Breanna Michelle Santana

CLICK! The light from my camera flashed and when it did, I waited a second before observing the photo I just took.

Of course it was good, I bragged internally about my natural talents.

"Perfect! Get some shots of the players for the atheltics department," my mentor told me. We had been walking around the soccer game taking pictures of the crowd, cheerleaders, and the showboating players. None of them, though, caught my eye unlike number 11.

Aim. Focus. Click.

I snapped a shot of the overly confident forward, a smile lingering on my face when we made eye contact.

His name was Grayson. Grayson Reid Jansen, to be specific, and he winked at me.

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To no surprise of his or my own, Grayson scored the game winning goal. It was a huge game so it was a whole spectacle - lights, confetti, Gatorade being poured on the head coach, Sports Center coverage - the whole nine.

Even I couldn't contain my excitement, joining in on the cheering for my fellow U of O Wolves.

Jansen ran around the field, beaming, as he hugged and rejoiced with his teammates. He slid on his knees, scraping them more, and peeled his dark grey with a hint Carolina blue, black and white detailed jersey off to wave it around like a flag.

The rest of the team lifted him, their captain, in the air and carried him off the field, towards the tunnel where I was standing, waiting to snap some team pictures.

Understandably ecstatic, though, they raced past me and went straight into their musty locker room, shouting like banshees.

I exhaled a discouraged sigh and let my camera fall around my neck.

"Hey, you," Kaign approached me, grabbing my empty hand.

"Oh, hey," I tried smiling up at him.

"Why the long face," my boyfriend asked me with concern.

"Think my camera's broken," I made up.

He looked down into my green eyes and pouted. "Well, there's more important things - like this party at Dylan's house," Kaign tried cheering me up.

"Do we have to, we're always at Dylan's? Don't you wanna, I dunno, fool around for once?" I tried hinting at getting some alone time as we never seem to have any since Dylan's always tagging along. Kaign didn't take to my idea and just poked his thin bottom lip out at me, swiping his thumb along my chin.

I didn't wanna be a total bore so I did in fact cheer up and let him take me to that party after all, but not before the sound of someone calling my name stopped me in my tracks.

"BREA!" I turned around, knowing exactly who's husky voice that was - Grayson's. He always lost his voice at games or practices, all that yelling really did permanent damage to his vocals, it was still voice attractive nonetheless.

Looking up at Kaign, he nodded to give his permission so that I could go speak to my friend. I let his hand go to amble over and meet Grayson by those uncomfortable, cold bleachers.

"Say cheese," I whipped my camera back out and stole a picture of the star athlete.

Grayson walked towards me with his soaked jersey over his shoulder, disheveled hair that was wet and stringy, and sweat dripping from his top lip to down his belly button.

I didn't realize I was chewing on my full lower lip while looking over the picture and admiring how photogenic he was.

"Okay, one more-" I insisted but got my technology snatched from my dainty hands before I could get the shot.

"If you tell me how good I played," he smirked while childishly holding the camera in the air, knowing I couldn't reach as I was only 5'8" to his 6'2".

Unamused, my face went straight.
Smacking my lips with arms folded across my medium-sized chest, I said,"you already know you're good, you don't need me to stroke your ego."

Finally, I yanked his glistening, buff arm down to my size and retrieved my camera.

"Babe, I'm gonna go find Dylan, meet me at the car, okay?" Kaign interrupted us to say.

Grayson was mugging him the whole time, something he instinctively did because they had been enemies since we all had Freshman Seminar together - what a disaster that was!

"Okay," I sheepishly responded, letting him kiss my rosy cheek before he looked Gray up and down with a scowling look in his dark brown eyes.

A snicker escaped both of their mouths before Kaign eventually sauntered off in the opposite direction.

Once my boyfriend was out of sight, I turned to glare at Grayson and scold him for his rude behavior.
"It was three years ago, give it up already," I sighed with rolling eyes.

"I still don't know what you see in that guy," Grayson scoffed, combing his hair back with his fingers.

"Doesn't matter, you had your chance, remember?" I reminded him with sass, poking his defined chest which gave him the chance to notice the silver ring on my finger.

"What's this," he asked in an angry growl, yanking my hand towards the nearest stadium light that shone down on us.

"It's just a promise ring," I said back in a mumble like I was ashamed.

Grayson was taken aback. He gasped with shock and sheer confusion,"A promise ring?! It's only been, like, two months-", but I cut him off to make a correction to his statement,"It's been six months today, actually, and he says he loves me." I didn't have to include the last detail but it was true, Kaign did say the 'L' word, and maybe I wanted to get a bigger rise out if Grayson.

Grayson pretended to gag in disgust which earned him a soft slap to his bicep from me.

"I gotta admit, I always thought it'd be me and you in the end," his line of sight drifted from my lips to out in the distance over my head.

I giggled awkwardly a little before uttering,"Can you imagine? Us, a dog, a little house somewhere... aha."

The more I pondered the idea, the cuter it seemed but I knew it was only hypothetical.

"Yeah," Grayson let out, kind of sounding upset which made me feel bad. There was a brief moment of silence before he snapped back and said,"congrats, though," patting my shoulder as if we were buddies or pals.

The people who once filled the stadium started emptying out as the lights started shutting off all around us.

"Come on, Gray, coach is treatin' us to dinner," one of the players tried rushing Grayson away from me.

"I'll be there in a minute," Grayson sounded frustrated when he assured the guy. Gray then waited until his teammate left our presence to continue our conversation.

"I didn't say it back," I randomly confessed,"is six months enough time to fall in love? I just feel like I don't know him, ya know? It's like I'm with him... 'cause I have to be, not because either of us wanna be."

"Well, you only knew me for six months before we-" I cut him off before he brought up our past sexual history. I made the mistake of letting him take my virginity freshman year.

To clarify, it wasn't a mistake in the sense that it was bad because it was actually good and thoroughly enjoyable compared to what I expected.
It was a "mistake" because it changed our friendship from lighthearted and that brother/sister kind of love to a love/hate relationship full of jealousy and major sexual tension that I wouldn't ever acknowledge in order to spare and conceal my confusing feelings for him. That's the real reason why I took the easy way out and settled for Kaign - another mistake, except, I still haven't learned my lesson if we're being honest.

"Bye, Gray," I knew I had to drop the conversation before it got deeper and if I had stayed any longer there'd be no way I'd be able to resist kissing him any longer.

I don't even think he said anything back to me, letting me walk away just like that.