Note: I do not own Friday Night Lights or I Am Man of Constant Sorrow by John Hartford

Chapter Ten

For six long years I've been in trouble
No pleasure here on earth I found
For in this world I'm bound to ramble
I have no friends to help me now.

"Hey Don," I heard someone say to my right. I was leaning against my truck that sat neatly in the parking lot after school; Aubrey told me to wait for her while she talked to a teacher about… something, I forgot what she told me. But she wanted me to wait so we could hangout. I would normally have practice but I decided not to go today since she was having a bad day, I wanted to cheer her up.

I turned my head and saw Ann walking toward me with a polite smile. "Hey Ann." I gave her a small wave, turning my head to look back at the pavement in front of me. I expected her to keep walking past me, but instead she stopped next to me.

"What's up?"

When she stopped next to me I returned my eyes back to her with a small smile. "Nothing, just waiting for Aubrey."

"You're not going to practice today?"

Why do you care? I shook my head. "Not today, but shh-," I said, putting my finger to my lips, "Don't tell anyone."

Ann smiled. "I won't."

There was a bit of an awkward silence for a minute before I spoke again. "So how was your day?"

Ann looked at me and her smile grew bigger, as if that sentence brightened up her whole day. "It was good, kind of boring, but school's like that anyway."

I nodded slowly and grinned. "Yeah, that's true." There was another silence and I thought of something to say so it wasn't awkward again. I didn't know what she wanted and I was about ready to ask her but she spoke before I could put the words together in my head.

"…Don't you think your dad would be mad if you missed practice today?"

"I don't know," I shrugged, "It's just one day. Plus, I don't care."

Ann smiled wistfully and stepped closer to me, invading my comfortable bubble of space. "You know, I've been thinking a lot about what happened a while ago… at that one party… remember?

My eyebrows rose slightly with surprise and curiosity and I stayed where I was, looking down at her as she got closer and closer. "No," I managed, clearing the lump in my throat after speaking. This was coming out of nowhere, what did she think she was doing? I mean, she was cute, but… not as good looking as Aubrey, not even close.

"I think you do." She put on a playful smile in an attempt to look sexy.

I shook my head and glanced away. "I really don't."

"Should I refresh your memory?" she asked quietly as she looked at my lips, standing on her tip toes to prepare herself.

My body was stiff, up against the side of the truck that felt warm from being in the sun. My hands gripped the top of the tailgate and I couldn't seem to move. "Uh…" I said, my mind going blank. I was at a loss for words in the worst situation.

"I guess that's a yes?" she asked with a small and soft laugh. Her lips then connected with mine and without thinking mine started to move with hers, like an instinct. It took me a minute to remember, but when I did I knew what night she was talking about, and images flashed in my head.

I saw an unfamiliar room, a bed with nothing on it but a white sheet, and her in front of me as I blindly shut the door. We stumbled onto the bed, me on top and her beneath me, giggling from the more-than-enough beers that we had before we decided to get away from everyone. Her shirt came off first, her chest heaving from the excitement. I kissed her neck slowly and felt her hands run up my chest as she moaned. Moving back to her lips I put my hands on her hips and slowly moved to unbutton her pants and slide them down along with her panties. I smiled through our kissing as I felt her unbuckle my belt and go for the button and zipper on my jeans. I took the condom out of my pocket and helped with my pants, both of us not pulling away from kissing each other, both our tongues roaming each other's mouths…

"Don!" I suddenly felt a shove and opened my eyes to see Ann a couple feet away with a livid expression. "Get away from me!" Ann yelled opening the gap between us even more.

"Wh…" I started low, not realizing what she was doing. She came onto me, why would she be… oh shit. I saw a figure standing behind her and turned my eyes to focus on who I knew it was, Aubrey. Her mouth hung open in shock and I could see her eyes glistening from tears. I gestured to the space between them and mumbled to myself when I realized what Ann had made it look like. "But…she…"

Words wouldn't come out when I saw Aubrey shake her head and turn to walk away. God dammit, no! "Stay away from me!" I yelled angrily, pointing at Ann who winked at me and 'stormed' away. "Aubrey, wait!"

She walked faster to get away and I ran to catch up with her.

"Wait!" When I finally reached her I grabbed her arm gently and turned her to face me. "Aubrey, wait a minute. Please," I pleaded.

As she turned to me her hair fell in her face and her eyes were red from unshed tears. "No, get the hell away from me," she ordered angrily, pulling away strongly from my grip to free herself. She walked around to the stadium where a separate, almost vacant parking lot was located, and I followed closely behind her, trying anything to get her to stop walking and turn around for me to explain.

"Baby please!" I begged. All these emotions ran through me, but the worst part was watching her walk away from me, which I thought, hurt more than anything I was feeling.

Aubrey turned to look at me suddenly, stopping in her tracks and wiping the tears from her eyes as she silently cried. "What?" she asked loudly and angrily, "What the fuck do you want?"

I sighed heavily and my expression turned sullen when I saw the tears running down her beautiful face. "Aubrey, it's not what you think. I swear."

It seemed like her angry expression was stuck, like she didn't even hear me speak. "Why would you do that?" she asked, her voice raised and angry. "I trusted you." She shoved me and I took a step back. "I thought you changed." She pushed me again and all I could think to do was let my body take it. "Why the fuck would you do this to me?"

"Baby come on! She kissed me! I would never lie to you!" I defended, my voice just as loud as hers.

"I don't believe you! In the back of my mind I knew this would happen, but I hoped, really hoped it wouldn't," Aubrey said loudly through crying.

"I didn't do anything! She kissed me! ANN. Ann kissed me!"

"Don't I make you happy? Don't I meet your 'needs?' I thought you said you didn't want to fuck things up, now look what you did! You're such a fucking dick." She turned to walk away again and I rushed after her, taking her hand gently into mine. Her words hit me like bullets, and each one stung me with the anguish that started to fill me. Once again she pulled away and looked at me. "I don't want you near me, don't you get that? I don't want to see you, I don't want to hear your name, I don't want anything to do with you."

Tears pricked at my eyes and I took a deep breath to try and clear them. "Why don't you believe me?"

"Why didn't you stop her?" Her voice was a weird combination of firm and gentle.

"Aubrey," I sighed. I didn't know what to say. I felt helpless, like no one could save me. And worse, I felt alone. "I'm sorry." My voice was low and faint and I looked away as tears started to fill my eyes.

Aubrey shook her head and tears kept streaming down her face. It was silent, and I heard the coaches on the football field yelling in the distance. Why didn't I do anything? I was angry at myself for not trying to stop Ann. Don Billingsley, look what you did now. My thoughts were interrupted and the silence broke with her footsteps and my eyes returned to her. I realized I had really fucked this one up. The best thing in my life just walked out.

xxxx

I walked until I couldn't see him and I was sure he couldn't see me. Pulling out my phone, hands shaking, I dialed and put it up to my ear while trying to console myself. "Hello?" Beau asked on the other end.

I took a deep breath quickly and tried to keep my voice steady. "Beau, can you come get me?"

"What's wrong?" he asked, obviously hearing something in my voice.

I bit my lip as I held back most of my tears. "Just come and get me please."

"I'm on my way, where are you?"

"End of the stadium parking lot." I closed my eyes for a second to try and clear the tears then looked out at the dry grass and dirt in front of me, standing a few inches away from where the pavement ended.

"I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up before I could say goodbye.

…

"Are you okay?" Beau asked after I got in the car and buckled my seatbelt.

I shook my head and willed myself to keep the tears inside. "Just drive."

"Are you gonna tell me?" he asked softly.

"Can you just shut the hell up?" I snapped, closing my eyes so I didn't have a chance of seeing Him as we drove out of the parking lot.

"Sorry."

I tried to steady my breathing and focus on something else, keeping my eyes closed as I thought. Why would he do that? Why would Ann do that? If it was Dons fault, Ann could have stopped him and if it were Ann's fault, Don could have stopped her. Great. Today was Monday and I would have to see them at school tomorrow. I knew I wasn't talking to Ann again, best friend my ass. She was definitely hearing about it, and definitely being erased from my life. I sighed when I thought about what would happen with Don. For now I didn't want to think about it. The pain I felt was indescribable. It was kind of like my mom dying all over again.

"We're here," Beau said and I felt the car become silent when he turned off the engine.

I opened my eyes and saw our garage door in front of me. Without a word I got out and walked toward the house, unlocking the door and going straight for my room. As much as I tried not to slam the door, I ended up slamming the door after entering.

Pacing back and forth I started to breathe heavily and tried to keep my mind clear. Keeping your mind clear isn't something you can do after you see your boyfriend sucking face with your best friend. "Aubrey, breathe," I said, slowing down my pacing and taking slow, deep breaths as I closed my eyes. I stopped crying, focusing on nothing, literally nothing. I had trained my mind so well from my mother's death, that when I needed to keep my mind clear I would stare at the back of my eyelids, focusing and thinking about absolutely nothing. It was like I was meditating. I kept breathing slowly and all I could see was black. Keep it blank. Be strong; be not afraid.

Once I thought I had composed myself I opened my eyes and saw my bed in front of me. My bag was thrown haphazardly on the blankets that sat neatly below it and everything seemed to be in its proper place, just the way I left it this morning. The window above my bed had the curtains drawn, making the room darker than it needed to be. Without giving it a second thought I pulled back the curtains and kicked off my shoes as I sat Indian style on my bed, pulling out books to start my homework.

A second later I heard a faint knock on the door. "Come in," I said so the person behind it could hear me and I looked up to see who it was.

Beau opened the door enough to poke his head through to look at me. "You okay?"

I looked back down at the books on my lap with a blank expression. "I'm fine."

"Wanna… talk… about it?" I could tell he was being gentle, just in case I would start to cry again.

"Talk about what?"

"About…" his voice trailed off as he caught on. He knew me well enough to know when I was trying not to think about something, I did the same thing a few months before when I was trying to get over my mom's death. "Do you want something to eat?"

I shook my head. "No thanks."

He was silent for a minute while he thought about what to say next. "…Just let me know if you need anything."

I nodded as I looked between my Anatomy book and the piece of paper I was writing on. "I will. Thank you."

"You're welcome Aub… and I'm sorry for what I said yesterday."

I looked up at him and showed a faint smile. "Don't worry about it."

Beau gave back a crooked smile and nodded. "I love you."

"I love you too."

He shut the door and I looked back down at the notebook I had scribbled answers on. I focused on what I was writing and repeated it to myself to keep my mind on what I was doing. "The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for energy-expanding, stressful, or…" my voice trailed off as I suddenly saw a small drop of water hit the paper, then another a couple seconds later. I stopped writing and rubbed my eyes, realizing they were tears. This time I couldn't stop them and I covered my face, sniffling and trying to wipe them away as they came. Stop it Aubrey. I sighed and closed my book, returning my hands to my face as I started to cry all over again. I wanted so much to stop crying, to erase what I saw or completely block it out, but I couldn't. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

xxxx

"Hey, this is Don, leave a message…"

"—At the tone, please record your message; when you are finished recording hang-up, or press one for more options."

"…Hey Don, it's Brian. Uh… I didn't see you at school today or practice for two days so I was just calling to see if you were okay… coach was pretty mad 'cause we needed you. And I think your dad came to practice looking for you today, I didn't talk to him but he looked pissed when he left. I'll see you soon? Okay… bye."