Ch. 1 - Untitled WIP (Darius and Chayla)

I started this novel last year and made some real headway with it. I don’t have a title yet but I kind of want to wait and see where the story goes before I title it. However, suggestions are welcomed. So that story is about Chayla, who wants to be a journalist but realizes she’s a grade A student and that may not be enough to get her into a good school. Darius is the king of campus and is known for being the star of the football. But after an encounter with Chalya, he begins to wonder is that all he is. So, Darius devises a plan to help Chayla pan out her extracurriculars in exchange, she’ll help him shed his football image. As they learn more about each other, they discover that maybe they don’t have to be who everyone else wants them to be. That maybe they can be themselves together?

Feedback is welcomed in the comments below. Enjoy!

CHAYLA POV 

The smell hit me before I reached the door. It was a mix between balls and feet. I held back the urge to gag. I started to take a deep breath, then thought better of it. Summoning all my courage, I opened the door to the weight room and walked in, head held high, face neutral, trying not to gag on the scent wafting through my nose. 

The sounds of grunts and clanking flooded my ears as I made my way through the room. I ignored the stares as I scanned the faces of the athletes, looking for one boy in particular. I stopped short when I saw him, all the way in the back where the bench presses were. I sighed before straightening my shoulders and marching forward. 

I had heard of Darius Lyons, quarterback of the Baskerville High school Bears. He was well liked by all his teammates and had quite the following from both students and staff at the school. He had gotten them to the championships last year but they lost the game. By no fault of his own, I remembered reading in the school paper last year. 

Normally, I shied away from profile pieces because it meant talking to people. I rarely liked to write pieces that covered school events, but those were easier than this. Those people were just like me, nerds who cared about academic achievements. I never covered sports or cheerleading or band or theatre because those people were far more outgoing than I was. Just walking up to them made my hands clammy and my mouth run dry. But if I wanted to be a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, I'd have to get over her fear of talking to certain types of people. If only I had realized this sooner before last week. 

Katrina, or Trina for short, was sitting on my living room floor, gnashing on a bowl of popcorn. 

“Pass the caramel salt.” She stuck her hand behind her, wriggling her fingers in impatience. 

I rolled my eyes but got up and went into the kitchen. They had found the stuff surprisingly at Walmart. And Trina just had to buy it right then and there. Of course, she had money from her job working at the froyo shop, Froyo 101. While I still had to ask my parents for money if I wanted something. I felt so childish in comparison to Trina. 

Although, that sense of immaturity didn’t last long when I came back into the room, handed Trina the salt and she sprinkled way too much on her popcorn.  Then she literally made the “nom nom” sound as she chomped on her snack. 

Tonight we were watching Gilmore Girls. It was my night to pick the movie, but I had already started rewatching the show and decided to pick up where I left off. Trina groaned but said she would watch if I made the snacks. 

Pressing play, the opening theme song came on and for sometime who claimed to despise the show, Trina sang right along with me. Both of us, two black girls, singing off key to a very white girl show. And I loved every minute of it. 

Of course I knew which episode this was. Season three, episode three, where Rory and Paris host a forum with admission officers. Paris, as usual pushed forward but Rory was frozen stiff, paralyzed with the fear that she was just like every other over achiever. 

Then I had a thought, Was that me? Was I just another academic do-gooder? 

“Poor thing. Glad that’s not us,” Trina chimed from her place on the floor. 

“Y-yeah,” I managed to get out but I was lying if I couldn’t see the correlation. 

After a few more episodes, and all the popcorn destroyed, Trina, in all her black; black dress, black stockings, black boots, with matching accessories and fingernail polish, left my house and promised to text when she got home. I struggled to smile and waved her off. 

As soon as she was gone, I ran up to my room and pulled up my laptop, reviewing my college applications. Early admissions for most wasn’t until November or December. If I waited until regular admissions (March or April, hell, some as late as July), I could have more time to impress colleges. 

So far, I only had the paper as my extracurricular. I figured that’s all I needed to get into Harvard or any of the other top Journalism programs in the country. But the program wasn’t the entire school. I had to impress admissions officers and just working on the Baskerville Bugle wasn’t going to cut it.

I did have some community service on my application. I had done a community cleanup with my church. But all we really did was go to the park and pick up trash. Not like we planted trees or painted park benches. Plus, neither the school paper nor the city covered it. So did it even really count? 

I’d have to do more. I pulled up the school website and searched clubs. We had a lot more than I remembered. Or maybe that was because I never paid attention to anything going on outside the paper. It was already mid-September and most clubs weren’t accepting new members. But there was hope for me to become an alternative for most of them. 

Thus come Monday, I asked Ms. Robinson, the faculty member in charge of the school paper if I could take on more responsibility. Do assignments outside my scope. She was skeptical at first. I never asked to do more than I already did. With all my AP classes and extra credit assignments, I really didn’t have the time to do more on the paper. But I’d have to scale back on that other stuff if I stood a chance at getting into college. Apparently, that’s not what colleges were looking for anyway. 

Yet she relented and handed me the profile piece. We were doing a profile on the most popular student of each grade and writing a piece on them. Since I was a senior and Darius was our most popular student of our class, I’d have to cover him. Ms. Robinson wanted to break from the traditional story coverages we’d done and focus on things that would get the students reading. 

The paper published whether the students read it or not, but the principal was threatening to reduce staff and downsize the paper to a pamphlet essentially if readership didn’t go up. So no pressure, but Ms. Robinson stressed that I better wow her. 

Now here I was, standing in an odorous gym of sorts, trying to grab the attention of the most popular guy in our class (according to our poll).

I cleared my throat, trying to grab his attention. Nothing. I made an ‘ahem’ sound this time, and nothing. Finally, I tapped him on the shoulder and I swear, he pumped harder. 

What an asshole I thought to myself. Who did he think he was? He wasn’t that popular. I could just go ask the girls he had dated previously, and I’d bet they have some negative things to say. 

“Listen you--” I began but lost my gumption as he let the weights drop with a loud clang and wiped his brow on his towel.

How does he make sweat look sexy? What? Why was I thinking that? 

I took a deep breath and tried again. “Hi there. I’m Chayla James from the Baskerville Bugle and there was a survey polling you as BHS’s most popular senior and I’d like to interview you.” 

I waited for his response. He just flashed me a megawatt smile (and my stomach did a little flip) before replying, “I didn’t realize I was already so popular. We’re only a month into the semester. Damn.” He wiped his brow again but with the back of his hand, no towel. (Stomach flip.) 

“Well, I wouldn’t say you’re that popular,” I muttered before I could stop myself. Then quickly I added, “I mean, I’m sure not everyone thinks that. The poll only randomly selected a few hundred students and staff.” God, I was making this worse. 

He just laughed and stood up, swiping sweat from his forehead and back of his neck. 

Damn, my whole stomach, back and thighs became gold-medaled rhythmic gymnasts. What the hell?! 

I was no stranger to boys and their hotness. I just never focused on guys that weren’t in the same league as me. I stuck to the mathletes or debate dudes or chess club. Although, if I were being honest, none of them ever made my body react the way Darius was making me feel right now. 

He wasn’t even doing anything but wiping sweat off his chiseled, smooth brown skin. I could see his muscles flexing underneath his strong arms, noting his thick biceps and um . . . large hands. His loose tank tank gave me a little peep show into what his pecs looked like, and I could see a bead of sweat rolling down towards his nipple. (Gulp) I needed to stop. 

And it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him roaming the halls of our school or playing on the football field or on social media. And all those times I had never reacted this way. I guess things looked different up close and personal. 

“So what’s the verdict?” He tapped the side of my arm. Dear Lord, I hope I haven't been daydreaming too long. 

“Uh . . . almost unanimous. Everyone likes you. According to the poll,” I clarified at the end. 

“And what about you?” 

“Uh, I don’t follow,” was the first thing I could think of. 

“I said, ‘What about you?’”

Oh. “Paper personnel aren’t allowed to participate in the poll.” 

“Uh huh. So you don’t like me, I’m guessing?” 

“So how long have you been playing football?” I posed my first interview question, hoping to move this along. 

“Ah damn! I was messing around but you really don’t like me.” He slapped my arm again. 

I would have to wash his stench off. Or not. I mean, or yes. Ugh. Hormones. 

“Can we get on with the interview? I'm sure you have other stuff to do and I have other things I could be doing--” 

“Oh.” He arched one of those sexy eyebrows. “Like what things?” 

I hated that. I hated how everyone assumed I had nothing better to do with my life. Like I didn’t even have a life. For the record (not that he could hear inside my head) but I had plans to meet Trina at Froyo 101 and go over . . . this very interview . . .

Maybe he was right. Maybe my life was boring and I had nothing better to do. I was fooling myself if I thought studying and more studying was really a lucrative pastime. I bet Dairus didn’t waste his time studying (I mean, I’m sure he studies), but you didn’t become popular by studying. 

But I wasn’t about to admit that to him. I was a damn good journalist who was going to get into a good school and win a Pulitzer one day. Popularity was for those who didn’t have the prowess and the skill for anything else. 

Thus, I straightened up my back and took a purposeful breath. 

“I have more important things to get to, so let’s start this interview. When did you start playing football? Do you plan to play football in college? If so, are you going on a football scholarship? What college would that be?” 

“Whoa, slow down there. I barely caught what you said. Let me see that.” He snatched my paper out of my hands. 

I could see his face scanning the words and then his eyebrows knitted together. At first, his expression was irritated but it quickly morphed to pissed and clearly offended. 

“There’s nothing but questions about football on this paper. And ‘Is football all he does?’ What the--”

“Oh that question was more for me, obviously.” I reached for the sheet but he crumpled it up and tossed it in a nearby trash can. Goal or whatever they say in football. 

We had garnered quite the crowd. All these male student athletes were looking at us and they looked like they were on Darius’s side. And why shouldn’t they be. I had basically implied he was a dumb jock by my line of questions, even the one I posed to myself. Suddenly, my confidence deflated and I wanted to run and hide. 

“You know what, I should be--”

“Do them again.”

“Excuse me?” I stopped dead. 

“Redo the questions, and once I have approved them, I’ll do the interview.”

“And why would I do that? Are you not a football player?” I began, gaining back some of my fire. 

I knew I was in the wrong. I should just apologize and leave with what little dignity I could carry. But the nerve of this guy. He did not have the right to tell me how to do my job. While the questions were a little one note, they were still good questions. It wasn’t like I just ripped them from my ass. Besides, I was asking the questions everyone else wanted to know. Who was I to deny the people what they wanted?

“Futhermore, is there something so special about you that the public should know? Are you a superhero on the weekends?

“No, but--” 

“Do you put out fires in your spare time?

“No, but again--”

“Do you read to the early or children?

“Sometimes--”

I was a little shocked by this but then realized before saying, “Grandparents and siblings don’t count.”

“I’m an only child and my grandparents don’t need me to read to them.” 

Well that shut me up. 

“Furthermore,” he repeated my word back to me. “Had you done your research and prepared better interview questions, you might have known that or could have found that out.” 

There were a few ‘oohs’ from the crowd. My face burned with embarrassment. 

“But you’re so busy thinking you know it all and that you have me figured out, you come off as a judgemental tight ass. So until you come at me with something better, I ain’t doing no damn interview.” 

And then he turned around, storming off towards the locker rooms. And soon the rest of them followed suit, leaving me there alone with my thoughts and his words. 

DARIUS POV 

Who the fuck did she think she was? Talking to him like that? At least people knew who he was. Before today, he had never heard of Chayla James and it would be a moment too soon if he ever saw her again. 

She was uppity, condescending and smug even. Like she knew the secret to who he was and that there was really no depth to him. What the fuck did she know? 

But this one thought popped into his mind, this one thought that had been noodling in his brain since last semester. Was football the only thing for him? Was that how everyone saw him? Was that all they wanted to see? Why couldn’t they see he was so much more? 

Maybe he shouldn’t have laid into her like that. She was after all doing her job. She could have thoroughly researched those questions and that’s all she could come up with. Or her editor had pre-approved those ones yet she had other things to ask him. What did he know? 

“Ah man.” he rubbed his hands over his face. 

“You okay man,” his friend, Montrell, asked. 

Montrell, or Trell for short, was the kicker of the team and they had been friends since Little League. It was just them against the world. The only two black kids on the team when they were younger, because most parents couldn’t afford Little League for their kids at the youth center. Of course they weren’t the only black kids now, but it still felt like it was them against the world. It was Darius’s job to lead the offense and call the plays but Trell’s job was to get that extra touchdown point. Trell was really the star, yet somehow Darius was more popular. He’d never understood high school hierarchy. 

However, Trell didn’t just play football. He was also in the theatre and was really good at Shop. He was always posting all his little woodworking projects on his Insta and showing off his amazing acting skills. Darius didn’t have anything like that going on in his life. Football was his life. It was his ticket into college. 

Although he didn’t have bad grades, they weren’t good enough to get him into a top school with a full ride. Football was the only way to do that. 

“Hey man, you hear me?” Trell broke through his reverie. 

“Yeah. Sorry, just thinking.” 

“Man, don’t sweat that chick. She thinks she’s all that because she’s going to an Ivy League school,” Trell scoffed. 

“How do you know that?” Darius turned to his friend. 

“Her girl told me. We both do theater together. Chay’s mostly quiet but when she gets going, she can be a little, well you saw.” Trell shrugged and went off to the showers. 

Darius pulled out his phone and opened his Instagram app. He searched for Chayla James, but there were surprisingly quite a few to choose from. Then he looked through Trell to see if her friend Katrina was tagged in any of Trell’s pictures. Sure enough, there she was, on opening night and the cast after party of last semester’s Hamlet. 

Then he searched through Katrina’s page to see if he could spot Chayla or if she had been tagged in any of the pictures. But nothing. Then he went to the school newspaper’s website and went through the student staff. Chayla was midway through, since it was in alphabetical order. Her profile said she had been on the paper the longest, since freshman year, which had never been before. She was planning to study Journalism in college and her goal in life was to write stories people wanted to read. 

It seemed fairly straightforward except for the part about being the longest running staffer. Most students joined the paper Sophomore year and quit by Senior year. The paper was too time consuming he’d heard and people wanted to enjoy their Senior year. And no student was allowed to join Freshman year. He wondered how she managed that. But judging from the way she marched herself right up to him and demanded his attention, this Chayla person didn’t take no for an answer. 

He had to admire that. Most girls he knew would try and once they hit a roadblock, they’d walk off in a pout. Chayla didn’t look like the type to pout. She’d huff and puff and blow you down on your ass until you gave in. He laughed at that. 

He scrolled through the rest of her profile and saw that she specialized in academic coverage. Mathletes, Chess Club, Science Fair. The website said, “Chay knows how to add excitement to any extracurricular activity.” Then he clicked through some of her articles she’d published. She’d recently covered the Mathlete finals from this past spring and she began the article with “Quantify me this . . .” and some equation he didn’t recognize. Then she followed with how their team won by solving in under one minute, all without breaking a sweat. 

There were a lot of math puns he’d look up later but there was also alot of information that was explained in a way he understood without making him feel stupid. If she could write like this, then why was she so condescending earlier? 

“Hey man, you going to shower?” Trell came back. 

“Uh yeah. Hey, are you friends with Chay?” 

“Nah, not really.” 

“So you don't know anything else about her other than she works on the paper?” 

“Yeah, that’s it. She keeps pretty much to herself for the most part. Why?” Trell asked him. 

Darius could tell him the real reason why he was inquiring but he chose to tell some version of the truth. “I don’t know, I kind of feel bad. I may have been a little harsh and I want to apologize.” 

“I mean, she kind of deserved it but if you insist, she hangs out late in the computer lab. And if she isn’t there, she’ll be hanging with Trina at Froyo 101. The one on Ward Blvd before you hit 64. Later man,” Trell informed him before heading out. 

Darius hurried with his shower and made his way to the computer lab but the door was locked and all the lights were off. He guessed she didn’t feel like working late today. And Darius had a feeling he was the reason. He needed to make amends. For no other reason than he was a jerk and not because he was fascinated by this pushy, annoying, inter--irritating person.