Major Crush(39)
Author: Jennifer Echols

One of the twins and her friends sat near the trombones, against the cement block wall of the concession stand. They mumbled my name, and something about my boots.

I walked over and stood very close to the twin, so my boot almost touched her band pants. I looked down at her. “Why don’t you stand up and say it to my face?”

She gaped up at me, clearly shocked that someone would call her on her evilness.

“That’s what I thought,” I said. I turned to find A llison.

There was a commotion behind me. The twin had gotten up to kill me.

Instantly there were trombones surrounding her, preventing her from clawing me. A ll she could do was shriek at me.

Drew had me by the wrist. He pulled me a few paces, then backed me against the cement wall. “You’re drum major,” he whispered hoarsely.

“You can’t stoop to that level.”

I looked up into his beautiful dark eyes. “You would know.”

He gave me the hurt look again, like I’d wronged him instead of the other way around.

That just made me angrier. “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I went on. “Don’t you dare give me any more pointers.”

I pulled away from him.

I could still feel the tingle of his hand on my wrist. Just what I needed.

I walked over to Mr. Rush. He didn’t look particularly absorbed in his conversation with Mr. Scott, the biology teacher. A pparently Ms.

Martineaux couldn’t handle being a band chaperone. Or Mr. Rush’s date. Mr. Scott was her replacement on the senior bus.

“Holding up okay?” Mr. Rush asked me. “I knew you would.” A pparently he hadn’t witnessed the scene of evil.

“Yes. But I’m taking ten.” I gestured to the band. “Can you handle this while I’m gone?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Grabbing A llison as I passed the majorettes and dragging her with me, I stalked across the cement. My expressionless drum major face held until A llison and I got inside the door of the empty restroom. Then I started bawling.

I was short and she was model-tall. She held me tightly while I cried into her chest and told her the whole story. If she was miffed at me for spilling the beans to Drew and not her, she didn’t mention it. Maybe she understood why her parents couldn’t know. Or maybe she figured I’d suffered enough. It was a good thing tears didn’t stain sequins.

A fter a long time I straightened, and she let me go. “I thought I wanted to be drum major by myself,” I sobbed. “I got what I wanted. A nd I’m back where I started, crying in the restroom. With you.”

“Yes,” A llison said somberly, “but in the meantime, we’ve grown closer.”

I snorted, and started to laugh, and choked myself.

She was pounding me on the back when someone knocked on the restroom door.

“Yes?” A llison called.

The door opened a crack, and Luther’s voice echoed through the room. “Virginia, Drew wasn’t trying to cause trouble in band practice today.

He was trying to get the other trombones to lay off you.”

A llison crossed the room and swung the door wide open. “You go back and tell Drew Morrow that’s the least of his problems.” She closed the door in Luther’s face. A s an afterthought, she opened the door again. “A re you still coming over after the game?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good.” She closed the door in his face again. Then she wet her hands in the sink and began to pat the hissy fit off my skin.

“Maybe you should forgive him,” she said.

I sniffed. “He hasn’t asked me to forgive him.”

“He probably will, if he already sent Luther in here to grovel to you.”

“I can’t believe he did it,” I said. “I just can’t believe Drew did this to me.”

A llison shook her head. “Me neither. He was really mad. He wasn’t thinking.”

“Yes, he was thinking. He must have been thinking. Of all the things he could have done to get back at me, he picked the one thing that hurt most.” I sniffed gigantically. “But I’m almost glad it happened.”

She stopped blotting under my eyes with a paper towel and looked at me. “This should be good.”

I explained, “I was tempted to tell you about my dad when we drove to Burger Bob’s last weekend. I told Drew instead, while you and Luther were trading hunting stories. I was so relieved to finally tell somebody.”

“To get it off your chest,” she said, nodding. “It was a big burden.”

“Partly that. But honestly, A llison, I think part of it was getting even with my parents. A nd now I m upset that I may have ruined my parents’

lives, but I’m a lot more upset about losing my boyfriend of six days.” I sighed. “I don’t want to be a troubled teen.”

“You’re a long way from troubled teendom. You haven’t broken any laws.”

“I have a nose stud.”

“That’s an enhancement of your natural beauty,” she said. “In some cultures.”

I crossed my arms and hugged myself. “I cringe every time I look at my dad.”

She rubbed my back. “I know.”

“A nd I don’t think it has to be that way. A fter Drew and I had that fight in the lunchroom on homecoming day, Mr. Rush made us go through family counseling in his office. You share your feelings, and the other person can’t interrupt. You have to listen to each other. You communicate.”

A llison stared at me dubiously. “Yes, I can see how your relationship with Drew is so much better now.”

“It is” I insisted. “It was, until I found out that he’s a rat bastard. We have the contest tomorrow, but Dad’s off the whole weekend. On Sunday I’m going to sit him down and tell him how I feel. Maybe Mom, too.”

“A re you going to tell him what you did?”

I laughed. “Remember how Drew told Mr. Rush I’d slept with Mr. O’Toole? A nd Mr. Rush said, ’What do you think you’re doing? Tattling on her for having sex with a teacher?’”

A llison laughed too. “You sound just like Mr. Rush. That’s scary.”

I could think of worse things to sound like. Mr. Rush had been scary at first, but he was a lot more perspicacious than he let on.

“It’s the same thing with my parents,” I said. “What are they going to do? Ground me for telling someone that my dad had an affair?”