Fun Fact about band: Sometimes people will lock their knees and blood won't rush to their head, causing them to pass out. Not drinking enough water will do the same. So say the band nerds forget not to lock their knees one day and they pass out during a rehearsal. Or say that they overheat in the stands and pass out. The others will be all over them in seconds no matter what
so like, obviously this happens to joel, right?
in the band, elyse plays trombone, spoole plays tuba, and joel plays clarinet. it’s a wednesday, a rehearsal and practice for the friday game. and it happens. joel locks his knees and it gets to him: he passes out in the middle of walking off the field (which, thank god, wasnt in the middle of the actual game).
and from the stands, you can see four players drop their helmets, their waters, their towels and just tear off across the field. you can see the yearbook kid clutch his camera to his chest and follow the football players off the stands and into the crowd of band members.
seven teenagers form a halo around the fallen band member, and some call for medical attention is heard.
down on the ground, bruce and james prop joel up on their laps while elyse tries to loosen his collar with shaky hands. spoole is still trying to extricate himself from his tuba. adam asks, “what–is he okay? is he going to be okay?”
elyse shrugs and cups his face. “i’m– i dont know. he’s not that hot, maybe he– shit, i think he locked his knees.”
and from the way spoole whimpers, and from the way elyse frowns, the rest of them know that’s not good.
bruce, not caring about the crowd surrounding them, asks, louder, “he’ll be okay, right?”
elyse nods, however shaky. it doesn’t seem to assuage any of their fears.
the nurse comes, as well as the coach and some other teachers, and thank the stars and heavens this didn’t happen on game night because all of them, matt, james, bruce, lawrence, adam, elyse, and spoole, all follow the nurse back inside to lay joel on a bed.
there’s a crowd in the waiting room and the nurse frowns at them but lets them stay. adam bites his nails down to stumps and bruce keeps looking angry, like he could’ve prevented this somehow. elyse and spoole lay their heads on james’ shoulders and matt sits between lawrence’s legs as lawrence runs hands through his hair. and theyre all stressed 2 the max.
when joel wakes up, the nurse tells them, and they practically trip over each other to get to him.
he’s embarrassed, sure, but he tries to play it off cool. he fails, of course but he tries.
bruce tells him, “dont you ever do that to me again, you asshole.” and he kisses him hard, like he’s substituting it for a punch.
spoole almost cries from relief and elyse almost smacks him but she ends up giving his a kiss, too.
(it’s way past closing time when the nurse comes back to tell them they need to scram, but what she finds is a pile of bodies on top of her patient. all teenagers sleeping on each other on a twin sized bed. it’s impressive, actually.)
