Mack Brooks is an average seventeen-year-old. Mack lives in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He stands at an unintimidating five foot nine inches, with long, flowing, dark chocolate hair. He plays golf, hockey, and lacrosse at Andover prep school in Mass. Mack is your typical boy in respects to school; he does well in the subjects that he likes, does homework whenever he deems it necessary, puts sports above school work most of the time, and loves to hang with his friends and have a good time.

Mack started his senior year with the intentions of laxin’ hard and hangin’ with the boys. Mack could go to any school in the country for hockey or lacrosse, so he wasn’t too worried about his senior year at Andover. His senior schedule ironically proved to be his toughest year academically. From the day he received his schedule he knew it was going to reek havoc on his social life and athletic career. He started his day with probably his toughest class: physics. Mack is usually good at science, but he absolutely hates the entire field of physics.

The first day of class Mack walked in to his class and sat down in his assigned seat.

“Welcome to honors physics..” his teacher, Mrs. Flow droned on.

Mack immediately tuned out what his teacher rambled. It was day one of classes; by his senior year he knew the drill. He took this time to observe who was in his class. He knew very few of the people in his class which was a rarity at such a small school. One of his lacrosse buddies was in the class, but his assigned seat was as far away as possible from Mack. Without friends this class was going to be even worse. Every day would be the same: walk in, sit down, listen to another monotonous lecture, doodle, and then leave. That first day, though, he did notice a cute girl with a sheet of shiny brown hair, an olive complexion and a nice smile that sat behind him.

Mack maintains a pretty strict policy for himself with girls. He never gets involved too deeply. Mack was a late bloomer (so to speak) with the ladies. He didn’t start getting interested until about his sophomore year. This late blooming wasn’t due to lack of interest, more attributed to the fact that struggled balancing three sports and a social life. By this time it was too late at such a small school. Every girl either had a boyfriend or was only interested in their studies. Mack did have some casual relationships with girls, but never anything more. He didn’t want to get too involved because he had such a late start and figured he’d just wait until college to start looking for anything remotely serious.

Of course, the girl sitting behind him had a boyfriend. She wore an Andover Soccer shirt that first day of class. At his school, the sports teams usually stick together with their social lives. Mack knew that probably wouldn’t be good news for him, but he figured he’d keep his options open for senior year.

As time passed, Physics class became more lab oriented. The lab groups were the rows of desks in the classroom so Mack got the chance to talk to the cute girl that sat behind him.

He found out that her name was Nicolette Murphy and she played soccer and dated a soccer player named Tony Black.

“Of course she’s dating a soccer player,” Mack thought to himself. He didn’t know why it bothered him that she was dating someone, but she was the only person he talked to in Physics, so he figured they’d develop some sort of relationship.

They talked every day throughout that first semester. Casually progressing from talking in class, to talking outside of class, to texting whenever they could. As they talked more they learned more about each other. They had many views from political ideology to their sense of humor that were uncannily similar. With the shared sense of humor, conversation flowed as easy as a river. As they grew to be great friends with Nicolette, he grew to be mortal enemies with her boyfriend Tony. Soccer and Lacrosse players generally have a strained relationship to begin with, and the fact that Nicolette and Mack were becoming such fast friends just escalated that tense relationship. Lacrosse and Soccer players competed for women, the same field, and the role of “big man on campus.”
Mack was a lacrosse and hockey player to the core. He had a certain swagger that no other athlete can imagine. He had great confidence in himself, his athletic talent, and his prowess in the classroom. Tony personified the term soccer player just as well as Mack personified hockey player. Tony loved his sport, but had great anger issues. He led the Prep school league in red cards. He also hated the hockey team because of their swagger. He thought they were too cocky, even though it’s a necessary attribute to have to play the sport.
On top of this strained relationship, Tony found out that Mack and Nicolette had started to develop a friendship.
Tony confronted Mack before hockey practice one day that winter.
“Mack. Hey, wait up.” Tony yelled across the quad as Mack walked to the rink.
Mack stopped and waited for Tony to catch up. “What?” Mack said coldly.
“I heard you’ve been talking to Nicolette. Stop. Now.” Tony demanded just as coolly.
Mack’s thoughts were immediately jumping all over the place. Sure, Tony and Mack weren’t the biggest fans of each other, but this kind of direct assault was unwarranted and unexpected.
“She and I are just friends. I don’t see a problem,” Mack retorted.
“Well I don’t like it damn it. So stop it right now,” Tony finished.
Mack tried to hide his confusion at this ordeal, so he glared at Tony and walked away without another word.
Mack continued on his way to practice. He mulled over the conversation in his head. He could only think of how unnecessary that whole ordeal was. “The only person that gets all nuts about that is someone who’s scared, or someone that is hiding something.” Mack thought. He decided to talk to Nicolette after practice about it.
Mack practiced hard, showered up, and went back to his dorm room. Upon arriving back at his room he grabbed his phone off his desk and sent Nicolette a text.
“Tony confronted me about our friendship before practice. What’s up with that?”
“He’s afraid of you. He thinks you’re gonna steal me away from him.”
“I have zero intention of doing that. I don’t date. I would hang out with you though if that’s something you want to do.”
“I would like that. And now that you mention it, he has been acting a little weird lately.”
“Dig into it?”
“I think I will.”
“See ya Nicolette.”
“Bye Mack.”
It was a Friday night at that point so Mack had the night off from sports. He threw on his going out clothes and headed off to a party at the lacrosse community house. He arrived there and sat down to watch the Boston Cannons lacrosse game with a combination of his hockey and lacrosse friends. Midway through the night Mack got a text from Nicolette: “He’s cheating on me.”
Mack casually excused himself from the party and walked outside into the crisp Massachusetts night. He skipped the texting and simply called Nicolette.
“Hey, so what’s goin’ on?” Mack skipped the pleasantries and just dove into the heart of the issue.
“Ok, so you and me have physics together and we’re friends. Well Tony got jealous, especially after reading how easy going our conversations are off my phone, so he called one of those softball girls and boom. Ten month relationship evaporates just like that.”
“Ouch that’s pretty harsh. I’m sorry bud. I feel like I’m the cause of all of this just for befriending you. I’m really really sorry. Anything I can do to help?”
“Well, you’re the best at cheering me up. I could really use a friend right now.”
“Alright then, I’ll be over in like fifteen minutes.”
“See ya then.”
Mack hung up the phone and walked back inside. He said goodnight to his lacrosse brethren and walked right back out the door again. The cool air felt refreshing as the moonlight guided his walk across campus. He was still confused about everything that had happened, but on the brighter side, at least there would no longer be any pre practice confrontations.
Fast forward six months later.
Graduation day was upon them. Nicolette and Mack had casually dated on and off for the past six months, but finally they came to an agreement that they should break up for good before graduation. Nicolette would be staying within the confines of the northeast attending Boston University, while Mack would be venturing out into the unknown at the University of Virginia to play lacrosse. After receiving their diplomas, Nicolette and Mack stole away from clambering family and friends for a private talk.
“Well I guess this is goodbye,” started Nicolette.
“Yeah, I have to leave for Charlottesville in three days for training camp. I’m glad we got to know each other this year though,” replied Mack somberly.
“Guess I’ll see you during Thanksgiving break?” asked Nicolette.
“For sure. I’ll call you when I’m back. I have to go get back to my family though. Bye Nicolette,” Mack said hurriedly. He desperately wanted to avoid an emotionally complicated farewell.
“Bye Mack.”