“How many times do I have to tell you kids?” the tall Target manager scolded.
“Shit, run!” Carter directed as all the guys hopped onto their scooters and skateboards. James followed suit with his Razor, feeling like he was having the time of his life. His new group of friends did things crazy enough to shock his parents, not that he’d tell them anyway. If he did, it would take away from the fun he had for the first time in a while.
He was almost glad that Selah started shunning him ever since the end of seventh grade. If she didn’t need him, he didn’t need her either. He was just fine with his new friends anyway.
Half of the guys giggled uncontrollably as they raced out of Target. The manager and a few other employees followed until everyone was outside of the store.
“If you come back again, I’ll call the police!” the manager yelled, pointing at the boys. “I mean it!”
James thought it was funny that the group didn’t seem at least a little bit remorseful as they went onto the sidewalk, and it seemed natural for them to follow Carter in every step of the way. It was like watching baby chicks following their mother hen.
The guys stopped near the bus stop where Carter stood with one foot on his skateboard. He took off his backpack and searched inside it until he pulled out an egg carton. “Do y’all know whose house you wanna egg next?”
Andrew said, “I know this one house that’s for sale! It’s across the street from mine. My grandma thinks it’s haunted.” He shook his head. “She has this Chinese superstition thing about ghosts. I don’t get her at all.” Then he smiled slowly. “But it would be so fucking funny to mess with her.”
“Let’s do it!” Carter replied, with the rest of the group agreeing.
James bit on his thumbnail as his heartbeats sped up. He’d never egged a house before, and he’d always thought it a dumb and pointless act. Maybe it would be more fun than he’d expected.
He followed the group making the twenty-minute trip that took various blocks until they reached Andrew’s quiet neighborhood full of families and old people. Andrew pointed to a boring-looking, two-story house with an “Open House” sign in the lawn. Carter, with the rest of the group naturally copying him, hid behind a large black truck. He opened the egg carton and chuckled. “I throw the first one,” he whispered with a devilish grin.
All of the guys braced themselves as Carter peeked over the truck bed. With an egg in hand, he catapulted the object, which hit a window on the first floor and exploded into fragments of eggshell and yolk. The group cracked up in unison, and James slowly started laughing too. It was actually pretty funny to watch.
Soon a few more of the guys took eggs and threw them at the house, yellow goo dripping down the front door, the windows, and the small garden between the house’s front wall and the green lawn. James could feel his heart beating rapidly--not from fear, but from the very fact that doing this was dangerous and risky and crazy and hilarious. He felt a hard slap against his shoulder and looked up to see Dave’s grin. “Go for it,” Dave said.
Glancing at the carton on the ground by everyone’s feet, James hesitantly grabbed an egg. Then he held his breath and pelted the egg as far away as he could.
He watched it land right in the middle of the remaining clean window.
“Nice!” Andrew said as he high-fived James.
Smiling, James looked back at the window he’d egged. The curtains behind it moved to the side to reveal the last person he’d expected.
Logan Wynters, Selah’s dad and a real estate agent, had his head turned away, seeming to be talking to someone before he turned to see the egg that James had left there.
His blood running cold, he ducked and slammed his back against the truck. He breathed faster and faster. Of all people, Selah’s dad had to be there? He couldn’t see James, not like this.
James shoved his backpack straps off his shoulders and pulled out his hoodie to put it on.
“What are you doing?” Andrew asked. “It’s like eighty degrees.”
Throwing the hood on, James hushed Andrew, jumped onto his scooter, and said, “Come with me.”
“Why?”
“Just do it!”
With his skateboard, Andrew followed him heading down the street toward the entrance of the neighborhood, and James faced away from the open house the entire time. As soon as they pair reached the entrance, Andrew panted, “You know that guy?”
“Yeah!” James hissed.
Andrew cracked up. “Seriously? Who is he?”
“He’s...my mom’s friend.” That was true, at least.
“Wow, that is awkward.”
James still faced away from the house. “I hope he didn’t see me.”
Andrew squinted in the direction of the house. “I don’t think so.” Then he laughed. “They’re coming over right now.”
“Fuck,” James said under his breath even though the prospect of them coming over wasn’t that big of a deal. He couldn’t help but worry about them judging him for running away, though. The fact that he threw an egg was enough, right?
He heard footsteps approaching from behind him, and he decided that he could turn around. When he did, some of the guys’ faces were red while others had gigantic grins slapped on.
“We just fucking egged his car!” Carter laughed.
“No,” a boy corrected, whose name most likely started with an N. “It’s his wife’s car, remember?”
As the rest of the group snickered, James felt his heart sink to the concrete. Right when he just learned he was at the wrong place and time, his friends proceeded to trash Selah’s mom’s car as well.
“Shit, we should run before he calls the police!” Dave said.
“Yeah, c’mon!” Carter replied as he led the way. “I got some more eggs in my backpack.” He winked over his shoulder, and one boy was even laughing with tears in his eyes.
James was partly glad they didn’t mention him running away, but there lingered the annoying feeling of the complete turn of events during his first egging. Yet, other than the surprise person that happened to be there, the egging really was more fun than he’d expected.
He just needed to make sure to avoid Selah’s parents at all costs. If they actually saw him with the same boys that did the egging, they would never forgive him. For all he knew, they probably knew why Selah stopped being friends with him and stood by her no matter what.
As long as none of the three would find out, he could live in peace.
For the first time in a long while, James truly felt like complete shit. And it wasn’t just because of his broken nose, an injury of his own making. In the very back of his mind, he sort of knew that the drama he started with Paige would come back and bite him in the ass. It just took a lot longer than he’d expected.
Sitting in Paige’s dining room, he watched Selah approach him with an ice pack and cotton balls in her hands. He took the cotton balls and replaced the used ones in his nostrils, expecting the bleeding to stop soon. Then she gently pressed the blue pack against his nose, the ice-cold touch making him suck in a sharp breath.
“Sorry,” Selah whispered. She looked at him and briefly glanced at Dave on his phone, sitting across from James.
“I should be the one saying sorry,” James muttered as he covered her fingers holding the ice pack with his own. He ignored the soft yet electric touch of her skin. “I should’ve seen it coming.”
“I’ve actually never seen her do something so...violent,” Selah breathed as she sat on a chair next to him. “And over the phone she sounded really upset.”
James shook his head. “She didn’t even need to call you to come over.”
“But...Jerry’s one of my closest friends. And so are you.”
His lips thinned. “Did she tell you what happened?”
She seemed to hesitate. “Just that you and Dave were with Carter when he bullied Jerry. And that she punched you in the face, and that it felt good.” She gave him a tremulous smile as he forced out a laugh. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “She’s just very protective of him.”
He stared into space, knowing very well that it was more than just her soft spot for her brother. There was a gigantic, groundbreaking secret that he didn’t want anyone else to know. At first only Paige knew, but with Christy knowing and having yet to tell everyone, he could already feel the disdainful taunts his friends would make.
Selah sighed, her shoulders rising and falling. “I just hope this will blow over soon. I have to get to the hospital in an hour.”
While James appreciated that she was there, he still hated the idea of her getting dragged into this. Like what Paige had scolded to him just several minutes earlier in the living room, it was his fault for being part of all the drama going on lately. But now that Selah was already there at Paige’s house, helping him with his broken nose as a result of his part in the drama, he hoped to God that Paige wouldn’t tell Selah about the rumor that changed his life. Even now, he still wasn’t ready for her to know.
In the corner of his eye, Paige appeared from the hallway as if on cue. And the look on her face made him want to run away for his life. Behind her stood Mark who looked way more confused than Selah, and James couldn’t blame either of them.
He had a feeling that at any given moment, Paige could spill the secret that she too generously kept for him for years. And when she used her thumb gesturing him to follow her, he gulped. It was time, and for what, he didn’t know. All he knew was that it was the price he had to pay for the selfish and despicable decisions he’d made in the past.
Holding the ice pack against his nose, he listened to Paige tell everyone that she needed to speak with James alone in the den. As he followed her, he flinched at seeing her now red knuckles and felt his nose throb slightly. She was much stronger than she let on.
As soon as she closed the door, she spun around and spat, “This. Is. The. Last. Straw.”
“I know,” he said automatically. “You have every reason to be m--”
“Do you even remember how long I’ve kept your little secret? Have you ever even thought about the shit I’ve been through? Like when after that rumor came out, all the virgins of the school asked me to fuck them like I supposedly ‘fucked’ you? I already had so much shit at school and online, then you go ahead and add more to it and you never gave a single shit about me!”
“But I did! I still do!”
“But you got what you always wanted, didn’t you?” she said, ignoring him. “That’s what the true loser in you always wanted. To be friends with a bunch of douchebags a million times better than the real you. I’ll admit I felt bad for your sorry little ass, but now I don’t even care anymore. These assholes you call your friends make everything feel like middle school again! Why can’t they just move the fuck on?”
“I think you just mean Carter,” he said through his teeth. “Everyone’s turning against him now.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“But I have!”
“Really? Then explain why you were hanging out with him today, or why you keep being friends with an asshole who’s the definition of drama, or why you always act ashamed hanging out with Selah.”
James stared at her. “She told you?”
“No, I hired an undercover spy to watch you.” She rolled her eyes.
He could feel his heart sinking down to his belly. “But it’s not like that…”
“Well, I guess you never really changed.” She planted a fist on her hip. “If you cared about her enough, you wouldn’t even try hiding.”
His chest constricted at her words. “That’s so not true. I actually care about her a lot.”
“Hm.” Her eyes wandered to the floor as she seemed to think. “Obviously you do, but sometimes you act like you don’t.” She looked back up at him. “You’re so confusing.”
He shook his head. “What the hell are you even talking about?”
She moved her gaze to the door, then returned it to James and said in a quiet voice, “I’ve been thinking about this, but I wanna ask you just to be sure.” Right when he realized what she was going to ask, she said, “Are you truly into Selah?”
He froze, even though he knew he had to accept how transparent he had been this whole time, first with Harper, and now with Paige. It was shocking that Selah herself hadn’t realized it by now.
With Paige’s eyes still on him expectantly, he couldn’t think of any reason why he’d lie. “Yes,” he whispered.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed, jumping. He’d expected her to freak out like girls normally did when they found out about a new crush or relationship, but instead her face grew serious. “Part of why I invited her over is ‘cause I want you to tell her the truth about the rumor.”
“What?” he almost yelled. “But she can’t know!”
“Why not?” Both of her fists were on her hips. “She deserves to know all the shit you did while she was gone, and why you changed from a nerd like her to a complete douchebag. Don’t you think so, too?”
He hated that she was right. “But she’s gonna hate me forever.”
She shook her head. “Not Selah. She’ll be mad, yeah, but not forever, even with all the bad shit you did, which I’ll admit was pretty bad.” She briefly caught his anxious expression and said quickly, “But the point is, she’s not gonna pull a Christy and keep a huge grudge against you. Selah literally doesn’t hate anything that lives. So, naturally, she’ll forgive you, a total douchebag.”
As Paige’s points hit home, James didn’t know what else to say. But there was just something inside him that still felt afraid of how Selah would see and treat him. How could he even begin with what he and his friends did to Logan in eighth grade?
“Plus, she might feel the same way about you too,” Paige added.
He perked up at that as his heart beat faster. “Does she really?”
Shrugging, she replied, “I don’t know if it’s for sure, but I think so.”
So she thought so. That was still a very high probability.
“But if you wanna get together with her, you gotta be honest with her. And you know it’s fair. She basically told you her whole life already, and what does she even know about you?” She shrugged again. “But that’s just my two cents.”
He hated that she was right once again. Knowing that she won, he let out a long breath and relaxed his shoulders. “Fine. I’ll tell her.”
“Tell her what?”
“Everything. The rumor, the prank with her dad...basically everything.”
She gaped. “Even the fact that you’re in love with her?”
He felt a shiver in his back at the word “love,” because it very much felt like it. “Yeah, that too.”
She slowly grinned. “Maybe you did change.”
He didn’t know what him changing had to do with Selah, but he followed Paige as she opened the door and left the den. He checked to see if his nose was still bleeding, and since it wasn’t, he threw away the cotton balls.
He and Paige were stopped short by Selah standing a few feet away and blushing. He felt he could never get used to seeing the pretty color in her light face, but the reminder that he was going to tell her the truth about himself chased down the pleasant thought of her blush.
“How much did you hear?” Paige crossed her arms.
Selah looked between her and James. “Just...something about me needing to know some things. But I couldn’t hear anything else.”
Paige gave James a knowing look, and he gulped. He knew what he had to do; he just needed to talk to Selah in private.
Then he remembered she had to go to the hospital. Checking the time on his phone, he realized she still had time. He blurted out, “I can drive you to the hospital.”
She looked from Paige to him, to Paige, and back to him. “Okay,” she responded slowly.
She was silent the entire time they left the house with James using Dave’s car keys to unlock the doors. As they got settled in the car, he left the ice pack on the cup holder and backed out of Paige’s driveway, with Selah staying silent.
He gripped the steering wheel hard, and the inside of the car felt suddenly warmer. He turned on the air conditioning as he thought about how he could go about explaining everything.
“So…” she said, “you need to tell me something?”
He passed a green light as he sighed. He’d start with Paige’s rumor. “Right. So...after you left school, I felt really sad, and lonely. Then I met Andrew, who was friends with Carter, Dave, and all the others. And in the summer before eighth grade, I went through a huge change. Like, a life without you made me feel miserable, so I figured making new friends with Andrew’s group was the change I needed to feel happy, and to like, feel less of a loser.” He cringed at his way of thinking back then, but what was done was done.
“And that was when everyone gossiped about Paige being the school slut and the nudes that Carter released online. Then I had this idea where, if I was the first guy to date the school slut after all the drama that happened, I could be accepted into Carter’s group. So…” He glanced sideways at Selah who was expressionless as she stared ahead at the road. She was already judging him, but he also needed to lay everything out in front of her. He decided he’d not look at her again until he was done.
“So,” he repeated, “I asked her out on a date, and she said something like, ‘It’s pretty obvious you’re not really into me, so what gives?’” He grimaced at his younger self being not so very smooth with the girls. “So I told her the real reason why I asked her out, and then she...broke down.” He sighed. “And she told me the truth about Carter and how he’s the ‘Supreme Douchebag.’” Smiling at the very true nickname, he came to a stop at a stoplight.
But when he thought about what happened next in the story, his smile disappeared. “Then I asked her if I could make up a rumor about us, um, sleeping together. And she was okay with it, with one condition: that I stay out of any more drama with her. And I think for the most part I’ve stayed out of drama with her, but this year…” He sighed.
He knew he’d told himself to look at Selah when he was done explaining everything, yet he couldn’t help but sneak a glance at her. She was staring at him strangely, which made him sweat a bit.
“No wonder she doesn’t like you,” she said under her breath.
Grimacing, he said, “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Are you not finished?”
He shook his head. The light turned green, so he stepped on the gas pedal. “So, all of that was at the beginning of eighth grade, and a few weeks later I was hanging out with Andrew’s group a lot. And I think this is when you’ll be really mad at me, ‘cause this involves your dad.” He looked at her again as she widened her eyes.
Gulping, he just wanted to be done as soon as possible. “Long story short, we did a lot of pranks, and one time we egged an open house he was hosting. And I had no idea he was even there till I actually saw him.” He winced at the humiliating memory. “Right when I saw him, I just hid and ran away, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t see me. And...the guys even egged his car. Well, your mom’s car. I guess he was using hers that day. But yeah.”
She was giving him another strange look, which made him feel a bit queasy in his stomach.
“It was my friends, okay? I was just...trying to...impress...them,” he said, lowering his shoulders and never once looking at her.
The silence that followed screamed in his ears, and there was nothing he could do except wait for a reply.
Finally, she whispered, “You were one of those kids?”
This is it. “Yeah.”
“And I had no idea this whole time...”
“Well, now you know.”
She smoothed a hand over her face and stopped her fingers on her forehead. “Oh my God. I thought you just moved on when I was gone, but I guess, it was a lot more than that.” She bit her lip.
“Yup.”
She shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”
He turned his eyes to the road, unblinking. “Because I was scared of what you’d think of me. But just now Paige told me to tell you, so I did.” He half-smiled at her.
There was a pause. “Was it hard telling me all of that stuff?”
He took a moment to think. “Actually, no. Not really. It didn’t feel as bad as I thought.” He glanced at her. “But what are you thinking?”
Biting her lip, she stared out the passenger window. “I think it all explains why you changed so much. But…”
His heart thudded faster. “But what?”
Finally she turned to look at him with pain and sadness in her brown eyes. “You used Paige when she was at her worst.”
Having thought about that many more times than he could count, he said automatically, “People were already spreading all sorts of rumors about her. If I said she was a unicorn they’d believe it.” He shook his head. “Middle school was a shithole, and clearly she had it the worst.”
“Wait.” Her eyebrows wrinkled. “So the real reason why she punched you today was ‘cause you were there when Carter insulted Jerry? So you were breaking her condition?”
“Yeah, but here’s the thing: it was all just Carter. He was the one that brought us there in the first place, just to show us about how gay people like Gary are mentally ill and then acted like...like Jerry wasn’t even a human being. And Dave and I didn’t do shit. It was like middle school all over again.” He shuddered.
She said nothing, seeming to take everything in.
“Please tell me what you’re thinking,” he pleaded.
She sighed. “I guess all I can think about right now is your friends.”
“What about them?”
Squinting her eyes at him, she said, “Are they really your friends? Because if I have to be honest, you act like a totally different person with them. You act more like...them. You don’t even tell them when you’re hanging out with me. You act like I’m some kind of secret. Am I just a secret friend to you?”
He stopped at a stoplight and gaped at her. “Of course not! Some people know I’m with you, but not--”
“But not your friends, of course.” As she rolled her eyes, he felt alarmed by the sudden sarcasm in her voice.
Here it comes, he thought, just wanting to crawl into a hole forever.
“I try to act like it doesn’t bother me, but it does,” she confessed. “If you hide some things about yourself from your friends, like Calc, maybe they’re not your real friends.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. “They’re still my friends though.”
“Well, they don’t seem that way.”
“I think you mean Carter who’s the real douchebag.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You still act like your friends, but when you’re alone with me you’re, yourself. And I’m fine with that, but I just wish you’d stop pretending. And lying.”
He was silent, instead waiting until they’d reach the hospital. A minute later, he pulled up into the parking lot and parked, before turning to her.
“Look, I just act different around different people. It’s not like I act the way I do around you the same way around my mom.”
“Then what am I to you? Someone who isn’t cool or guy enough? Just someone you used to be friends with?”
“No, you’re...you’re not like that at all.” He let out a frustrated breath. He tried to search for the right words.
“Paige was so wrong,” she muttered. “She thinks you see me as more than a friend when really, you can’t even see me as a friend.” She unlocked her car door.
“Wait,” he said, his hand touching her shoulder, and thankfully she paused. “I do.”
“You do what?”
He gulped. All he had to do was say the words. “I do wanna be more than friends.”
Her eyes widening, her jaw dropped and her hand on the door handle relaxed. He froze as the temperature in the car rose to what felt like a hundred degrees. She blinked a few times.
“No you don’t,” she said, her voice breaking.
It felt like a hand reached into his chest and squeezed his heart into a pulp. “But...I do.”
She turned to open the door and stepped out.
“Wait!” He stepped out of the car as well and ran after her.
They reached the entrance to the Emergency Department, only for James to notice an ambulance entering the premises. He looked at Selah, who looked instantly alarmed. They both watched as the doors in the back of the ambulance opened to show a stretcher inside.
Lying in the stretcher, Christy appeared to be unconscious. James sucked in a sharp breath and looked at Selah who slapped a hand over her mouth. Various people pulled the stretcher out of the truck and rushed it toward the entrance.
There were large red spots on Christy’s yellow shorts.
Selah was already running after everyone else, and James followed close behind.796Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn3mQbDPbNa
