It's My Life - Stacie Ramey Page 0,68
I did. Everyone did.
“Danbury was pissed about the game. I mean, I knew they were, but this…” She pushes my chair toward the gym exit, because with the craziness and mayhem I’d have a hard time maneuvering myself. “Did you see how mad our guys were? It’s going to be a bad night.”
“What do you mean?”
She leans close to my ear. “Retaliation,” she whispers.
Ben clips along next to us, checking his cell the whole way. “I didn’t get a decent shot.”
Rena smacks him.
“What? We could’ve used it for a pie-throwing booth or something at our next carnival.”
“Nice.”
My head is throbbing. My eyes feel bloodshot. My mind is dizzy with all that just happened. Julian just asked me if I was Elsa. I just answered. And before he could respond, my world completely exploded, the room shattered instead. Now Julian and the other hockey players are out doing God knows what in some sort of revenge. Could hockey player revenge be good?
When we’re out in the hall, I turn to Ben. “My phone?”
“Oh right, here.” He fumbles around, patting his pockets. “Oh no.”
“What?” My stomach falls.
“I’m not sure where it is.”
“You have to find it!” What if Julian tries to reach me?
Ben races back toward the room gym. Mr. Wainscott blocks the entrance, but he moves aside to let my bestie go in, courtesy of all of Ben’s contributions to our school. He’s a golden boy, thankfully. Right now I need that influence. I need my phone back.
“Don’t worry,” Rena says. “He’ll find it. Did you see how mad the hockey players got with this whole thing?”
“Yeah.”
Kids rush by us. Rena’s head twists and turns. “They’re following our hockey players.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Everyone’s pulling out of the parking lot, fast. What do you think that means?”
“It means we need to find Ben.”
“Right here,” I hear him say from behind us. He comes around my chair and hands me my cell. Except the screen is cracked. “Sorry about that. I found it on the floor.”
Rena grabs it, and I almost die right there. I really can’t have my baby sister reading my texts with Julian. “Yeah. It’s pretty smashed.”
She gives it to me. I push the buttons, and I’m unable to get it to respond at all. My heart falls. No communication with Julian. And right when he asked me the big question. We hadn’t even had a chance to talk about it. But he knew. He knew. And he didn’t seem to be upset. He seemed interested. Happy. He looked like he wanted to kiss me. He talked like he wanted us to see each other. Like maybe he’d forgiven me for catfishing him. Those thoughts wrap themselves around my heart as Rena guides my chair to Ben’s car.
I use my crutches to make my way to the front passenger side, where Rena helps me into my seat. Ben loads my wheelchair into the trunk, then comes around and gets in, starting the car.
Rena’s working her phone. “Everyone’s headed to Danbury High.” She’s breathless. “We should go too, don’t you think?”
Ben’s hands grip and ungrip the wheel. Then he turns to me. “We should probably go home. Right?”
And I’m so torn. Part of me wants to be there, making certain Julian is okay. But the other part wants to get home so I can use my iPad to send messages. We were interrupted at the worst possible time. I want to be ready to see what he has to say about all this. When he’s done with this drama and ready to deal with our drama.
“Let’s go to Danbury. See what’s happening,” Rena answers for me.
As we head toward Danbury, I’m sort of excited to be part of this entire deal. We pass through the Danbury town square and Rena points. “Turn right at the light.”
It’s not hard to see where we are going; there’s a line of cars pulling into the high school ahead of us.
The trees blur by, and they conspire with the night sky to keep me in my head. I can almost believe that this is all part of a fantasy. But as we take the last turn toward the Danbury football field, I see my dreams literally go up in smoke. Our guys are on the grass and there are five fires climbing from the trash cans scattered around the perimeter.
“This is not good,” I say. There are too many people.
Ben parks the car and turns the ignition off. Around us, other cars park.