My Escape Chapter 13 (Part 1)

The championship game was held a week later. Eastwood versus Westwood was in full swing; banners lining each of the schools, temporary tattoos with the mascots being handed out, the traditional pranks against the rival school. Local businesses were promoting whichever team was their favorite.
Excitement and anxiety was easily felt anywhere you walked in town. Never had it been like this before. Eastwood always made it to the championship game—always. But this was the first time in decades that Westwood had made it. And since Eastwood and Westwood were the main rivals, the game was going to be huge.
Teenagers were wearing T-shirts promoting the school or the school colors. Some people—all guys—painted themselves in the school colors and brought air horns.
The game brought people from the same school together for one common purpose: destroy the other team. People who would usually hate each other, got together to paint banners or posters and ended up becoming friends. It was almost kind of weird how big of a difference everything was making.
The staff for the paper was holding a meeting three hours before the big game so that everyone knew what they were covering. For once, our sponsor was conscious and actually talking. Maybe the championship game buzz was getting to her too.
I stood at the front of the classroom with a piece of chalk in my hand. Everyone’s name was written on the board along with what they would be covering at tonight’s game. We had come up with the idea last week to have one entire issue dedicated to the game.
Jessie was sitting at her computer with her hands folded across her chest, looking dreadfully bored. I asked her, "What article you doing?"
She sneered at me and said, "I have to work the concession stand tonight."
"Then you can cover that," I told her, with a sadistic smile on my face. Oliver had given me a few pointers on how to handle people like Jessie the other night. It had been a fun conversation.
She looked at me, jaw slacked. "You want me to write an entire article on the concession stand? That’s total bull shit. Have a freshman do it."
The one freshman on the staff—she had better grades than me—looked at her, appalled. Then she smiled condescendingly at her and said, "Excuse me, but I’m already writing an article. I get to interview the football players after the game…in the locker room."
Jessie’s mouth dropped open and she turned towards me. Every female on the newspaper staff wanted that article. Especially Jessie seeing as how her boyfriend was on the football team—he was the last resort quarterback. She asked disbelievingly, "You gave her the article? You knew fully well how much I wanted that one!"
"Yeah?" I asked her, an evil grin on my face. "Well, unlike you, she takes the newspaper seriously. When she turns in her articles, she leaves out the kindergarten insults."
Jessie asked, "So what are covering Kara? I mean, can you even say you’re rooting for this school? Your boyfriend is on the other team. How are you going to show your face at the game? Everyone knows that y’all are dating."
It was true that everyone knew. Oliver had skipped practice one day to pick me up from school and a few people had noticed. And then we had gone to Sonny’s Diner later that night and the entire football team and cheerleading squad had seen. But they had been totally supportive seeing as how my brother told them to lighten up.
Sometimes it was really nice to have a brother with power over the student body.
"Even though Oliver does play for them…my support will always go for Eastwood. Oliver knows and is okay with that. So your little plan for turning the paper staff against me isn’t going to work, Jessie. Now please remove the stick shoved up your ass and let’s get to work."
Everyone else in the room snickered and Jessie blushed scarlet. I smiled and then said, "Now let’s get to work. Jessie, you’re covering the concession stand." And as I wrote "concession stand" next to Jessie’s name, I couldn’t help but smile.

As I pulled into the stadium parking lot that night, a sense of enthusiasm washed over me. Not only had I gotten here thirty minutes earlier than the two hours early I was supposed to be so that I could see Oliver, but this would also be the first time I would get to see him play.
When I pulled into a space along the back fence, I looked around to see how many other cars were there. Oliver wasn’t there yet, but about five other cars were. I looked at the clock on the dashboard and noticed that I was on time.
In the week-and-a-half that I had been dating Oliver, I had picked up a few more things about his personality. He was always late. He wasn’t late by like an hour or anything horrible like that, but always about five or ten minutes late. And since I was always somewhere early, there would be a gap of time waiting for him where I would become agitated.
But somehow or another, he always managed to make me forgive him. He was just evil that way. So now, I had succumbed to getting somewhere right on time so that I wouldn’t have to wait as long. I wasn’t a very patient person.
Two minutes later, I looked behind me and saw his truck pulling into the parking lot. Wow, he did pretty well tonight. He was still late, but early for being late.
He pulled into the space next to me and then hopped right out of his truck. My heart rate started to quicken, but I had gotten used to that. Anytime I saw his face, it would do strange things to my body. But I was familiar with it now and had come to love it. Well, more than love it really.
As I got out of my car, I caught a whiff of the smell of the stadium. It smelt like freshly cut grass and competition. Right as I was out of my car and the door was shut, Oliver wrapped his arms around me in a hug. But then I pulled him into a kiss that I felt all the way to my toes. I had missed him, okay?
"Kara," he groaned and then pulled away. Within the week-and-a-half that we had been dating, I had realized that another part of him hated it when old people saw us kiss. He told me that it freaked him out because it was kind of like old people watching porn. He didn’t have a problem when it was like people our age, but he freaked out when it came to people over thirty.
Maybe there were a few people in the parking lot that were a tad bit older than us, but seriously. I had missed him and I knew that he had missed me. So why was it bad for us to kiss?
And even though I had somewhat understood where he had been coming from, I had still looked at him like an idiot. I pulled the cloth of his T-shirt and said, "You do realize that even though we’re together, I still think you have issues needing to be sorted out."
"And I still think you need to loosen up sometimes. But you know what? It’s fun that you have issues because I get to make fun of you for them," he told me with a taunting smile.
"But if you think about it, most people over thirty have kids, and to get kids you have to do more than kiss. So I still don’t know why it freaks you out."
"It just does, okay? God. I don’t understand why you spend so long editing articles. Have you never heard of spell check on the computer?"
We did this constantly. We were either arguing, having a deep conversation—these were rare, but nice—or we were somehow physically engaged. I had gone to his house once, he had come to my house twice, and then we had met up somewhere after his practice. But somehow or another, I never got sick of it. Arguing with him was basically the highlight of my day.
I rolled my eyes at him and he scolded, "Glue!"
We had been at his house one night after school—his parents had had a business meeting—and we had been arguing and he had kept count of how many times I had rolled my eyes. Then I tried to point it out to him that he did it too, but he didn’t believe me. And then he had suggested that we yell something at the other when we do it and when I asked him what he had said, "Glue."
I had asked "Why glue?" and then he had said, "Because I still believe your eyes will get stuck and glue is sticky. Duh." When I think back on it, I still don’t know how he could have picked a dumber word, but he had used his Oliver logic on me and "glue" had stuck.
Even though I fully knew I had rolled my eyes, I still said, "I did not!" Every night he would text me how many times he had said "glue" and I had said "glue" and he would always win. He would always say it more than me because he believed I rolled my eyes more. And I was a very competitive person—well, when it came to Oliver and school—and I hated losing.
"You so did!" he argued back and then dropped his hands from around me. I gave him a pointed look and then he happily placed his hands on my waist. He knew that I hated it when he wasn’t touching me so he always happily obliged.
"I so didn’t," I argued and then heard a loud sneeze coming from across the lot. I turned my head away from Oliver—unhappily so—and saw our school principle standing against the stadium’s outer walls, picking his nose.
Ew.
But Oliver didn’t even notice. Instead he buried his head in the crook of my neck like he always did when he wanted to get his way—and he always got his way too—and blew air into my ear. "You did too," he murmured and I found my hands making their way to the back of his neck to grab his hair so that he would kiss me.
He was still the same little puppeteer if you hadn’t already noticed.
I sighed and then said, "Fine."
"Now say I’m sexy…" he teased, his voice mocking.
I smiled and said, "I’m sexy."
He jerked his head upwards and said, "That’s not what I meant!"
"Are you implying that I’m not sexy?"
"No! But I’m…you…" He huffed and then playfully crossed his arms over his chest. He said, "I hate you."
"Sure you do," I said sarcastically. He told me this many times a day and vice-versa. Saying "I hate you" was our term of affection. Well, kind of, anyways.
"I do," he insisted.
I walked up to him, gave him a slight smile, and then wrapped my arms around him. At first he didn’t even put his arms around me back, but after a second, he gave in. I looked up at him, my cheek on his warm chest, and said, "Told you so."
He stuck his tongue out at me and then quickly pressed his lips against mine. When he pulled back, he was smiling. He said, "You’re going to hate me when our team beats yours tonight."
I pulled back from him. "Oh, Eastwood is so going to win. Y’all have never even been in the championship game before," I said pointedly, earning a grimace from him.
"Well, I’ve never been the starting quarterback, so hah. We’re going to whoop Eastwood’s ass."
"Want to make it interesting?" I proposed, taking a step closer to him.
He smiled evilly. I knew he would be fully willing to jump at the chance to hold something over me. "What’d you have in mind?"
After I thought about it for a minute, I told him, "If Eastwood wins, you have to celebrate the way I want to tonight, and if Westwood wins…"
He cut me off with a devilish grin, "You and I are so going to play strip poker."
I shook my head and said, "No way."
He walked over to me and then wrapped his arms around my waist. I looked up at him as he said, "You came up with the idea of betting. That’s my prize."
I sighed; Eastwood was going to win anyways. "Fine; let’s shake on it."
I held up my hand, but instead he said, "I have another way to seal the deal."
I immediately knew what it was, and I was fully willing to kiss him right now, but I had to point out, "There’s a few people over thirty here."
He looked around for a second, told me, "They’re not anymore," and then kissed me. At first I thought it was just going be another one of those quick, sweet kisses. But after a minute, I realized that this one was more deep and sensual; one that made me want to drag him into my bedroom and never let him leave.
After about two minutes, when I was pressed against the back of my car, and his hands were on the sides of my head, I pulled away. This time he groaned because I didn’t let it go on longer. "Kara, are you trying to kill me?" he asked, resting his forehead on mine.
I sighed and looked up at him, "If it went on any longer, I would never let you leave this parking lot."
He smiled seductively at me and asked, "Tomorrow?" I knew what he was referring to, and so I nodded. Either I would be going to his house or he would be coming to mine. Even though we spent just about every moment out of school together—he’s even laid on my bed while I wrote an article—we still couldn’t spend enough time together. It was basically ridiculous, but I didn’t care. I had something to look forward to other than this game.

When Oliver left and I was walking towards the entrance to the stadium, I heard someone yell my name. At first I would have thought they were calling someone else, but then I remembered that I was the only Kara at Eastwood. Since my dad had named Greg, my mom wanted to name me and she had wanted something unique.
I whirled around and found Claire and Tom walking hand-in-hand towards me. It was kind of weird to see them together and not down each others’ throats. I hadn’t seen her since I had told her I wouldn’t go to the party and I was surprised that she even wanted to talk to me. I would have thought she would have avoided me.
"Hey, Claire," I told her and then said, "Hi, Tom."
"Kara," he greeted, giving me one of those macho head nods.
Claire whispered something in his ear; he nodded and then walked off by himself towards the front gate. After he was gone she said, "You know I’m not into the whole mushy conversations about feelings and shit, but you haven’t talked to me in almost two weeks. What the hell is wrong with you?"
There was my Claire. The one who was totally straight-forward and jumped at any opportunity to use curse words. But underneath her punk, I hate the world attitude, she was a total mush.
But even knowing that, I was still scared she wouldn’t like me anymore. I mean, I was so boring and she wasn’t. So that was why I hadn’t made the first move to talk to her. I had thought she would curse me out and then hang up the phone. Now looking at her, though, I realized how stupid I had been.
Claire was my best friend and she didn’t even know I was dating Oliver Carter. She didn’t know that my brother and I were somewhat friends now and that my dad was acting more like a man than a potato. She didn’t know any of these things and she was supposed to be my best friend.
I looked around the parking lot and saw Jessie parking her station wagon next to Oliver’s truck. She was such a bitch. The only people arriving now were football players who were late, cheerleaders, flag lines, and the newspaper staff. So why was Claire there early?
"Nothing…I thought you didn’t want to talk to me. I thought you were pissed about the whole party thing."
She rolled her eyes; "You’ve said no to parties plenty of times. I’m pretty used to it."
"Then why didn’t you call me?" I asked her. She was blaming all of this on me and she wasn’t giving herself any blame. Like that was fair.
"Because I’m fucking grounded!" she exclaimed. "Don’t you listen? My grandparents won’t let me talk on the phone or anything. But they love you, so if you had called me then it would have been okay. The only reason I’m here is because I told them that I had to work the concession stand."
"Oh," I muttered, totally forgetting that she had been grounded. I mean, I knew that she had been grounded, but I guessed I never put two and two together. All I knew was that she hadn’t called me. Man, I was stupid.
"Yeah," she said, nodding. "You’ve been so hung up on something lately and at first, I didn’t care, but it’s getting to be fucking ridiculous."
"I’m sorry," I apologized, looking around us to make sure no one was watching, "But it’s all good now, I swear. My dad was just…going through things and Oliver wasn’t making things much better."
She seemed to take my apology to heart since I saw a smile appear on her face. She said, "Speaking of which…I’ve heard some things about you and Oliver Carter."
My face broke out into a slight blush as I asked her, "Like what?"
"Are you two really dating? Tom told me that he went to Sonny’s the other day and saw the two of you kissing in a booth. Is that true?"
I hadn’t realized that Oliver and I had been so keen on public displays of affection. I guessed I had tried to hide it so hard and everything, but it just hadn’t worked. People still saw us kissing. Damn it. Now I looked like a slut.
I nodded and she broke out into a huge grin. "Took some time, but damn. I always knew something would happen. Anytime y’all looked at each other it was like y’all were undressing the other with your eyes."
I blushed again; partly because it was true and partly because she said she always knew something would happen. Had Oliver and I really been that obvious when we weren’t dating? Oliver had always been touchy-feely even when we weren’t dating so had people believed that we were?
She asked, "So is he any good?"
I instantly knew what she was referring to, but what she didn’t know was that we hadn’t even gotten close to going that far. I didn’t think we would get that close for a while. The two of us were perfectly content just making out right now.
I told her, "At kissing, yes. At the other stuff, I don’t know."
"Kara!" she exclaimed and then we started making our way into the stadium. A few more people had shown up since we had arrived and most of them had looked at us while walking in.
So instead of being watched by spectators, I guess we both just decided to leave the parking lot and go into the stadium. There was much more room in there, anyways.
"What?" I asked, looking over at her. "We’ve been dating not even two weeks. I’m surprised I’ve let it go this far."
She rolled her eyes at me and I almost wanted to yell "glue!" at her. But I didn’t because then she’d look at me like I was retarded and I didn’t want that to happen. I’ve been looked at weirdly enough for a while.
She said, "It’s not considered far until the deed is done. Now I’m all for you waiting and stuff, but I want someone to talk to about this. I’m sick of you being a virgin."
"Well, I’m so very sorry, Claire. But you’re just going to have to wait a few months…maybe even a year or two. Oliver and I are happy doing what we’re doing."
She sighed and then said, "Fine. But this conversation isn’t over."
I smiled at her; Claire was back. Thank God. I really did need her more than I had thought. I said, "I didn’t think it was."