Thump Thump... Thump Thump...
The soft dribbling was no more than a distant flicker of a noise compared to the rain pounding steadily on the pavement.
One more shot, then he would be allowed in for diner.
It was crazy really. The kind of torment that athletes would put themselves through just to get better at the game. I never understood that. No matter how many times the concept was being drilled at me by the general of basketball, it just never seemed to want to stay implanted in my head.
And even though I had much better things to do than to toss a ball around, the game was a huge part of my life. I wasn't a cheerleader, wouldn't even dream of it, and I wasn't on the team. But every night I was sitting in the stands, cheering on my best friend who had been playing ever since he could pick up a basketball. The only thing that was worse than smelling the fried foods and sweat of the players was that, win or lose, I never got a decent chance to console my friend.
"Rain, would you do me a favor and tell Dan to bring Nathan out of the rain?" Asked the tall blonde woman from the kitchen.
I knew very well that she was, at least in her mind, busy with dinner, but I also knew that she didn't want to be the one to try and break down a good nights practice.
It never was Nathan that was disappointed in the long hours cut short in order to replenish his body. It was always Dan Scott that gave those cold, searching looks, that never showed anything other than pure determination. He was always looking for something to keep everyone away from his son, and even harder for ways to make people pay in full estimate if they messed up his life. And I, being the best friend of the teams star, got those looks far more than any teenage girl should have.
Even though it was only a short walk from my warm place next to the fireplace, to the front door, I still felt small in the house. I always did, with it's looming walls and hundreds of posed portraits.
The old door never seemed to want to be opened from the inside, and it certainly didn't help that the wind was practically pulling it closed when I tried pulling on the large metal handle. My face almost immediately was sprinkled with rain when the door finally gave in and allowed it 'self to be thrown back into the nook.
"Mr. Scott! Mrs. Scott says dinner is ready and wants Nathan to come in!" I had to scream to be heard over the rain and his orders at his son. I didn't move from the door way and waited for either one to actually acknowledge that they heard me, and it was only when one of the shadowed figures started moving into the light did a small warm feeling settle in the very pit of my stomach.
At least I could avoid that look for one more night.
Once they were inside, I resumed my seat next to the fire with the previous nights history homework. It would only be a few minutes for both men to get dried off and into a change of clothes. Normally I would have been up in Nathan's room, helping him with homework, or talking about our relationship problems, but tonight wasn't one of those nights. Tonight was tense, and it was only due to our Wednesday night dinner traditions that I was there.
We hadn't gotten into a fight or anything, for if we had, we wouldn't even be in the same house as each other for at least a few weeks until someone's pride finally caved. Tonight's air of guilt and blame laid solely on the shoulders of his parents, and their actions spoke for themselves, setting everyone else in the house on pins and needles.
Dan Scott was the first down stairs, changed and already getting an early start on the evening drinks.
"Do your parents know how much time you spend over here?" He questioned, and normally I would have been insulted, it was comments like these that did drive me home for days without visiting. But that was years ago, now, it's merely a conversation starter Dans way.
"Our house is full, Nathan is an only child, he and Mrs. Scott need me more." I could hear myself smirk before I realized that I had one plastered on my face. It wasn't a total lie, I had one older brother and two younger sisters. Not to mention three dogs, two cats, two guini pigs, and four fish. I just loved using a different excuse to why I was always at his house.
At first when questions like those kept coming my way, I assumed that it was because they didn't like me. That they thought that I wasn't good enough to hang out with their son. Just because I wasn't part of the upper class, or got my clothes from designer names. But then Mrs. Scott, who has insisted time and time again to call her Deb, explained to me that they just thought that there was something more than just the friendship between us. I laughed openly at the idea.
She believes it now, even though it took her long enough to come to the conclusion that Nathan was dating Peyton, and I was still on the market as single. But Dan however is a different story. I still can't figure out if he thinks that Nathan and I are screwing around and if he's proud of it, or if he doesn't think that his son needs to be hanging out with friends with the game season being so close.
"You know basketball season is getting close." This man was way to predictable when it came to his son. "And Nathan is going to be needing to spend all his time on getting ready for games. I don't think it's such a great idea for you to be taking up all his time."
"I don't take up all his time. I do let him have breaks every now and then when he has to use the bathroom." Not once did I ever look up from my book. It was hard to make sarcastic remarks to a man that could with a single sentence, ruin you for life. And believe me, he was much less intimidating when you didn't hold eye contact with him.
"You think it's funny, but," He took a long drink from whatever his favorite alcoholic beverage was this week, "when he's off at a great university and you're still working a dead end job and going to community college, you're going to wish you had talent like his."
That's what he thinks. He has no idea what I do in my own free time, nor of the things that I'm good at. I was never stupid enough to share those details of my life with him in fear that out of spite, he would take those away from me.
"Dan will you quit railroading the girl." Scolded Deb, finally stepping out of the kitchen with nothing else left to do to the food. "Our son isn't the only one that has potential you know."
"Yeah dad," Nathan said, coming down the stairs, still drying off his hair with a towel. "There are more kids in the world, and you should know, you've fathered at least half of them."
A normal family conversation in the Scott household. I always felt bad because of my best friends father, yet I learned a long time ago to never say that too him. Accepting pity was apparently against the Scott code of living. I also learned that throwing my own opinion into the mix didn't help matters.
They bickered for a while, and when I say a while I mean just as Dan started to open his mouth, his wife quickly made up an excuse to get his help in the kitchen and away from a ticking time bomb.
So far, so good, no terrible looks that made me want to climb up to the top of an 18 story building and do a swan dive into a cement pool.
"Rain, I'm sorry about all that." He said, taking a seat in the chair across from the one I was seated in.
"Don't worry about it Nate."
"No, he shouldn't have -"
"Seriously, if you're going to apologize every time Dan insults someone, or makes someone feel bad, then you're going to have to give up basketball, sleeping, eating, and breathing, just to barely have enough time to compensate for everything."
"I'd give up the eating and breathing, but I'd die before I give up the game." He remarked, throwing a pillow at me as I started to pack away my books.
"Predictable and the rise and fall of the sun." I yawned slightly before throwing the pillow back at him and missing by a few inches, sending it flying into the wall behind his head.
"You're one to talk."
"I'm too tired to argue with you. Plus it is getting late and I promised dad that I'd be home on time tonight to feed my pets."
"You want me to drive you; it's getting pretty bad out there."
"No thanks. It's only a few miles; I think I can handle it."
"If you say so."
"I do." I shouldered my orange and black book bag as I stood up, stretching my arms above my head and playing with my keys. "Plus, I never can get much homework done over here."
"Too many distractions?"
"No, too few. It's so quiet around here. Anyways." I made my way to the door before he could make a comment and compare our different living situations. "I'll see you tomorrow, and don't forget to write your English paper. Failing a class gets up kicked off the team."
He nodded, and I wasn't sure if he heard me because I preached stuff like that too him on almost an hourly basis at school. "I will mother."
I was about to take him up on that mother remark, but my eyelids and drossy body made sure that I shut the door before I opened my big mouth.
I ran to my car, that was parked a good fifty feet away on the curb of the road instead of in the drive way. My car was by far the nicest thing that I owned. I worked at the local music store (Karmez) for months to save up to buy it from a local man, and even longer to pay for Keith, the owner of Keith's Auto Repair, to fix it to work as good as new. It was a ford mustang, black, and ran beautifully.
It handled like a dream, had an engine that roared when it was started, and had the speed of any new model sports car. I never let anyone else drive it, no matter how good of a friend they were or how much they needed too. I was possessive only over it when it came down to my worldly possessions.
Once inside I turned up the stereo slightly to keep me awake on the four mile drive to my house. I lived exactly six streets behind Nathan's house, and the farther back you got, the more normal the people seemed.
It took a while longer to reach my destination due to the massive amounts of water that was preventing me from seeing five feet in front of me, but when I did, it was a sight for sore eyes.
My room was located right above the garage, and I was still in the process of moving in since my older brother, Leo (19) just recently moved into the basement so that he could have more privacy until getting a place of his own. My two younger sisters, Harper (16) and Lily (14) shared a room beside my parents' master bedroom. The three of us had to share a bathroom while both my parents and Leo each got their own.
I parked my car in the garage and made a mental note to mention to Leo later that he still hadn't fixed the door so that it wouldn't make so much noise closing.
My bedroom was my sanctuary. It was the only place that was mine. The ceiling was in the shape of an A, only without the rafters in the center, and reminded me of an attic in more ways that just that. My bed, that was clad in a light blue blanket and many different color pillows, set beside the only window and against the far right wall. My desk, that was a home to my computer, television, cd player, and full of random contents was right across from my bed and beside my tall dresser. My closet was small and was placed right behind the door that entered my room, and leading up to both of those were three lone stairs with a small landing at the top. The walls were painted dark blue, and one was striped, navy blue, sky blue, white and black, and all of them had posters on them. My room was very unique to my taste. I was a girl, so some stuff was there for, girl like, but my taste in movies and music seemed to linger on the tougher side to the female gender and clashed horribly with the style that I had preferred. Horror movie posters, rock and metal posters, along with many Halloween items didn't get alone very well with my glass angel collection, or my porcelain dolls, and especially not with my favorite stuffed animals. But if you could describe my room in simple words, then it simply would not be my room. The only thing that could make it the slightest bit normal would be my mirror above my dresser and the top of it in general. All of which were covered in pictures of me, my family and my friends, but most importantly, my pets.
I didn't have time to change before the barking down stairs reminded me that I had chores to do before I could relax in the solitude of my room. But I didn't mind. It was days like these, when life seemed so much simpler and better than it hardly ever was, that I didn't mind being around people. I just wish that I had days like that more often.