Crash

It was the ‘buzz’ of the school. The perpetrators of our principal’s stolen trophy were going to be on our school campus, playing our school’s football team. All the girls were talking about it, all the boys were talking about it, and I definitely wasn’t talking about it. I can honestly say that I have never attended any sporting event that took place at this school, even with my brother being on every sport team freaking imaginable. But since tonight was the night for our school’s football team, my parents felt that it would be an utter obligation for me to go and that I wouldn’t be a good sister if I didn’t show up to support my brother. I almost laughed in their faces as my mother and father sat me down and told me that Kingston wanted me to come see his last game of his high school career. As if Kingston ever wanted me to come watch him. I highly doubt Kingston even wanted me near him, let alone at his football game screaming ‘Ra ra go team!’.

But after a long altercation with my parents, I finally agreed to go. So, as we were walking through my school’s student parking lot, my mom holding blankets in her hands and a seat cushion (she would bring shit like that), I crossed my arms in front of my chest and uncomfortably shuffled through the large amount of people who were all trying to get tickets to get into the game. Like I had said before, this town has only two high schools, so when they play each other it’s some huge deal, so the whole town was basically here to cheer on which team they liked best. I hated the feeling of having absolutely everyone around me at one time. I felt cluttered and suffocated and I wanted nothing more than to just shoot everyone here just so they’d die and I could get the hell away from them. But instead, I just shuffled through them with my parents dragging me along, and soon enough we were sitting on the bleachers watching the football team run around with obnoxious hoods on their heads. Intense music was blaring through the speakers as the cheerleaders screamed and held up a large banner that said “Go Vikings!” and then all of the football players dropped their hooded ponchos that looked like plastic forms of snuggies on the ground and then ran through the banner, breaking it in two. The whole crowd screamed and I just reached into my pocket, grabbed a cigarette and lit it. My mother turned towards me with a disgusted look on her face.

“You’re seriously smoking right now?” She asked. I just looked up at her and blew smoke out of the side of my mouth.

“You dragged me here, I’ll do what I want,” I replied with a mocking smile. My mother rolled her eyes and my dad didn’t say one thing, he just looked forward like he didn’t even notice that his underage seventeen year old daughter was smoking in front of him. That’s kind of what he did. Whereas my mother embraced my ‘problem’ and took me to my therapist appointments and yelled at me when I did stupid things, my dad just ignored me, tried to give me what I wanted, in hopes of not having to get involved. It was a lovely system that I absolutely hated.

Suddenly, a boy sitting in front of me with intense acne and sticky brown hair, who looked like a freshman at my school, turned around and gave me a sharp look.

“You do know that if you get caught smoking at school, you’ll get suspended, right?” He asked.

“You do know that you’re an ugly little freshman that needs to mind his own business, right?” I asked back. He frowned and then turned back around in his seat while I inhaled one last time and put the cigarette out. People were staring at me, as if smoking on the bleachers during a football game was some sort of awful sin. I heard my mother breathe a sigh of relief after I put my cigarette out and I just shook my head and looked forward towards the game.

Suddenly, the ‘Pioneers’ from Pioneer High School ran onto the field and the visitor’s side cheered while our side boo’d loudly. I stayed still. The team ran onto the field holding my principal’s trophy and then did some weird huddle thing around it. They then placed it on their bench and the game started. My brother was the quarterback of our team, of course, and was talking to his teammates about the next play they were going to do.

It wasn’t hard to be jealous of my brother. Everyone at the school respected him. He was tall, brunette, good looking. All the girls liked him, and the boys thought he was the 'man'. It was ridiculous how opposite Kingston and I were. He had great grades, did community service, was leaving to attend Brown in the fall. He’s seriously everything I’m not, and I think that’s pretty obvious to anyone that knows him and I, and it's especially obvious to my parents. Sometimes I sit back and think about possibly trying to change to get into my parents good light. I had at one point of time, when it was the beginning of my sophomore year. I started working really hard on my grades. I attempted to socialize. I did everything my mother wanted me to do. But she still didn’t think anything of it. I’m pretty positive she’ll still think of me as her crazy daughter Peyton that'll never be more than a big burden in her life.

Two hours and a bunch of screaming idiots later, the game had ended and our team definitely lost. Like, pathetically lost. My brother did great though, but his team didn’t. Disappointed students and parents left the bleachers slowly, along with my parents, but I just stayed behind for a second because I honestly didn’t want to be stuck in that huge crowd again. I leaned my back on a bleacher behind me and took a deep breath, glad that people were filing out and I was finally alone. After a few moments of brief silence, I heard footsteps on the metal bleachers, making loud pounding noises. My eyes looked to my left, but my head still faced forward. Tyler Harrison and his skinny, weird body was approaching me and I tilted my head back and let out a long, agonizing groan.

“What do you want, Tyler?” I asked. Tyler sat down by me, but I didn’t look at him. I just leaned my body back and looked straight up at the stars. Since my town was a forest town, at night the stars were so clear and beautiful and I would literally spend nights just looking at them truly wishing that things were much much different than they were right now.

“Just wanted to know if you wanted to buy some stuff,” Tyler asked with a shrug. I raised an eyebrow and finally looked at him.

“What kind of stuff?” I asked.

“Good stuff,” He replied. “Pure clean cut ecstasy. Nothing added, just pure. Fifteen dollars.”

“Fine,” I responded and handed him a twenty. He handed me a small round pill, and a $5 bill back, and then crept off the bleachers and left. I grabbed a water bottle from my purse and started to take the cap off when I heard another thumping of footsteps on the bleachers.

“Don’t take it, Peyton,” Someone said.

I looked up to see a sweaty looking Micah standing there, still in his football uniform. Number 39, the Pioneer’s quarterback. Ironic.

“Who are you, God or something? Of course I’m going to take it, I just spent fifteen dollars on it,” I replied. I unscrewed the cap and lifted my hand towards my mouth, but Micah jolted forward and swatted the pill out of my hand, causing it to fall under the bleachers and literally into dirt and left over peanuts and sunflower seeds. “What the hell?!” I yelled. “What is wrong with you!”

“You know you can die from that stupid shit,” Micah said angrily. I furiously looked into his eyes and my breathing was becoming heavy with aggravation.

“Good, that was the plan,” I replied through my teeth. I grabbed my bag and walked down towards the bottom of the bleachers and began slowly making my way under them. I wasn’t going to let that pill just sit there. I paid good money for it.

“Are you being serious? Do you really want to be known as the girl who died from taking ecstasy by herself one night?” Micah asked while following me. He ducked in front of me and grabbed the dirty pill off of the ground and dropped it in the neck of his jersey. I groaned.

“It’s better than being known for what I am now, Micah. Now can you please tell me what the hell your problem is where you would literally just hop right on into my personal business? Why aren’t you out celebrating with your little football friends?”

“I saw you as I was leaving the locker room and you were talking to that Tyler Harrison kid. He’s such bad news, Peyton.”

“And I’m not?” I asked. Micah didn’t say anything back and I just scoffed and ran my hair back with my fingers. “Micah, seriously what are you doing here? Why are you talking to me right now?”

“Well I guess since I almost killed you the other day, I owe a chance to save your life,” Micah replied. I raised my eyebrows and eyed him for a second before just giving up on even trying getting that pill back. I ducked and slowly walked my way out of the bleachers, and of course Micah followed me.

“Can you please just stop? You stuffed my only glimpse of happiness down your jersey, do you really want me to be even more miserable?”

“Promise me you won’t buy any more of these drugs,” Micah said, leaning against the outside of the bleachers. I stood there, with my arms in front of my chest.

“Why would I promise you anything?” I asked. I adjusted my purse strap and began walking back towards the parking lot where my parents and brother were probably waiting.

“I’m going to change you, Peyton Oleander.” Micah shouted after me. I just laughed and flipped him off over my shoulder and continued walking.

Was he serious? He honestly had no idea what he was doing. I wasn’t someone who could just change. I’m different, in a psychological way, and no matter what he did and no matter how hard he tried, there was no way I could change for anyone. I was always going to be Peyton Oleander, whoever in the world that is.