A Life Like Mine (28 page)

              “Welcome to this year’s Honors Night Basketball Game!” The crowd cheered. The announcer continued, “As you all know, we have a compellation of this season’s finest athletic moments. Without further ado, here it is.” A huge screen slowly came down from the ceiling. The lights faded and the familiar DVD began.

              I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking what could Ashley have possibly put on this DVD that would make it even remotely harsh enough to get Tom kicked off the team. You have so little faith me. I thought we were friends. Oh, well, it shows what I know. Anyway, just keep reading.

              The DVD started out with hard rock music as Tom’s embarrassing moments played out across the large screen. Adam and I had added prat fall sounds and such at appropriate times in the clips. The first clip was of Tom sloppily running across the court, dribbling the ball. Someone tried to steal it, but Tom tripped him. You would have caught it though unless it was slowed down a bit and rewound of couple of times. So while editing this particular clip, Adam and I had done just that. As the footage caught Tom’s vicious nature, the crowd caught its breath. Then the DVD proceeded to show Tom’s many air balls, bricks, and countless tripping episodes. After that, the DVD showed footage of Tom looking one way to fake out his opponent when he passed the ball. Instead of passing it to an actual person, he tossed it to thin air. Next, Tom was shown jumping to catch the ball and then slam it in the hoop. He jumped too high and the ball ended up hitting him in the crotch. The crowd groaned in sympathy. Then they started to laugh uproariously. As they did this, screen went blank and went back up into the ceiling. The crowd began to whine.

              “More! More! More!” They shouted.

              “What happened?” I asked Annie. “We were only five minutes into the DVD.

              “I don’t know,” Annie replied.

              “Hmm.” I wondered to myself, grateful that not everything was shown. Suddenly Miss Rosemary was in the center of the court, which silenced the crowd immediately. When the gym was completely hushed she spoke.

              “Whoever did this, please step forward.” Her tone was harsh, but silence only met her words.

              “No one?” Miss Rosemary looked about the crowd. “I find it hard to believe that not a single soul in this room knows anything about this DVD at all.

              “Awwww, man,” I whispered to myself. I closed my eyes in shame. I slowly stood, as the crowd seemed to turn at me like they were one body.

              “I did it,” I admitted. I saw Tom now. He was hiding in the corner of the gym, next to the bleachers. He looked at me with pure hatred.

              “Come,” was all that Miss Rosemary said to me.

              “Okay.” I slowly descended the bleachers. I don’t know what happened in the gym after that. As I was on my way out, I saw Hank with a camcorder. It was turned off, and he held it limply at his side. He and Adam were to the right of me. They stared at me with sullen, broken expressions. I shifted my gaze away from them as I followed Miss Rosemary to her personal dungeon. (A.K.A Her office. You people don’t get anything!) I closed the door behind me at her request. We both say down, and Miss R. put on what I like to call her “scary disciplinary glasses.” She only wears these when she feels that the person in question needs a serious punishment. At first she just stared at me through them. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

              “Why?” Miss Rosemary finally spoke.

              “Come again?” I asked, surprised by her sudden speech.

              “Why did you do it?” Miss Rosemary threw off her glasses angrily.

              “I didn’t,” I answered.

              “What do you mean?”

              “I mean, I didn’t put the DVD on the screen. I made it, but I didn’t replace my DVD with the actual best moments DVD that was supposed to be played today,” I explained.

              “I see,” She put her glasses back on the bridge of her nose in complete principle fashion. “Then how do you explain how it got aired?”

              “I…uh…” I couldn’t turn Jack in. He just thought he was doing everyone a favor. “Okay. I had planned to air it.”

              “I see.” Miss Rosemary said again.

              “I put it in a green duffle bag, but I forgot it somewhere in the school. I’m not really sure where, because then I wouldn’t have really lost it now would I?” I chuckled lightly. Miss Rosemary’s expression remained unchanged. My smile faded quickly.

              “I’m surprised at you, Ashley.” She shook her head. “I thought you were past this.”

              “I was, I mean, I am.” I fumbled over my words.

              “If I am to believe what you told me about the duffle then will you at least tell me why you made it in the first place?” She signed discontentedly.

              “I wanted Tom to get kicked off of the basketball team.” I watched her with an earnest expression. Miss Rosemary simply frowned. You know the kind I’m talking about. The kind of frown that makes you spill your entire life story in a matter of seconds. And, well, that’s exactly what I did. I told her all about my history with Tom. I told her about what he had done to me and to everyone he had ever met. I also informed her of my suspicions of Tom doing something underhanded. I didn’t know what, though. Miss Rosemary’s attention never was diverted as I told her the entire story.

              “Do you believe me?” I asked hopefully.

              “Well, in all honesty,” Miss Rosemary adjusted her glasses, “Yes.”

              “Oh.” I sighed with relief.

              “Don’t think that this means you’re off the hook. Now that you’ve done something this public in front of the entire district, I have to punish you harshly. I might have ignored your other indiscretions, but now I have to punish you for all of them, otherwise I’ll look bad. Besides, I still can’t remove Tom from the team. You haven’t proved Tom has done anything but be an unskilled basketball player.” Miss R. shrugged emphatically. “For all I know, you could just be making this all up, and playing me for a fool.”

              “But I thought that you believed me?” My voice caught.

              “I do. I just can’t support you. I’ll tell you this,” She placed her glasses on her desk. “Unless you can bring me cold hard evidence of the accusations you have made towards Tom in the next twenty four hours, you’ll be in trouble.”

              “What kind of trouble?”

              “You’re have to serve at least four months of Saturday detentions and write a formal apology to Tom.”

              “I…I don’t.” My jaw dropped. “What kind of cold hard evidence are you expecting from me? What do you need?” My eyes bulged out of my head.

              “Something that is against the Code of Conduct.” She pulled out a fat book from her desk and plopped it on my lap. I jolted from the surprising weight.

              “Am I supposed to read this?” I inquired.

              “No, but if you want to find evidence I’ll listen to, you’d better know what’s in here.” Miss Rosemary got up from her seat and opened her door.

              “So in other words I have to read it?” I scrunched up my face disapprovingly.

              “I’ll see you this time tomorrow,” Miss Rosemary answered.

              “Yes, ma’am.” I stood up and left the office with my new reading assignment. Around the corner, I found Adam pacing nervously. Gosh, he was so darn cute when he was thinking hard. Then again, he looked cute all the time. STOP! I dismissed these thoughts toward him as I cleared my throat to let him know of my presence. He looked up at me, and stopped pacing. He stared at me, I swear, as a thousand expressions crossed his features.

              “Hi,” Adam’s voice cracked. He coughed and smiled anxiously.

              “Hi.” I gave him a small smile. “What are you doing here?”              

              “I wanted to thank you for not turning me in along with you. After what I did to you, I figured you’d want to. He stepped closer to me.

              “I’m not like you Adam. I don’t try to get back at ex-boyfriends,” I stepped away as I spoke those cold words.

              “Yeah.” He winced.

              “Besides,” I smiled, “I already knew you were under the microscope from you court case.” I fidgeted.

              “Yeah, thanks.” Adam looked at his feet. “Oh, I also wanted to know if you were okay.”

              “Hmmm.” I snorted. “Why was that the last thing that came to mind?”

              “I…uh…” Adam was sweating.

              “I’m fine.” I nodded with a smirk. Then an awkward silence showered over us.

              “Listen,” we both said at the same time.

              “I’m sorry about what you thought you heard the other day. I didn’t mean any of it, and neither did Hank. I’ve been really stressed out lately, not as if that’s an excuse, but…when my best bud about us questioned me, I didn’t know what to say. I got scared. When you asked me if I cared about you at all, I doubted my feelings for you. I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really, really…”

              “That’s enough.” I held back a grin.

              “Really sorry,” Adam finished.

              “It’s okay. I forgive you. I shouldn’t have assumed so much,” I conceded.

              “You had every right to,” Adam interrupted. “What Hank and I were saying was cruel and uncaring.”

              “Yeah.” I sighed.

              “I know that we’re not going out anymore. And I understand why you don’t want to be my girlfriend, but for not can we just be friends? I just can’t lose you. Even if it means we can only be friends.”

              “I don’t know.” I bit my lip.

              “Please, I just want a chance,” Adam pleaded.

              “Okay. To tell you the truth, I need your help.” I stepped closer to him.

              “I can’t believe Rosemary gave you a twenty four hour deadline!” Adam exclaimed, scratching his head.

              “I know,” I replied. “How are we gonna do this?” 

              “Well,” I figured we’d watch all of this season’s recordings Hank made again, and look for anything that doesn’t look ‘ethical.’” Adam made quotation marks in the air.

              “That will take forever.” I laughed.

              “This is why I made popcorn.” Adam smiled as he threw a kernel into his grinning mouth.

              “You’re a thinker, you know that?” I grinned flirtatiously. I know, I know. I shouldn’t be flirting with him, if I don’t want to go out with him, but come on! He’s so darn hot! You’d understand it if you were actually there.

              “Only the best of us are thinkers.” He beamed at me. He took my hand as I reached for more popcorn. He gave me a soulful look. I'll tell you, that it's not easy to look away from.

              “Ash.” He sighed leaning towards me.

              “Please, don’t.” I backed away. “Let’s focus.”

              A few hours later, Adam and I had absolutely nothing to go on. All we knew was that Tom was without any doubt a talentless buffoon. We had watched pretty much all of the tapes, and come up with nothing. It got so late that my eyelids started to get really heavy. The next thing I knew, I was waking up, squinting at the brightness of the blue TV screen. Adam was asleep on a chair he had brought in from the kitchen. It was situated right in clear seeing distance of me. Well, isn’t that dandy? He was watching me sleep. The little creepy man! Darn it. That’s not creepy. That’s hot. I want him so bad! WHY!?!?! Anyway…I tried to comb my hands through my hair, but they wouldn’t go. I was wrapped tightly under a warm, flannel blanket. I smiled, lovingly at Adam. (NO! STOP LOOKING AT HIM LIKE THAT! Why does he have to be so darn sweet?) I threw the blanket off as Adam awoke and grinned at me.

              “We must have dozed off,” I said as businesslike as I could. “Do we have any more recordings left?”

              “Just one.” He held it up for me to see. He put it in the DVD and pushed the “play” button.

              Okay, now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that this is another one of those stupid stories where we just happen to find the perfect evidence at the last second of the last tape. Well, you’re wrong. We found absolutely nothing, and I was crushed.

              “What now?” I asked tiredly.

              “I don’t know.” Adam cocked his head. “Are you up for a movie?”

              “A movie? Why would I want to watch a movie at a time like this? It’s a Thursday night and we have school tomorrow!”

              “Come on. It’ll calm you down. Besides it’s Friday. It’s 3:00 AM.”

              “Great.” I huffed.

              “It’s hard to see the names in the dark, but I’m too lazy to find a light.” Adam smiled, and put a DVD in. “I hope this is the right one.”