Before It Rains

Friday. Only three more days until classes started. For some reason I woke on the early side (for me anyway), and checking the clock, I was surprised to find out that it was only 9:25. Ruben wasn’t in his bed, and I assumed he was still across the hall. I threw on a sweatshirt and pulled my hair up. Still in my pajama pants, I crossed the hall and knocked on the door. No answer. I tried the knob, and it was unlocked.

Slowly opening the door, I found the room exactly how I’d left it the night before. All of the guys were where I had left them, and apparently not one of them had thought to at least set an alarm. I went over to Will on the bed first.

“Will,” I hissed. “Will! Get up!” I shook him gently, and then a little harder. Finally, I just jumped on the bed. Both he an Kai woke with a start.

“What the hell?” Kai said, rubbing his eyes. “Sam, what’re you doing?”

“It’s already 9:30!” I said. They just stared at me. “You’re both going to be late!” I hinted. Will finally got a clue.

“Damn it, Kai, try outs are at ten!” They both sprang off the bed, Kai stepping on Shane in the process.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, man,” Kai grunted. But Shane’s cry had woken up Austin, Ruben, and Max.

“What’s going on?” Austin asked, yawning.

“It’s 9:30,” I informed him. “Will and Kai are going to be late.” Kai was already out of the room and back in his own, gathering his gear. Will, still in yesterday’s clothes, grabbed a fresh tee-shirt, and pulled the one he was wearing over his head, exposing his extremely muscular chest. Austin stared at him, and Will, realizing what he was doing, stared at me.

“Sorry,” he muttered, grabbing his football bag, already packed, and headed out the door. It wasn’t a big deal. I lived with two guys at home, but whatever.

Thanks to my timely announcement, all the other guys were up and heading back to their rooms to get ready for their sports of the day. I decided to go back over to my room to get changed into something somewhat more attractive. Max followed out behind me.

“So, Sam, you wanna hang out today?” he asked casually.

“While all these hooligans are running around fields and heading balls into nets?” I asked. “Sure. How ‘bout you come back here in an hour and we can do something.” He agreed and headed off down the hall.

Back in our room, Ruben was already in the shower. I laid down on the bed and put my hands behind my head, sighing.

********

“Sam! I’m leaving!”

My eyes snapped open. Ruben was over by the door. It looked over to check the time. It was 10:34. Ruben had always liked to be early for things. I, however, was going to be late to meet up with Max if I didn’t get my butt in the shower now.

So I was only a little late. When I came out of the shower, Max was sitting on my bed staring at the ceiling. He looked over at me as I came it.

“Wow,” he said. “You look great.” And for some reason, I knew he didn’t mean it in a crushy way.

We decided to go over to the fields and check out the try outs. Might as well watch and laugh if we weren’t going to participate. We were the only ones in the bleachers at the boy’s field. The guys were just taking to the field as we arrived. Ruben and Austin spotted us and waved as they started to run laps around the field.

“So what other stuff do they have here in the fall?” I asked Max.

“Well,” he thought from a minute. “There’s the fall musical, which you are sooo doing, by the way. There’s the sports teams, of course, math team, leadership, cooking club...”

“They have a cooking club here?” I repeated, laughing. He nodded.

“Yup. As for events, they have the musical performance, which like everyone from twenty miles around comes to see. And there’s homecoming two weeks into school...” he trailed of.

“Blah, homecoming,” I said. I never actually got the point of it.”

“Well you better start liking it, ‘cause the entire school has to go,” he told me.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think they even check all the dorms to make sure people aren’t skipping out, but it’s school bonding crap or something.” He rolled his eyes. “None of us are any good with dances, really. Well, Will and Austin could both probably get any girl they wanted, but they don’t even try.”

I noticed Austin out on the field weaving in and out of orange cones with a soccer ball at his feet. I smiled. He really was good. I might be hopeless at sports, but I knew a good player when I saw one.

I’m not going to bore you with the rest of the weekends events. Austin, Ruben, and Asia all made varsity soccer, Shane, junior varsity, and Will and Kai varsity football. We procrastinated and picked up our schedules on Sunday night. Instead of going back to the dorms like usual, we walked over to a nice spot on the lawn in the sunset and spread out our classes to compare.

“Hey, Sammy, you and me have history together,” Max told me, sliding my schedule back across to me. I leaned over to look at Asia’s schedule next to me. Even though she had mostly higher classes, being a grade higher than all of us, we still had pre-calculus together. I told her this and she smiled. That would be fun.

“Hey!” Will grinned. “I have pre-calc block three too!”

Kai groaned. “You two are probably the only ones in the whole sophomore class in a pre-calc class!”

Austin shook his head. “Ruben has it on his schedule too.” I turned to him.

“What math do you take?” I asked. He pretended not to hear me. Shane answered for him instead.

“He takes algebra,” he taunted. “As a sophomore!” I had to admit I was surprised, but Austin looked embarrassed. I reached over and hugged him.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I’m not that good in English.” He smiled. I had reached my goal.

“Hey, how about some music?” Ruben asked, knowing I was trying to take the focus off of academics. And right there in the middle of the lawn he started into the “Collide”, one of Maddy’s favorite songs back home. I joined in and Max did too and soon Ruben was twirling me around on the lawn. As we reached the second chorus, my brother spun me too close to Austin and I tripped over him sitting there, but instead of falling, he stood up and took my hand.

“Do you know how to waltz?” he whispered. I shook my head. He placed my hand on his shoulder, put his hand on my lower back, and took my other hand. “Move your feet in the same direction as I move mine.” I did, and at first I was clumsy, until I realized we were just moving in a square. And we waltzed around the grass until the song came to an end, with the chorus repeated a few extra times at the end. He bowed and I curtsied.

“Well, aren’t you a gentleman?” Shane said when we stopped. And so Austin tackled him on the lawn.

A teacher, who I barely recognized from the introductions as Mr. Samuels, came over towards us. He stopped behind Asia. “As much as it looks like you’re all enjoying yourselves, I’d suggest you guys head back over to the dorms. It’s a school night, curfew’s nine o’clock, and you might want to get back before some merciless teacher comes through here and gives you detention.” He winked and walked off. Taking his advice, we raced each other back to A and B.