Scramble
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 7
I was just finishing my lunch when Emily came over and stopped just across from me. The lunch period was winding down, and most of the tables had already emptied. Eduardo had left with Sarah, and Li had some kind of get-to-know-you student council thing that she had to sit with the other members of the council for.
“Hey, Blake. Got a second?”
“Sure,” I said, wiping my hands on a napkin and balling up all of my trash. “What’s up?”
“So, my birthday’s coming up on February fourth, and I’m having a party at my house. Nothing huge, but everyone from the teams is invited. I know you don’t hang with them all the time, so I wanted to make sure you knew about it. My parents are going to be there, so it’s going to be on the chill side, but they’re giving us space, and there will be dancing and food. No kegs or anything wild, obviously.”
“Damn. I wish I could. That sounds like fun, but I actually already have plans that day. I’m going to Houston with Li and her mom.”
“Houston?”
“Yeah, there’s this Chinese New Year celebration happening. Li invited me a few days ago.”
“That’s ... different. Never would’ve pegged you as interested in that kind of thing.”
“Me either, but it sounds kind of fun, and her mom asked me ... and you do not say no to Li’s mom. That woman is scary. It kind of happened fast. Your party sounds fun, though, even with the parental supervision.”
“Yeah, well, what can you do? My dad insists. Says he doesn’t want the police showing up like they did at that party just before Christmas.”
“Fair, I guess. But no one got arrested or anything.”
“No, but the police talked to some of our parents after that and they were a little pissed that we got busted.”
Everyone around me started getting their stuff together, throwing away trash and whatnot, since it was almost time for class.
I got up and put all my trash in the bag I’d brought my lunch in and said, “Well, tell me how it goes, and if someone does something stupid, take a picture for me.”
She laughed and said, “Will do. Ohh, and tell Li congratulations from me. About the election.”
“I will. She is driving herself crazy over it. First, she thought she wouldn’t win, and now, she’s acting like she’s actually in Congress.”
“She is an intense girl. Honestly, I’m kind of surprised she won, what with Melanie working so hard to get votes for Brandy. I honestly thought it might end up neck and neck.”
“Wait, what?” I said, stopping and turning to face her.
Emily looked up, confused. “About what, Melanie?”
“Yeah. What did she do?”
“She campaigned for Brandy. You know, talking to the girls on the squad, talking up why Brandy should have the spot. She wasn’t campaigning against Li, precisely. Just that she was really pushing for Brandy.”
I think she added that last part because she could see the look on my face and started to backpedal a little bit.
“But Melanie said she’d help with Li’s campaign.”
“Really? That’s weird. She was definitely talking to people about voting for Brandy. I thought it was strange since she doesn’t even like Brandy that much. But I figured, you know, cheerleader loyalty or whatever. Not that it seemed to matter much, I mean, Brandy still lost.”
“Did Melanie talk to other people too, or just the girls in cheerleading?”
“I think maybe she did. I know I saw her talking to some of the baseball guys and she might have talked to some of the guys on the freshman football team. I’m not sure. I just saw her with them, but didn’t hear what they talked about specifically.”
I was trying very hard not to be mad. But she had promised. She sat across from me at Jimmy’s and promised to help get Li elected. Half-assing it, I could understand. I wasn’t an idiot and I knew how jealous of Li she was, even though she had no reason to be.
But no, she hadn’t done that. She’d gone and done the exact opposite. I wanted to say I couldn’t believe she’d betrayed me like that, but it actually wasn’t as big of a surprise as it should have been.
Maybe that’s what hurt the most.
“Blake?” Emily said when I fell quiet.
“Yeah? Ohh, I’m fine,” I said, managing a smile that felt a little too tight for my face. “Just surprised, that’s all.”
“It’s not a big deal, right? I mean, Li still won anyway.”
“Yeah. Absolutely. It’s all good.”
“Besides. Most of the freshman girls on the squad and the guys you and Kenneth talked to still voted for Li. Melanie was just trying to balance supporting her squad mate without directly going against what you asked. Politics, you know?”
I didn’t believe that for a second, and I don’t think Emily did either, not from what she’d been saying a minute ago. She was a sweet girl and probably felt bad she’d just unwittingly thrown a grenade into my relationship and was trying to smooth things over.
“Sure.”
“Anyway, sorry you can’t make it to my party. Maybe next time,” she said, desperately trying to end this conversation.
I let her off the hook.
“Definitely. Thanks for the invitation.”
“No problem. Hope you have fun at that Chinese thing.”
“Thanks,” I said, already turning away.
The lunch area was nearly empty now, with just a few stragglers gathering their things.
I walked out slowly, working to control the anger that threatened to bubble over. Melanie had looked me right in the face and agreed to help Li. Okay, she hadn’t been super enthusiastic, but she’d still agreed.
Had she ever actually said she’d talk to people about voting for Li? She’d told me she had, so was that a lie, or did she talk to some people about it and then switch to talking to people about Brandy?
Either way, she’d snuck behind my back, for Brandy of all people. How many ways was that girl gonna find to cheat on me?
Worse, how could I ever trust Melanie again? Or maybe I’d been a fool to trust her in the first place. I mean, I did know how jealous she was of Li, but I didn’t think she would go this far.
I managed to avoid Melanie for the rest of the day, which wasn’t terribly hard to do since we didn’t have a lot of classes together. The one we did have together, I begged off, telling her that I needed to go see another teacher about some work. Since that happened a fair amount for real, she just accepted it, pecked me on the cheek and hurried off.
Inside, I was still fuming, but I didn’t want to confront her in the hallway. I did not want to be the center of more drama, and just because she’d done something wrong didn’t mean I needed to be an asshole about it.
Or maybe it was that I was a little chicken. She was my first real girlfriend and I’d been ignoring this jealousy streak, but that couldn’t keep on happening. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about it yet.
I was in my head as I headed to track practice. Thankfully, there was something that got her off of my mind, at least temporarily. Eduardo had seemed off all day. I’d noticed it that morning at our morning practice together, but I’d put it down to it being early and that he wasn’t used to this schedule yet, but then he’d been quiet at lunch and once practice started, he barely spoke to me, which made me remember the odd behavior from earlier in the day and pushed my Melanie problem aside.
Eduardo was a talkative guy, so him not talking was a serious red flag. During warm-ups, he stretched by himself near the fence, eyes fixed on his shoes, not looking at anyone else. It was like he was just going through the motions.
We moved onto sprint drills, short bursts down the straightaway. I was trying to focus on what I was doing but watching him was throwing me off. He was so robotic about everything, like he was just ... existing. Lifeless.
Then we ran through the exchange drills, which I didn’t really need to do because I wasn’t planning on doing relays, but I still had to do these at practice. Eduardo was actually pretty good at this, had good timing on the handoff and did well at matching the speed of the previous runner, but today he was completely off, overrunning the zone and even dropping the baton at one point.
“Guzman! Eyes up! Focus!” Coach Greer yelled as it hit the track.
Eduardo just nodded, picked up the baton, and went to try again. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look frustrated. He just seemed to reset as he waited for the next run-through. We did a few more, and while he didn’t drop the baton again, his energy wasn’t there. He may not have been the strongest runner on the team, but he tried every time.
Except for today.
Practice finally wrapped up with some cool-down laps and stretches. I kept glancing over at Eduardo, who finished his stretches quickly and headed straight for the locker room.
I finished my own stretches, grabbed my water bottle, and waited near the locker room doors, leaning against the cool brick wall. I didn’t normally take showers here on practice days and I didn’t like leaving my stuff in the lockers after mine had been sabotaged by Elijah that one time, so I was usually headed home right after practice.
Other guys trickled out, laughing, complaining about homework, making weekend plans. Finally, Eduardo emerged, gym bag slung low on his shoulder, head down. He started walking toward home, clearly intending to just disappear.
I pushed off the wall and fell into step beside him. We usually walked home together, our routes overlapping for the first ten minutes or so before he cut across town and I continued straight.
I didn’t say anything as we walked past the edge of the athletic fields, waiting to see if he would break out of his shell enough to start talking.