Chapter Text
Jesse steps out into her backyard, taking a deep breath of the warm evening air. It’s quiet except for the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze - perfect for practicing. She removes her shoes and sets her phone on the grass beside them. Putting her earbuds in, she hits play on her music and stands in the grass, feeling the blades tickle the bottom of her feet.
Gentle, calloused hands grip the flag pole. Jesse takes a deep breath and tosses it in the air with practiced precision. The familiar rotation of the flag would usually calm her, but tonight is different. As the pole obeys gravity, Jesse's mind is busy elsewhere when she catches it.
Tomorrow, she’ll be teaching the color guard the moves planned for the show of the year. Unfortunately, the coach has yet to contact her about the plan, making Jesse nervous about what it could be.
Color guard camp starts two weeks before the school year cuts summer short. Sharing the field with students willing to learn fills Jesse with anticipation; the only thing that dampens her excitement is seeing the football team. Most of them are okay, but they’re all loyal to their captain and quarterback, Aiden Mercer.
Jesse’s brow furrows as she throws the flag again, trying to channel her frustration into the toss. It goes higher than intended, and she barely manages to catch it.
As the captain of the guard, everyone expected her and Aiden to be rivals from the start. Normally, Jesse wouldn’t care what others thought; she could be friends with anyone she wanted. She’s rivals with him because he can’t keep his damn mouth shut. Jesse tosses the flag with even more force than before.
If Aiden weren’t such a jerk, she might actually be close friends with him. He’s smart, strong, determined, and a great leader for his team. Not to mention, he isn’t too bad to look at either - in fact, he’s rather handsome.
The pole comes down, but Jesse doesn’t even try to catch it as it thuds onto the ground. Jesse stares down at the flag strewn across the ground, the pole leaving an indent in the grass. She curses under her breath. Come on, Jesse. Focus.
Determined to continue, Jesse picks the pole up, grips it furiously, and squares her feet. She throws the flag up, the spin of the pole in tune with her thoughts, wild and unbalanced. Her brain snaps back to Aiden - his infuriating smirk, the way he always has a comeback in their arguments, the way his eyes light up when he’s teasing her, almost as if daring her to fire back. She catches the pole with one hand, spears it into the ground, and digs it into the grass.
Jesse closes her eyes and takes a slow, deep breath, trying to clear her mind. It’s just practice. Stop thinking about him. Stop thinking about everything. But it’s no use. Jesse huffs, deciding she’s too distracted to practice. She grabs her stuff, plucks the flag out of the new hole in the dirt, and heads inside.
After opening and closing the kitchen door, she throws her shoes on the ground and starts to head up the stairs before her mom stops her.
Peeking her head around the corner, “Hey sweetheart! Done already? It’s barely been an hour.”
Jesse sighs, “Yeah, too much on my mind to focus on it.”
“Okay, well, we will have dinner in about an hour or so. Are you going to be ready for camp tomorrow?”
“Yeah Mom, I’ll be fine.” Jesse walks up the stairs and into her room. She puts her guard equipment into her closet and sits on her bed. Her desk is littered with drawings of color guard outfits of all kinds. Flowy ones, reserved ones, from stylish to eccentric. Since she didn’t know the theme of the show yet, she designs one for every circumstance.
She gets up from her bed and goes over to the desk. Grabbing her favorite design so far, she looks at it earnestly, considering if it needs anything else added to it.
Should I go into fashion design for college? It wouldn’t be too bad of a career money-wise, and I enjoy it.
Since Jesse is about to be a senior in high school and has mentioned she would like to go to college, everyone is wondering what major she has decided. She hasn’t decided yet though, leaving the answer she gives to everyone, “I haven’t really thought about it yet…” while rubbing the back of her neck, a habit she has caught from her brother, and shies away from the conversation. She wasn’t a wallflower, though her friends would definitely not call her the most outgoing person they know. She has confidence in her craft and studies, but relationships and conversations with people outside of her friends and immediate family are usually kept to a minimum.
There is a knock on her door that interrupts her thoughts. “Yeah?”
After hearing her confirmation, the door opens a bit for Jesse to see a certain boy with blonde hair and blue eyes peek through. “Hey, you're done early. Something up?”
Jesse smiles at Lukas and goes to sit on her bed again, motioning him to join her. “I couldn't focus on actually practicing to improve anything, so I just gave up for today.”
Lukas sits on the bed next to her. “Is it about tomorrow?”
Jesse huffs and turns to him, “Why do you have to be best friends with my rival?”
Lukas laughs. “Aiden and I have been best friends since middle school, and as far as I know, you two have only been ‘rivals’ since the first year of high school, so I should be asking you why you're rivals with my best friend?”
Jesse pouts and folds her arms, “Well, if he wasn't such a jerk, maybe I wouldn't be.”
“He’s not that bad, he just has a rough exterior, once you get to know him, he's a really good guy.”
“Doubt.”
“Honest truth. Either way, summer’s over and it's time for the sports season! Are you ready?” He holds his hand and arm out like they are going to arm wrestle.
“Always.” Jesse grabs his hand with hers and they start the competition. Unfortunately for her, he is way stronger than her and she loses the match.
“Woo! And the crowd goes wild!” He makes a fake audience sound with his mouth while standing up with his arms in the air.
Jesse laughs and fake bows to the champion while still sitting on the bed.
The laughter dies down and Jesse smiles at him. “Thanks, Lukas. You’re the best fake brother ever.”
He smirks and sits on the bed next to Jesse again. “Listen, just because you were adopted doesn’t mean I’m your ‘fake’ brother.” He bumps her shoulder with his.
“I know, but it’s still funny to say.” She hugs him, and he returns the hug.
“Hey, you wanna play games in my room until dinner?”
“YOU KNOW IT! RACE YOU!” She bolts out the door towards Lukas’ room, leaving him in the dust.
“Not fair! I wasn’t ready, and you had a headstart!” he yells, running after her.
Jesse spends the rest of her day playing fighting games on Lukas' console until they have dinner with the family. Jesse helps clean up and heads up to her room to design a few more color guard outfits, just in case. She decides to read to get her mind off of tomorrow, accidentally falling asleep when she is too tired to keep her eyes open.
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Jesse wakes up Monday morning to her alarm at 8 a.m. Since this isn’t actual school yet, camp doesn’t start until 10 a.m. and goes until 4 p.m. Reaching her nightstand and turning off the alarm, she grabs her phone and checks her messages. Jesse swipes away some notifications from her favorite creators before her texts pop up. She finds a message from her best friend, Olivia, and a second from another close friend, Petra.
Olivia: Good luck on your first day! <3
Jesse smiles and quickly sends a thank you message back. Next.
Petra: Hey! So excited to see you on the field later!
Jesse: You better not distract the other drummers this year!
Petra: Who? Me? I would never!
Jesse: Mhm.
After sending the last message, Jesse stands up and gets ready for the day. She stuffs her drawings into a folder, then puts the folder into her backpack and heads downstairs for breakfast while she waits for Lukas.
Lukas drives them both to the school. Getting there a little early, Jesse waves goodbye to her brother as he leaves for football practice and heads to the coach’s office to get the theme and choreography of this year’s show.
Knocking on the door, Jesse hears a “Come in!” and opens it.
Coach looks up from her book. “Ah, Jesse! Perfect, I have this year’s show plan right here.”
“Great! What is the theme this year?” Jesse heads in and sits in one of the chairs in front of the coach’s desk.
“The theme is time!”
“Huh?” Jesse sits there, puzzled.
“This year’s theme of the show is time, the show is called ‘It’s About Time.’ We are borrowing it from one of our sister schools that performed it a few years ago.” Coach closes the book and hands it over to Jesse.
Jesse takes it and reads the title: It’s About Time. She opens the book to the synopsis of the show. It’s about the passage of time and tells the story of a couple growing old together from meeting in high school while having ups and downs in life. It sounds profound.
I guess I could add some clocks to one of my designs.
“There’s another thing. The school board wants to involve the football team a little more this year.”
Jesse tenses. Oh no.
“The team has done amazing in the past few years, the color guard as well, and the key characters in making this happen are graduating at the end of this school year. Their idea is to have the color guard sit on the shoulders of the players waving the flags while they break through the school banner before the games.”
Jesse is stunned. “You’re joking.”
She looks Jesse straight in the eyes. “No.”
Jesse groans and throws her head back slightly, “We really don’t need to do that.”
“Jesse, it isn’t that bad. I know you don’t get along with the football team that well, but you’re going to have to curb that for this season.”
“It is literally just Aiden. Everyone else on the team is fine, really. A lot of my guard are in relationships with the other players. Aiden is the only one I have constant shouting matches with.”
“Well, you better work it out with him because you’re going to be on his shoulders.” She smirks teasingly.
“WHAT?!” Jesse stands up abruptly, knocking her chair back.
“Captain of the guard and Quarterback star leading the pack. It was already decided, I’m sorry Jesse.”
Jesse opens her mouth to argue but stops herself and closes it before she says anything she regrets. She turns around and leaves the room, almost slamming the door closed behind her.
Jesse heads to the locker rooms and all but throws her backpack into her locker. No one has arrived yet, but they should be coming in soon. She opens the plan book and starts reading over the score and choreography.
She fishes out her phone and quickly sends a text to Lukas.
Jesse: This season is going to suck.