Me: I don't own Friday Night Lights!
Landry: Yeah, well everyone thinks my name is Lance and my girlfriend left me for some random guy named Cash.
Me: Oh…that sucks.
It was a warm evening in Dillon Texas in late September. It was that perfect temperature where it wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold, just one of those few days in Texas that weren't harsh weathered. It hadn't rained for a while, and the sky had that look like a dreamsicle, light orange painted with symmetry of creamy white lines.
For this reason and this reason alone, Tyra decided to take the long way home. Now, Tyra was not one of those people who usually marveled over useless things like sunsets, but lately things were different. Things were…better.
Ever since her mom had taken that fall and had to go to the hospital-her life had changed. It was one of the scariest things she had ever seen, and that was saying a lot. Growing up in the Collette house exposed you some of those things.
She had seen her daddy walk out when she was five, she had seen her sister throw her life away, she had had more boyfriends-losers-than she could count, and she had seen her mother been dumped and mistreated by guys. But nothing had ever scared her like that.
It was a selfish really. She thought of what would happen if her mother had gotten hurt. Her plate was already more than full, and having to take care of her mother more so than she already did would only worsen that. But like she always, she got through it.
Of course, it would be wrong to take all the credit, for she owed a great deal of it to the Taylors. They actually cared which was a foreign feeling for Tyra, as cliché as that may sound.
She had had a rocky start with the family, a nonexistent relationship with them for a good portion of their first time here. All she knew was another football coach and his family were moving here, snooze.
Football may control everyone else's life, but Tyra was dead-set on not letting it control hers.
The day she met Julie was tough, but not unusual. She had had yet another fight with Tim about God knows what, and was weakly wallowing in self pity again. But Tyra didn't wallow the way typical teens did; she didn't sit on her bed yelling at a soap opera with a tub of rocky road. No ma'am, that was not Tyra Collette. Tyra would freeze everyone out and sorrow silently. You can't blame her for that though, that was just the way she was raised; it was hereditary.
So when Julie approached her she was not affable, to say the very least. She ignored her at first, but Julie was a persistent person, and demanded to talk to her (a trait she obviously got from her mother.)
Looking back it was because Julie was just like Tyra: lost without a friend. Yes, Julie was needy, and yes, she was annoyingly perky at times, but she was pretty entertaining, and it wouldn't hurt to have a large portion of the football community on her side.
So as time went on Julie and she had gone from acquaintances to friends, a strange pair at that.
She didn't see Coach much, he was busy with football, but the few times she did see him he was friendly, and not in the 'you're my daughters friend and I'm just acting like I like you' way either. He was happy Julie knew someone. He said 'Hi' to her when they ran into each other in the hallway and that was that.
Mrs. Taylor was another story. She was not so accepting at first. Of course, she couldn't really be blamed for all of this. I mean one of their first official meetings was in her office because she and her prior perfect daughter had skipped class isn't exactly a great first impression.
She told herself she didn't care what this woman thought of her. She didn't care what anyone else did, why should she give a crap what this lady's opinions were? But deep under the surface she did. She craved approval from her, longed for the nods of affirmation, something her mother never gave her.
It wasn't that her mother didn't love Tyra; it was just that she didn't have very high standards. She knew Tyra could do anything she wanted, but didn't know how to show it.
Mrs. Taylor on the other hand had no problem showing praise or imputation. She had even banned Julie from seeing her, something she knew she probably deserved, but stung regardless.
She had apologized though, admitted she was wrong.
She had offered to help her with school too, something she was extremely doubtful about at first, but found out she actually liked the challenge, and the smart guys as well.
Most importantly she had helped her recover, shown some support from that awful day that she was supposed to meet Landry-it was almost too much to think about. Yet somehow she survived it with the help of someone who was willing to listen.
Anyway, it was a warm September evening, and because this newfound internal cleansing had just occurred, Tyra decided to take the long way home. It wasn't a lot longer (in Dillon, not anything was really far from anything else), but it would give her a few more minutes to enjoy the weather.
By the time she was half-way home the sky was starting to turn a charcoal color dotted with white yellow stars. Tyra liked night about the same, if not better, than the afternoon sunsets. The sky made her feel small, but in a good way, like good people were watching out for her.
All of these nice thoughts were shattered, however, when she got to one of the dicer parts of town, Carroll Park, where there were junky old cars, and tonight, a rare nicer looking one. She wondered who it belonged to as she continued her way through the park.
She saw the usual group of teenagers who hung out there, though she didn't come this way often, she came here enough to know who usually hung out. She used to be scared of them; she just ignored them now.
She saw the usual guys, even knowing their names by now since they were so talked about around her neighborhood. There was Chris, Ian, Quill, Tim-wait Tim? Her Tim? Well, not right now. She knew Tim, he may be a drunken user, but he was not a druggie. She still didn't know exactly why she approached him; all she knew was that she did. Maybe she still had feelings for him, or maybe it was because it was out of habit, whichever, she gave it to him.
"Tim," Tyra said quickly, she didn't phrase it like a question, since she already knew it was him. "Tim," she said louder this time, trying to get his attention.
She looked over at her, his eyes bloodshot, some kind of drug in his hand. "Tyra, what you doing here?" he said, not harshly, just trying to focus.
"I 'm going to my house. And you? Shouldn't you be with a rally girl or something?" she insultingly spat at him.
"Whoa, don't upset our boy," Chris warned, his muscles and tattoos obvious under his dirty white tank top.
"Yeah, that don't roll here," Quill said flipping his hands out in some kind of gang sign.
"Okay, whatever, Tim, let's go," Tyra said trying to grab his hand to go home. She didn't feel right leaving him here.
"Not so fast girl, you just got here. Stay with us for a while, have a smoke," Ian said, lighting another one of the long cigarette things.
"That? There is no way I would ever even consider that," she said, crinkling up her nose, disgusted.
"Why not, it's fun Tyra. Try one," Tim said.
"Oh yeah, looks like a blast," she said taking one and waving it around, pretending like she was having fun, "yahoo, party up!" she said sarcastically. The boys all looked at her wide-eyed, and Tim turned pale. Good, maybe she was getting through to them. "Oh, don't be shy now, it's real fun, trust me!" she continued, hoping to God that they were getting sicker by the minute from it. They just continued without any rebuttal, frozen in time. "What?" she snapped, and turned around.
She was met with the furious face of Tami Taylor.