“Hey….you think…mmm…you think…?”
Annoyed at the station being changed and Henry still talking, I look over. “What man?”
“You think Silver would go out with me?”
My stomach twists up in a way that it never had before.
Silver.
My Silver.
I want to laugh at the thought because Silver had never ever been mine. We didn’t care for each other. In fact, the hate was rooted deep within us and it had been that way ever since kindergarten.
My fingers could still feel the stitching of the silver ribbon I’d yanked out of her hair that day all those years ago.
So pretty, I’d thought.
Still thought.
With a quickness usually reserved for the football field, I offered my good friend Henry a smile. “I heard she gave Sam Messinger a blow job in the girl’s bathroom last week.”
“What?”
“Yeah, man. I say go for it.”
Henry gripped the wheel of the truck just as we pulled into East Cannan High school’s parking lot and into his reserved spot. I watched as he bit his lip and then shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“Just reporting what I heard.”
Students were milling around, and offering us looks. As football players and student athletes we were the cream of the crop. We could have had any pussy we wanted and Henry’s ass was keeping me from it.
“Fuck it,” he shrugged.
“Still gonna go for it?” I asked sliding out and grabbing my gym back.
“What’s he gonna go for,” Derek asked as he jumped down from the truck bed.
“He wants to ask out Silver Crane,” I shrugged. “But I told him I heard she gave Sam a blow job in the girl’s bathroom last week.”
“I heard the same thing,” Derek nodded confirming my story.
Inwardly, I winced because I’d made the story up on the spot and now here my teammate was validating the claim.
“Damn,” Henry shook his head.
Later on, around lunch time the school had been a buzz just like I’d planned. The story about Silver and Sam Messinger had spread like wildfire. I had killed any interest that Henry might have had in Silver.
Check and mate.
I’d been standing outside talking to a few other jocks when school had let out. The sun had been shining brightly, anticipation high for tonight’s game when I’d seen her.
Silver.
She’d ran out of the school, tears drenching her face.
The rumor had spiraled out of control…
