***tangle

Having cameras surveying nearly every inch of the school is quite frustrating when you’re trying to carry out a secret relationship. Since I didn’t o to the school for anything except band and sometimes lunch, that gave us even less time to see each other. In band, Sarah was always there. When she wasn’t, there was still everyone else, who all knew they were together.

I mean, it’s not as if we really did anything when we were together, but it was just the knowledge that we couldn’t if we wanted to. When I visited for lunch, he and I usually sat together - and we did before this all too - and we would occasionally, intentionally brush hands or legs and such. Our lunch tables were round, though, so it was kind of difficult to do things that at least one other person would see.

For the next month, we pretty much only saw each other on the weekends and after our after school practices )when we told our parents that they ran over). The only place we could really go was the town’s park, but we had to be very careful that nobody we knew saw us.

It was before the fifth game of the season that I walked in on a really intense fight conversation Graham was having with Sarah. Our band director asked me to get something from the music library for him, since he was in the middle of something. Now, there are large windows that connect the music library to a practice room, to another practice room, to Mr. Ratica’s office, to yet another practice room. As I passed the window in the library, I happened to see a glimpse of Graham. I backed up to see why he was in the practice room, since I heard no music being played. All I could hear was muffled words, nothing the slightest bit comprehendible.

What I saw through the window kind of shocked me. It looked like Sarah was yelling at Graham, but every time she stopped speaking, he’d start yelling back. I couldn’t tell who was actually doing the yelling and who was just defending themselves in a raised voice, but either way, things were getting very intense.

It would have been really pointless to stand there and watch them fight, because A) one of them was bound to see me there eventually, and B) I couldn’t hear them anyways. So I got what I was sent for and took it back to Mr. Ratica, ignoring their fight for the time being.

However, on the bus ride home from the game, I asked Graham about what happened. Everyone around us was sleeping and Sarah wasn’t even on the same bus, so we didn’t risk being caught or found out.

I tried easing into the conversation, because ei didn’t want to be too rash about it.

“So is Sarah ignoring you or something?” I asked, looking him softly in the eyes.

“Yeah, she’s kind of pissed at me right now,” he admitted, sighing.

“Why?”

“She thinks I’m cheating on her,”

“Yeah, well, you kind of are,” I whispered, just to be safe.

“I know that, but she’s not supposed to,”

I took in a deep breath to steady myself before asking the question that I’ve tried asking so many other times. “Why are you still with her? The longer we do this, the more hurt she’s going to be.”

“I know,” he sighed. “I just…I don’t want to hurt her. That’s just it. I’m afraid she’ll hate me.”

“Like I said, the longer this goes on, the worse it’ll be for her. She’ll hate us both that much more,”

“God, I am so stupid,” he sighed.

“What do you mean?” I asked, partly worried he was talking about what we’re doing.

Graham looked around the bus quickly to make sure nobody was awake before turning back to me. “I should have broken up with her a long time ago. Because it kills me that I can’t do this when I want to.” He leaned closer and pressed a quick kiss to my lips.

I couldn’t help my heart from fluttering.



I got a real rude awakening a couple of weeks later at an after school rehearsal. She had to have planned it as she did so that she didn’t get caught on the school’s cameras, but instead, nearly everybody in the band and color guard saw what happened.

It was a couple minutes before we started practice and almost everyone was on or near the practice field, waiting for Mr. Ratica. Our practice field was at least a two minute walk from the school, so it took people a while to get all assembled down there. There was a shed by the field that held football equipment, but we used it as shade for our water so it didn’t get warm as fast and as a place to put our things we didn’t need while marching.

I was bent over, taking my music off of my mellophone when I heard my name called out. I stood up straight and turned around, getting a hard-as-hell slap across the face. My head was spinning slightly from the power of the slap, so I couldn’t see who it was that did it.

“You bitch!” I gasped reflexively.

“I’m the bitch?” a very pissed off girl’s voice yelled. “You stole my fucking boyfriend!” Sarah. It was Sarah that slapped me. Alright, so maybe I deserved it. She was right after all. But I sure as hell wasn’t letting her know that.

“What in God’s name are you talking about?

My vision was back, so I could see that nobody around us was moving a muscle. Complete shock ran through all of their face and none of them knew what was going on.

“Graham’s been cheating on me for over a month, Jessie!”

“And why is that my fault?” I asked incredulously, still trying to throw her off my scent.

“Because it’s been with you!” she screamed, slapping me again.

“Jesus Christ woman! I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about! I am not, nor have I ever been, with your boyfriend!”

“Well he’s not my boyfriend anymore, thanks to you!”

“No it’s not ‘thanks to me’ at all! If he was cheating on you, it wasn’t with me. I think I would know.”

“Oh good God,” I heard a boy’s voice gasp. I turned to see Graham running towards us. He threw his trumpet and whatever else was in his hands on the ground and tried stepping between us.

“Graham please tell her -” I started, hoping he’d play along.

“No, it’s no use Jess,” he sighed. “I told her everything.”

“Fuck,” I muttered.

“Yeah, you’re a damn good liar too. If he didn’t fess up to it all, I might have actually believed your lying ass.”

“Sarah, I am so sorry. I never meant to -”

“Hurt me? Oh you two are fucking meant for each other! You even apologize in the same fake as hell way!” she screamed, raising her hand as if she was about to hit me again. ‘Christ Almighty, she sure likes slapping me.’ I reached out and gripped her wrist before she could swing.

“No Sarah,” I said sternly, dropping her hand. “You need to listen to me here. I didn’t want this to happen. It was never supposed to go this far. If I was Graham, I would have told you the very second anything started, but he didn’t and I had no control over that. I told him he needed to tell you, but he didn’t want to hurt you and worried that you would hate him. I was the one saying that the sooner you knew, the better it would turn out. He wouldn’t do it, and if I’m right, he didn’t willingly tell you. You figured something our or something happened and you confronted him. That’s when he finally told you. Am I right?”

Sarah looked like she was about to cry, which made me feel just that much more terrible. I hate making people cry and it always made me feel like a right piece of shit; this time was no different.

A tear finally rolled down her cheek as she whispered, “He said your name.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice calmer than before.

“Ask him,” she snapped, wiping at a tear with a scowl directed at me. “He’s all your now.” She stormed away just about as soon as Mr. Ratica walked onto the field. He took one look at the crowd gathered around Graham and I, and Sarah crying in the arms of her friends, and sighed, shaking his bald head.

“Alright, I don’t know what happened, but I’m giving everyone ten minutes to settle it all out. When these ten minutes are up, you all better be ready to march, and march correctly. Something bad happened, but it better be flushed out by the time we start marching.”

I groaned and just plopped down on the ground where I was. My head was starting to ache from the combination of Sarah’s slaps and the frustration of the entire situation. I rubbed my temples and looked up at Graham. “What in the hell is she talking about?”

He sighed and knelt down next to me. “We were talking on the phone last night and I guess I was a lot more tired than I thought, so when I told her goodnight, I accidentally said your name.”

“God,” I sighed, hanging my head. I knew there were still people watching us, but I just ignored them. I had enough to deal with without them bothering me too. “At least she knows now.”

“Yeah, but she…“ he trailed off, looking closely at my face, which must have been either red or starting to swell. “She punched you, didn’t she?”

“No, she just slapped me,” I shrugged.

“Twice,” one of the annoying freshmen boys called out.

“Shut up Scott. This doesn’t involve you,” Graham snapped. Scott and a couple other people walked away, but a few lingered, pretending to do something, as if they weren’t still watching us. Again, I just ignored them. “I’m sorry she slapped you.”

“It’s not your fault,”

“Yes it is,” he sighed. “I should have told her earlier.”

“I think she still would have slapped me,”

“Yeah, but maybe not twice,” he said, trying to suppress a smirk.

“You can laugh at that,” I chuckled, feeling my headache die a little. The smirk broke through to his lips and I laughed about it too.

Excluding the glaring eyes of those that disapproved, the wondering eyes of those that knew nothing, and the curious eyes of those that want to know more, I couldn’t help but think that this wasn’t that bad. And when those combined looks started getting to me, I just reminded myself that something good was going to come out of it eventually.