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“Really? Because you looked like you could stab me to death for just coming over to say hi.”
“Don’t take it personally. I look at most people that way.”
“But not Hannah. She’s still your friend?”
I knew what the real question behind those words was.
Was Lucas still my friend?
I figured two days here were enough for him to find out on his own, but I decided to answer like a normal human, and not start an argument.
“Yes. Hannah is my friend. I know she’s the one to show you around, and it’s fine. That’s her thing. She always takes the new people under her wing.”
The new ones, the harassed ones, the wallflowers… She just couldn’t bear to see people get hurt.
“I remember.”
Of course he did. That’s how he got into our group in the first place. Hannah brought him.
Dylan was still looking at me, even though I expected that conversation to be enough for him to move on.
“Is there something else?” I asked.
“No,” he bit his lower lips with his perfect white teeth to suppress a smile. He really was handsome.
“Why are you still here then?”
“Honestly?” he took a step closer to me. “I feel connected to you somehow. You probably already heard why I’m here. My parents got divorced.”
I heard. He had been the number one topic since he showed up. From the reason he was here to the number of dimples he had when he smiled, which was exactly two, one on each cheek, to the question that concerned my female classmates the most: did he have a girlfriend back home?
“Yes, I’m sorry about that,” I said and I meant it. At least I didn’t have to move when my parents got divorced. Dylan left his whole life. I really felt sorry for him. He waved me off and shrugged.
“Are we good?” he asked and offered me his hand again like he did the first day at the parking lot. I didn’t take it then. I was so overwhelmed by his sudden appearance after so many years that I didn’t know how to react or what to expect. Now that he apologized, even though I interrupted him, I felt uncomfortable refusing him again. His parents got divorced, he had to leave his whole life and move, and, on top of that, he had to spend his senior year with complete strangers and a group of people who weren’t exactly fond of him.
So, I took his hand and smiled.
“We’re good.”
Two days later on Friday I was sitting on Hannah’s bed, waiting for her to get ready for a party I wasn’t invited to.
“I’m really sorry, Clem. But if I don’t go, they’ll cut my head off,” Hannah apologized for a millionth time.
I got it. Lucas was the captain of the football team, and she was the captain of the cheerleaders. She had to go.
“It’s fine,” I shrugged, even though I felt awful andnotbecause she was going.
Lucas’s birthday party was a big deal ever since his sixteenth one. People talked on and on about it for days. Not to mention it was held in his house which was right in front of my window. Everyone was invited by default. Everyone except me. Not that he ever told me not to go. It was just a common knowledge. Like the fact that the sun will come up in the morning and the moon at night. No one even thought about it.
He was turning eighteen. I bet his football buddies would organize some kind of a special orgy to go with the theme of being allowed to fuck in every country around the globe. Not that any of them were refraining from sexual activity anyway. The stories about their parties sounded almost made up, but Hannah had seen things with her own eyes. Stories were true, there was no doubt about that.
“No, it’s not fine,” she argued. “I really don’t want to do this anymore. The new girls are so bad, I think at least one, but more likely two, will break a leg by end of the season. The only thing that’s keeping me from quitting is the joy it would bring to that bitch. And the fact that she will probably take my place.”
There was bad blood between Hannah and Amy mostly because of me. Up until four years ago, we were all part of the same group. Now we were split into two. The rivalry between Amy and Hannah escalated because of cheerleading, and it became clear they would have hated each other anyway. They were somewhat alike. They both always got what they wanted. Just in a different way and for different reasons.
Hannah was a force of nature. Smart and fearless, but nice and caring. No one could deny her anything if she decided to get it. She was all in and could draw you out from your cold dark internal cave like a warm sunny day.
Amy was also smart and fearless, but in a selfish way. In the last years she became sneaky, cunning, and vile. She used people to get what she wanted. Girls didn’t really like her.
