Anyone Else But You

Barry Louis Polisar – All I want is you

When Saturday came around Maddie was grateful she’d have two days without having to see Jasper. She was really struggling to keep the mean pretence up and was finding it incredibly hard to keep from smiling and laughing around him. They had finally decided that they would start by working on the modern version of Much Ado About Nothing and get that out of the way.

A Jasper-less weekend wasn’t the only thing Maddie was looking forward to, her older brother Ben was coming home from university to visit. That was until he rang up at 8:30 in the morning to say he had a bug and couldn’t get out of bed, except to run to the bathroom; however Maddie couldn’t help but think it was more as a result of drinking than a virus. So what was going to be a good weekend was turning out to be an epic failure. Only one thing could return it to being epically good, Arsenal winning while she was in the crowd at The Emirates.

Her dad had managed to get tickets to the game against West Ham and it had been ages since the two of them had been to see the Gunners together. Maddie got dressed in her home shirt, a pair of skinny jeans and converse trainers and headed to the kitchen for a coffee. She didn’t bother with any food, the two of them would get a burger or hot dog at the match later on.

Placing her mug on the table, she picked up her copy of Much Ado About Nothing and opened it to the page she’d reached last night. In the hall she heard the sound of the front door opening and closing followed by footsteps along the hall. Her dad came into the kitchen carrying the morning papers, followed by Teddy. He poured himself a cup of coffee and joined her at the table. Her mum had left earlier to go shopping and drop her sister off at gymnastics and wouldn’t be back until after they’d left.

This had become our match day ritual for when Arsenal played, it was completely different to Sundays when Maddie herself played. There was very little talking until they had left the house and were on their way to the game, her dad believed that speculating about the result at home only brought bad luck. Thus they went about their own business until 12:30 when they left for the stadium.

Maddie drained her cup and checked the clock on the kitchen wall, it read 12:25 so she replaced her bookmark inside Shakespeare and padded into the hallway to grab her jacket. Teddy was stood behind her when she turned around glancing hopefully at his lead hanging on the coat hooks on the wall. She smiled at him and bent down to stroke him; he surrendered and rolled onto his back giving her full access to his fluffy chest.

“I’m sorry Teddy you can’t come with us. I know how much you like chasing footballs and I don’t think the stewards would enjoy chasing you around the pitch.” She chuckled as his paws held onto her wrist. A shadow loomed over as her dad stopped at the bottom of the stairs and put his own coat on, Maddie straightened up and grabbed her red and white stripy scarf and wrapped it around her neck.

“Are you ready to go? We’ve got a quick stop on the way.” Maddie followed her dad through the front door confused. They never stopped anywhere on the way to the game it was another ritual they had, once they left the house they went all the way to The Emirates without stopping just in case it broke the good fortune they brought with them from home.

When they’d reached the pavement her dad walked two feet up the road then turned into Jasper’s gateway. She froze as she watched him walk halfway to the door before her jaw muscles began to work again.