Change Your Ticket

This was the worst headache I’ve had next to the night of Parker’s graduation. The funny thing is I don’t even remember drinking at all last night. Apparently I don’t remember a lot from last night considering the cryptic text I woke up to from Parker. I’ve been trying to call him all morning but he hasn’t answered yet; in fact, he keeps sending me to voicemail.

I couldn’t spend the entire day waiting for Parker to call, I need to get to the bottom of this myself. Thanks to my leg, I crawled to the end of my bed before getting out of it. The minute I stood up the room started spinning. I was definitely hungover off of something. Once the spinning stopped, I stumbled my way down the stairs to eat before heading off to get ready. If there was one person that knew what happened last night it would be Max.

“Thank god you’re alive,” Max sighed, when I showed up on his doorstep an hour later.

I followed him into his house and towards the familiar basement I had spent several nights with Parker in. The rush of memories caused my stomach to drop. What if Parker never forgave me for whatever it was that I did? There’s no way I could live without him at this point. There was no going back to how things use to be.

“I woke up this morning with the worst headache and some weird text from Parker.”

“Fuck.”

The color had drained from Max’s face leaving me with an even faster beating heart. This was not good, not good at all.

“What the hell happened last night?”

“You might want to sit down.”



The pain killers worked almost instantly. My leg was no longer throbbing allowing me to focus my attention on my team in front of me. We were still undefeated and I intended to keep it that way. By halftime, the pain in my leg was nonexistent as were any and all of my morals. I was weightless, like nothing in the world could bring me down. Now I know why people get addicted to this stuff.

“You guys are playing so good without me!” I whined, as the team walked back to the locker room. My broken body clumsily hobbling after them.

“Jos, you don’t look so good,” Max said.

“You do look really pale. Why are your eyes so glossy?” Asher asked.

“It’s probably a side effect of my pain meds,” I slurred.

“You need to lie down. I’m gonna get one of the girls to come watch you. Stay put, okay?”

I was feeling a little bit dizzy now that I thought about it. Taking Max’s advice, I lied myself down on the gross wooden bench in the locker room. As soon as my head rested on the hard wood my eyes fluttered shut. Was I really that tired?

“Josylne, you need to drink something,” a voice said, handing me a bottle of something.

Everything was cloudy when I opened my eyes. I couldn’t make out who left the water bottle. It sounded like Miranda, it was probably her. Sighing, I gulped down the mini sized water bottle. Feeling better I headed back out to the field.

As I trudged on towards the field, a small army of boys in football jerseys were headed my way. Assuming it was my team I ran up to them, searching for Max’s number to ask him how the game went. Before I could, I spotted Parker’s familiar jersey number out of the corner of my eye. Was Parker here? Suddenly the boy was in front of me and then his lips were on mine. It was dark and I couldn’t see anything until there was a flash from a camera, illuminating the boy’s face. This wasn’t Parker.

“Josylne what are you doing?” I heard Max shout.

“I don’t know,” I sobbed.



“Whoever took that picture must have sent it to Parker,” Max concluded as he finished the story on how he took me home.

“Why would I kiss some random guy?”

“You had taken two painkillers at the start of the game. I’m not a doctor but you’re pretty small, that could have been it.”

“I’m prescribed to take two because they’re such a low dosage. They shouldn’t have effected me like that,” I said. This was weird. I’ve never been so confused in my entire life. I could feel the panic rising in the pit of my stomach so I took some deep breaths to calm myself. “Wait, you said you sent one of the girls to stay with me right?”

“Yeah but by the time I reached the field the game had already started. You were alone.”

“No I wasn’t,” I said, the memories suddenly becoming less hazy. “Someone came into the locker room to make me drink something. I thought it was my water from earlier but based on the massive headache I have right now I don’t think it was.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think it was planned. I mean think about it, I was feeling weird before halftime. The medication never made me feel that way before and all I had was some gatorade to down the pills. The pain was so bad and it was dark what if gatorade wasn’t what I was drinking.”

“Who would want to sabotage you like that though?”

“The same bastard who put me in this damn boot.”

Twenty minutes later Max and I found ourselves on Chase’s front porch. Trying to get my position of captain revoked was one thing, purposely tripping me ending my season was another, but messing with my relationship was something I wasn’t going to stand for.

Parker meant everything to me and Chase new that. We had just figured out how to handle being long distance, things were good. We were both being honest, we were having fun. Now that was gone. Parker wasn’t answering my calls and it was all spoiled Chase’s fault and I was pissed.

Max wasn’t convinced it was Chase’s fault at first. To be fair I didn’t blame him, I had said I didn’t remember anything from last night. As Max told the story though, my own brain began to piece in the missing pieces. I was certain it was Chase who had come and seen me in the locker room. While I never made out the face of my mystery “caretaker” I had noticed that they were the Mass High uniform. It was then than Max remembered Coach had benched Chase after he nearly cost us the game. That was all the evidence Max needed to side with me.

“What’s the plan?” Max whispered, as I knocked on the door.

“Find out what he told Parker.”

“What about the possibility of him drugging you.”

Just then Chase’s mother opened the door. Putting on a fake smile I greeted her before asking to speak with her beloved son. She glanced over at Max, who was smiling next to me, before shutting the door to retrieve her son. Moments later Chase opened the door, a smirk plastered on his stupid face.

“To what do I owe this pleasure.”

“We need to see your phone,” I stated.

Chase’s smirk fell from his lips. His cover had been blown, his eyes closed to slits as he clenched his jaw.

“No.”

“Look,” Max interjected. “You can either give us your phone so we can see the message we know you sent to her boyfriend last night or we can call the police and press chargers for you drugging her. Your call.”

“I didn’t drug her,” Chase snapped.

“Yeah and you also didn’t trip me, right?”

Chase didn’t appear to be budging so I pulled out my own phone, handing it over to Max. As much as I didn’t want the police involved - because that worked so well the first time - I would get them involved if need be. Max quickly dialed out the three digit number, his thumb hovering over the call button.

“Fine,” Chase grumbled, tossing us his phone. “You’re not going to find anything on there though.”

Max quickly searched through the phone while I kept my eye on Chase. It took longer than I expected to get the evidence I need but we did find it. Chase may have been smart enough to delete the message but not smart enough to delete the actual picture itself.

As much as I didn’t want to see the incriminating picture I needed to know what I was up against. Leaning over Max’s shoulder, my eyes landed on the dark picture shown on the iphone. It was a picture of my back, legs wrapped around some random football player. Our lips were definitely interlocked and his hand was dangerously too close to the waist band of my jeans. It was worse than I thought.

Refusing to cry in front of Chase, I walked away from the porch and locked myself in my car. Max was still on the porch handling Chase leaving me alone to breakdown. The once quiet car was now filled with my rigid sobs. I couldn’t stop until my own tears started making me sick, my lungs coughing for air.

“We’re going to fix this,” Max promised.

Max wanted to go straight to the police but I didn’t let him. The police weren’t going to do anything. Blackmailing high school students wasn’t a crime punishable my law. As far as they were concerned, that was all this was. There was no actual evidence that he had drugged me or got me drunk or whatever it was he did to me. It was his word against mine and unfortunately his opinion was trusted more than mine.

I forced Max to take me home. It was getting late and the pain in my leg was really starting to get to me. Not to mention, the weather had taken a turn for the worst as rain clouds began to roll in.

Once home I locked myself in my room. The USC game was starting any minute and I couldn’t take listening it. I didn’t want to hear the announcers announce his number and I surely didn’t want to see his face. His poor, confused and angered face. It was only when I heard a small knock on my door that I opened it.

“Josy, Parker’s playin’!” Lexis shouted, a huge smile stretched across her small face.

“That’s great,” I said, forcing a smile. “My legs hurting though so I’m gonna stay up here.”

Lexis nodded understandingly before rushing back downstairs, yelling about Parker the whole time. I shut my door once again and collapsed back on my bed. For the second time today I cried. The one time in months Parker and I aren’t talking is when his coach decides to put him into the game for the first time. This was his debut as a college quarterback and I wasn’t going to get to share the memory with him.

Just my luck.