Next Door

*3rd Person POV*

It was a rivalry game. I soccer game between two teams that had been fighting each other for the championship since everyone on both of the teams was five years old. The crowd, sitting in bleachers on opposite sides of the field, was exited to see how this game would turn out, since in the past 12 years, each team had won six championships.

Little kids run around, chasing one another, bored with the conversations of their parents. Teenagers, friends of the players, socialize. Some of them text, some talk loudly into their cell phones, and others talk to the friends that are at the game. Among them sits one girl. One beautiful girl. Rose Fontaine is the object of many crushes at Central High. Not only is she the prettiest girl there, but she;s also intelligent, friendly and artistic.

Rose sits in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by people but alone. She passes the time before the game starts by observing the preoccupied people around her. Barely half of them have any idea of what is going on around them. She is at the game to see her next-door-neighbor and long-time friend, Chad McLeod play in what he says will be the most exciting soccer game in history.

*Rose's POV*

I hope he's right about that, I thought, sighing. The atmosphere of the soccer game wasn't at all what I was used to to. I was only here because Chad asked me to be. I wanted to reconnect with him.

Since we were in different cliques and classes at school (he's in all of the hardest classes, while I take a little bit of everything) I hadn't actually been able to talk to him in a while. He knew how much I hated watching sports, so I knew he'd see this as my offer of reconciliation.

"Well, you don't look too happy to be here," the familiar, jaunty voice of Chad's friend Robert, said.

I turned to find him sitting next to me, with Chad's best friend Brian, sitting on his other side.

I smiled at them. "I'm just bored, waiting for teh game to start," I informed them both. "What about you?"

Both of their usually happy expressions turned into frowns. Uh oh.

"What?" I asked them again.

They exchanged a glance and then looked back at me.

"You know Morgan Reisman?" Brian asked me. I nodded. "Well Chad said that he wasn't allowed to play for the next three weeks, nobody knows why."

"And?" I pressed, knowing that there had to be more to the story.

"And Morgan is starting." Robert finished flatly.

Oh. Well that explained it. Chad was not going to take this well.

"You're here to stop them from fighting?" I guessed, knowing exactly what Chad's reaction would be. They both nodded solemnly.

I watched the teams run out onto the field, from opposite corners. My stomach was in knots, praying that Chad wouldn't do anything stupid.

I searched the field, checking each of the red uniforms that identified Chad's team for his number; 13. No Chad.

Then I looked for his neon yellow captain's armband. Still no sign.

I scanned the area for a sign of his familiar, dark head of hair. I didn't see it anywhere.

"Do you see him?" I asked Brian and Robert, still searching.

"No."

As the game started, the North High captain shook hands with one of our players, who I assumed was standing in for the missing Chad. When I saw this, i calmed down. Maybe he wouldn't show up after all.

The players took their positions about to start the game.

And then Chad decided to show up and make a mess out of everything.

Wretch. Have I not forbade you these three weeks?