My Escape Chapter 5

**Sorry for the wait, you guys! Anyways, this chapter is a little short, but I don't think it's boring. Thanks for all of the comments and please keep them coming! They encourage me to keep writing!**

By eight-thirty that night, the football game was in full swing. Cheers and boos from the bleachers echoed throughout the stadium, almost drowning the sound of the band. The air was muggy and smelled slightly of cigarette smoke. Guys with body paint ran around the stadium screaming, "Fuck you, Dalton High!" and then got trampled by school security and were escorted off the premises.
I was sitting next to one of the girls from the paper who was dating a football player and never would have come if it hadn’t been for that fact. Any time a tackle was made, she cringed in her seat, stood up to make sure it hadn’t been Jeff who had gotten tackled, and then sat back down, sighed, and said, "God, I hate football."
"Amy, Jeff will be fine; no one ever gets hurt at these games," I said, but I didn’t want to tell her the real reason Jeff wouldn’t get hurt. Turns out he was currently sitting on the bench and I knew this because I knew his jersey number. Only Amy didn’t have great eye sight and automatically assumed he was playing.

She tucked a piece of her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear and said, "I hope so. His mom’s been on him to get a football scholarship…"
Her statement was drowned out by everyone else around us jumping to their feet and screaming. The loud intercom behind us-I sat there because I could always hear what was going on-announced, "Touchdown for Eastwood courtesy of none other than Greg Gregory! Score is now fourteen to seven; Eastwood taking the lead."
The few people who didn’t know Greg giggled at his name and then did the touchdown dance. Our school band always played the same song when a touchdown had been scored and at the first pep-rally my brother had taught the entire school the dance we were expected to do.

Instead of waving my right hand in the air, I spoke into my voice recorder what had just happened. Hopefully I would be able to hear what I had said later tonight while typing it all up on my laptop. Amy didn’t do the dance either; instead she typed a few words onto her phone and then slipped it back in her pocket.
She told me, "Some of my friends might meet me here. I’m so glad I finished my article last night."

"Yeah, you’re lucky you just had to do a movie review," I replied and then fixated my eyes on the field. The two teams were huddled on their respective sidelines and the crowd was talking amongst themselves. I scanned the crowed for Oliver-so I could avoid him, of course-and didn’t see him. He usually popped out of no where, though.
"Don’t you ever go out to do something other than an article? You’re only in high school once and do you really want to waste it working?" she asked me, applying a layer of strawberry lip balm to her already glossy fish lips.

I sighed and told her, "Being editor will help me on my college apps, you know that." I knew it was like I never had any fun, but I had the rest of my life to concentrate on. Joking off in high school would get me no where in life except for working the drive-thru at McDonald’s. I wanted to be a journalist, not a burger flipper.
"I know, but I’d go crazy working as much as you do," she told me and then whipped her phone out when it vibrated in her pocket.

I rolled my eyes at her and then heard someone under the bleachers scream. At first I thought it was a girl getting busy with her boyfriend--they do that under the bleachers, classy, right?--but then I heard a couple of guys yell, "Get out of Eastwood territory!"
Everyone around us shut up and tried to hear what was going on. My first thoughts flashed to Oliver. He had told me that a couple of guys from Westwood were going to try and crash the football game. What if that was him about to get his face pounded in? I told Amy, "I’m going to go get a drink. You want something?"
She shook her head and then I hurriedly made my way out of the bleachers and to the sidewalk running behind them. Sure enough, in the crowd of teenage guys, one stood out from the rest. Oliver was laughing-God, he was hot-and slapping hands with some other guys from his school.

A guy in knew from school, Terry, was red in the face and his hands were curled at his sides. Terry had always been known for his anger problems and I sure as hell didn’t want those issues of his pointed towards Oliver. Even though Oliver fully deserved it, I didn’t want him to get hurt. Terry shouted again, "Leave! You don’t belong here!"
Oliver stepped forward and held his hands in front of him. He laughed at something no one else did and then said, "Dude, it’s open to the public."
I rolled my eyes; he was completely hammered. And by the looks of it, all of his friends were too. A few more people from the stands made their ways over to see what the commotion was about and a circle started forming around them. I was closest to all of the action and close enough to see Terry start to pull his arm back. Oh no, he was going to punch him…

But it was the wrong he who punched him. Instead, one of Oliver’s friends threw the first punch and then all hell broke loose. Guys fell to the ground on top of each other, arms and curses being thrown around everywhere. Everyone close to the fight took a few steps back so that they wouldn’t get hit.
People behind me in the sea of onlookers, guys started shouting, "Eastwood!" and "Kick his ass, man!"
What made me really hate myself was that I was going for the other team; the rivals. Oliver was currently on top of a guy from my school and throwing taunting words in his face. And I was actually glad it was a guy from my school getting hurt, not Oliver. The guy from my school-I didn’t know him-threw his fist forward and it slammed into Oliver’s face.

Oliver grunted and then fell to the ground and the guy from my school smiled. My heart plummeted. Everywhere in the middle of the circle people were bleeding, and I could hear more curses than in an episode of Maury. "Stop!" I cried out, being the only person who wanted the fight to stop. By this time, the entire school was crowded behind the bleachers except for the football team, the cheerleaders, and the band. Where were the adults who could stop this?

Everyone wanted the fight to keep going on so that they would have something to talk about on Monday. High school kids were so pathetic. That was when I heard the shouts of "Break it up!" and "If you don’t quit, you’re going to jail!" Thank God. I threw another quick glance at Oliver and cringed; his face was caked with dirt and blood. At least he was still drunk, though. He probably couldn’t feel the pain yet. He would feel it tomorrow morning though.

Police officers and the principal forced all of the students back into the bleachers, causing groans of disappointment and screams of "Eastwood!" No one saw me, though. I walked over to the concession stand, constantly peering over my shoulder to see what was going on. Four or five cops had the ten guys involved in the fight standing up and they were yelling at all of them. Stupid Oliver had a grin on his face.
I sat down on one of the benches by the concession stand and noticed all of the workers looking out of the window. From the bench you could see the football field and I smiled when I noticed we had the ball but it was close to their end zone. I wouldn’t be needed for a while.

My eyes darted back to the crowd of ten boys and saw the cops motioning them towards the bathrooms. They probably wanted them to get cleaned up before getting suspended. They all walked with their heads hung towards my direction and I looked over my shoulder; the bathroom was right behind me. Oliver was bound to see me. Well, unless he was too drunk to notice me.
I was proved wrong when he shouted, "Kara!" causing all of the guys to turn and look at me. Terry’s face-which had a bleeding nose and lip-contorted in anger and he made his way over to me.
He demanded, "You know him? You go to our school! Your brother is the fucking quarterback!" High school rivalry was a huge thing here if you hadn’t already noticed.
Oliver yelled, "Don’t yell at her!" and then came and sat down next to me. He smelled horrible, I noticed; a mixture of blood, sweat, and dirt. He grinned and said, "Pretty awesome night, huh?"

Terry looked back and forth between Terry and I and I noticed his fists curl again. But then he thought better of it and angrily pushed open the boy’s bathroom door. I rolled my eyes and then stood up. "I need to get back," I told him.
He caught my arm and said, "But I just saw you here."
"Look, if you don’t hurry, then you’re going to be arrested or expelled or…" I trailed off when I heard the screams from the football stadium. We had scored again. I pulled out my voice recorder, rattled off the basics, and then shoved it back in my pocket.
When I looked around us, I noticed that it was just us and the concession stand workers. They were all huddled in the actual stand, though, so basically it was just the two of us. How did that happen at a high school football game?
Oliver laughed and asked, "Ooh! A magic talky box! I want one!"
I rolled my eyes and then told him, "You need to go get cleaned up. You look disgusting."

"You still want to kiss me though, huh?" he asked me, and I got a look at his eyes. They were totally glazed over. He was so such an alcoholic!
"I don’t trust you in that bathroom," I said and then commanded, "Sit there." As hammered as he was, another fight would probably break out next to the urinals. I pointed at the bench and he stumbled towards it. When he was finally seated on the bench, I walked over to the concession stand and placed five dollars on the counter.
"Two water bottles and a lot of napkins please."
The girl took my money, called out "two water bottles" to the workers in the back, and then shoved the bill into the register. Someone handed her the bottles through a square hole in the wall and then she handed them to me. "Napkins," she told me and then pointed towards a silver box of them on the counter.
I grabbed two handfuls and then walked back over to where Oliver was sitting. "You’re going to be my nurse?" he grinned and then said, "That’s so naughty." What was really pathetic was that he would have said that even sober.
I kneeled down in front of him and instructed, "Don’t move."

I twisted the cap off of a bottle of water and then poured a little on a napkin. I had cleaned my brother off after a fight a few times so the blood and grime didn’t really get to me. I reached up towards his forehead and then started wiping the dry blood off.
Oliver watched me with intensity the entire time I cleaned him off. It almost made me a little bit nervous. I chewed on my lip as I wiped the gore off of him and when it was all gone I had no water or napkins left. He looked almost as good as new and by the time we were done, guys were making their way out of the bathroom.
"There," I sighed, "All done."
Oliver looked at me and his eyes burned through my skull. Even completely drunk, he could do horribly wonderful things to my body! God, I was pathetic. His breath was completely sour and I was still having thoughts about kissing him. I needed to back away from him slowly.

I pulled my hand away from his cheek where it had made the final clean away, but his hand stopped me. He rubbed his hand up my arm--enter pleasant tingles here--and then breathed, "Thanks."
I nodded and then after jerking my hand from his grasp, ran away from him and towards the bleachers. My head was dizzy from being so close to him, from touching his face even if it was with a napkin. I took in a big whiff of the night air and then after making sure I was stable, walked back onto the bleachers.
We were nearing the fourth quarter and I couldn’t have been happier. I needed to get away from this place. Oliver was ruining so many places for me. I was slowly running out of places to go to escape my house.

"How was the game?" my dad asked me when I walked in through the front door at around two that morning. He sort of startled seeing at how he had never waited up this late, but I decided not to question it. He looked exhausted enough as it was. The game had ended around ten, but it turns out that Claire had heard all about the fight. She had wanted to hear about it from me so we had gone to the ice-cream shop.
"Was Oliver there?" she had asked me as she stole a bite of my plain chocolate ice-cream with gummy bears.
I had shaken my head and lied, "Nope." I hated lying more than I hated Oliver and that was saying a lot. Claire had never lied to me; she had always told me the truth even if it would hurt my feelings.

And really that had been the stupidest lie ever, but I really hadn’t felt like talking about him. I didn’t talk about how I wanted to kiss him even when his breath had smelt like the inside of a bar. I hadn’t told her about that look he had given me that had made me want to melt. I just didn’t want to talk about it; what went down between Oliver and I was private.
"It was fine," I told my dad and then ran up the stairs and into the bathroom. Greg wouldn’t be home for a few more hours; one of the players always had a party after a game. I knew it would be a wild party too seeing as how our team had creamed the other: 30 to 6.

I hurried through my shower, wanting to escape into dreamland sooner rather than later. Tonight had been so confusing and I didn’t want to waste any more conscious time to think about it. I’d much rather dream about it. What really sucked was that my article was due Monday so that meant I only had tomorrow-well today seeing as how it was two in the morning-to work on it and make it perfect. One day was so not enough time for me.
When I got out, I threw on my pajamas, brushed my teeth and then fell unconscious beneath the sheets.