having come to my frightening revelation, “I think that she was being serious.”

      “So do I,” he sighed, standing up from the bleachers and looking longingly at his posse of basketball cohorts. In a loud voice, he made an announcement that caused all eyes to zoom to him. “Sorry, dudes, um, I kinda have an emergency, so Livy and I going to jet out early.” And because he was Preston Kent, simply slipping out without a word wasn’t in his playbook.

      “See ya, man,” someone said. Other phrases of parting were uttered, and then Preston and I quickly scrambled out of the worst room in the entire school (the dreaded library included), and then rushed into the moderately buzzing hallway. After that, we put our game faces on, and went straight into action.

      Room 125. That was where Piper did all her dirty work and transactions. It was an abandoned room, used only for the storage of extra desks and chairs, and rarely did anyone ever go into it…well, except for Piper. During her freshman year, an older “boyfriend” of hers had wanted to, uh, meet behind the field bleachers outside. Piper being Piper thought that it was the tackiest thing ever, so refused and came up with an alternative: Room 125. And ever since that fateful day, she had dubbed the unlucky room as her own. Occasionally we would chill or eat lunch in it, but the deeds that had taken place within haunted the walls, so it wasn’t exactly the most “inviting” of places. Regardless, Piper liked it just fine—which was why it happened to be our destination.

      There was no doubt in either our minds that Piper was in Room 125. She always was. And so, that was the exact reason that we sped-walked down the halls of THE Academy, not even conferring with each other where we were going—we both knew. Preston and I were on a mission, and that mission involved our third counterpart and making sure that she was sane, because based on the text we had gotten, we weren’t so sure.

      When we finally reached Room 125, my eyes connected with those blue ones belonging to Preston, and he nodded, signaling that there was only one thing to do in the situation—barge into the room like we were saving the world. Thus, I tentatively knocked on the door, receiving no reply from the other side. Preston rolled his eyes at my reservations, and took the liberty of opening the door, without so much as a warning sign for whoever was on the other side.

      “Hiya, guys!” Piper greeted, set in a rather compromising position with a boy I believed to be “Matt.” Her hands were jumbled in his hair, and his hands were set on her waist, while his lips attacked her neck. Slowly, the two untangled, once “Matt” had realized that there were now others in their presence.

      “Piper,” Preston said slowly, studying the two closely, “are you all right?”

      “Uh, yeah,” Piper said with a roll of her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

      “You texted me, saying that you were ‘back together’ with ‘Matt,’” I said, explaining the reasoning behind our concern.

      “That’s because I am back together with Matt,” the blonde smiled, intertwining her fingers with the boy next to her.

      “Uh, how?” Preston asked, his eyes darting back and forth between the “couple” and me.

      “Well, Matt said that he wanted to talk because he didn’t like how we ended things—and I didn’t really either—and so we came here to talk and then he said that he wanted to get back together, so I said okay,” Piper rambled on happily.

      “Just like that?” I blinked.

      “Just like that,” she grinned, holding up the two’s hands that served as the very strange confirmation of their reconnection. Up until today, Piper Kent had never “dated” a guy more than once. And now she had. If that wasn’t something big enough to make national headlines, I didn’t know what was.