Chapter 4

Part 1

"Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme"

"Ok you are officially off your rocker," Megan said forcefully turning the TV off and standing in front of it.

"No! Turn it back on," I moaned gesturing wildly for her to step aside.

She moved closer to me eyeing me with disbelief. "Cam, you're watching a movie on a Saturday," she said pointedly as if that was the most profound conflict in the universe.

"So?" I asked scowling from where I lay upside down on our futon.

"Let me rephrase." She shook her hands as if erasing the words she'd said before with them. "You're watching a movie while the game is on. You skipped your high school homecoming so you wouldn't miss a Notre Dame game. You. Never. Miss. Them."

I shrugged which is somewhat difficult since I was upside down. "It's just the Navy game. I don't want to watch it much anyway."

Her face suddenly softened and she came and sat beside me while I pulled myself into a normal sitting position. "Cam I'm worried about you. You basically haven't left the dorm for an entire week."

I glared intensely. "That's not true. I went to class on Wednesday."

"Yes but you skipped on Thursday."

"What are you getting at?" I frowned as she bit her lip.

She shrugged in mock innocence. "I don't know…"

I stood up towering above her and wagging my finger like an angry mother. "Like you've been around all that much," I lectured with a light tone in my voice that kept her smiling. "You've kind of disappeared this entire week."

She smiled secretly and her eyes clouded over as if she was no longer in the same room with me.

"Meg!" I pleaded waving my hand in front of her face. "Stay with me here babe!"

She sighed dreamily and her eyes seemed to cloud again.

I flopped back into my spot on the futon and flipped the movie back on causing her to jump back to reality.

She stared at me disapprovingly. "So are you gonna tell me what it is?"

I refused to meet her eyes. Honestly not even sure what I'd say if I decided to make a confession. Did I mention that I'd just sort of forgotten to mention the whole Sean thing last week to her? Oops.

"There's nothing to say," I replied evenly still concentrating on the TV screen.

She continued to watch me steadily as I continued to pretend she wasn't there.

Suddenly we heard loud call come through the walls and a banging on our door. "Cam are you seeing this?" we heard DJ yell from the hall and then she burst through the door even though I swear I'd locked it earlier. (She's possibly a magician.) "What the hell!" she practically shouted grabbing the remote from my hand and flipping the channel to ABC.

"I was watching-" I started to protest but instead I noticed the score of the game. "Holy shit we're losing!" I yelled jumping out of my seat.

"One minute left and we're down by five," DJ practically shouted staring at me wide eyed. "I can't believe you weren't watching this!"

"Holy shit Sean, I'll love you forever if you can just score these points," I muttered tension suddenly running through me.

"That was pretty frickin' close," Charlie said somewhat hollowly as we sat in the hotel room after the game.

I nodded solemnly barely able to say a word. "I played like shit," I muttered sounding as if I was barely myself. "If it wasn't for you scoring that last one we would have been…"

Charlie grunted from his side of the room where he was pulling clothes out of his duffle bag. "It was a beautiful pass you threw Sean. Anyone could have caught it."

I bobbed my head as if I was actually considering what he'd said. "I threw some crappy passes and if it wasn't for you we would have lost that game," I pointed out.

Charlie gave a weak smile. "When the game was on the line you got it done Sean. That's all that matters," he replied coming across the room and patting me solidly on the back where I sat flipping the channels from my bed.

"It could just have easily have gone the other way. We could have lost-"

"But we didn't!" he exclaimed sounding slightly exasperated. "You're being melodramatic. Think of it this way: we're ranked two in the country and are undefeated with only three"- he held up three fingers- "regular season games left. Sean so far, no matter how close the game was, we're perfect."

I relaxed my face and just let my lips fall lightly together as the room suddenly became eerily quiet except for the TV.

I don't really know what led me to say it, but I just randomly blurted out the first thing that came to my head. "Charlie do you think I'm an ass hole?"

Charlie's eyes scrunched in a mingled shock and confusion. "Well that's a total 180 there because I don't think we're talking about football any more."

I released my breath I'd been holding and didn't reply to his comment.

"Is it possible," Charlie said with an air of humor that didn't suit my mood at the moment, "that Sean the football fanatic is for the first time thinking about something other than football?"

I assumed this was a rhetorical question and decided to leave it unanswered.

"So who is she?" Charlie asked almost excited. "Who's the girl that finally found a way into my little Seany's heart?" he asked doing one of those lubby-dubby voices that always make me want to vomit.

I turned to him straight faced and serious. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

The sexual tension is killing me. In fact I believe I just died.

Be kind. Please rewind- review! I meant review!