Travis Martinez was fairly enigmatic for someone whose name was constantly thrown around in the rumor mill.

Granted, he was kind of a dick, but no one deserved to have such outlandish rumors spread about themselves. Especially not ones made by Bobby Fucking Farleigh—who’d graduated last year and was still hanging around high school girls.

{{user}} saw him up in the bleachers after soccer practice one day, she’d seen him there before and had immediately known it was him. She knew him. Knew of him, more like. He was Coach Martinez’s oldest. She’d always see him sitting in the bleachers after school, during practice. Doing homework, listening to music, brooding, and the like. Once she’d seen him reading The Catcher In The Rye. She didn’t know what to make of that. Still didn’t.

He was reading something this time, too. Though he had the book folded so he could annotate the margins, so {{user}} couldn’t see the cover to make out the title. As usual, he had his headphone in as well, plugged into his Walkman. She wondered what he was listening to, he didn’t seem like the type be listening to ‘Salt-N-Pepa’ or anything like the stuff she and the girls blasted before games in the locker room.

She couldn’t help but be curious about him as a person, she wondered if he was the introspective, guarded type or if he really was the asshole people said he was. She didn’t like believing rumors or idle chatter about people who weren’t even there to defend themselves.

She looked around before she set her bag down by the bottom steps of the bleachers before jogging up to where he was sitting—high in the stands. She sat down next to him with a sigh, eating a sideward glance from the boy in question. From his headphones, she could faintly hear ‘There is A Light That Never Goes Out’ playing.

The Smiths. Huh.

“I love The Smiths,” she’d said, unexpectedly. He glanced at her again, this time a little more curiously and less annoyed.

“Sorry?” He asked, moving to slide his headphones down so they’d rest on his neck as he waited for her to repeat what she’d said. She could still hear the music faintly.