The Creeping

“What’s up with you tonight, Hella Stella?” he asks right as Janey and Kate stop in front of us.

“Hi, Stella,” Kate says, her pitch swinging with joy over discovering us. Even she knows they’ve caught me red-handed. Janey just stares, the mole on her wormy upper lip twitching. We’re not exactly friends. Zoey calls Janey and Kate leeches behind their backs. She says they’re really nice to the actually popular people so that they can latch on and get invited to parties. I dislike them for different reasons. They’re always looking to knock you down a peg. Like they think of being popular as being on a varsity team. Someone should tell them that making other people less popular doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be called off the bench. It just makes them bitches. I’d like to tell them that this very moment. Instead I take the easy way out.

I hold my finger up to the girls for them to wait a second and then cross my arms against my chest. “I said don’t call me that. I’m not ten anymore, Sam. And apparently you need me to spell it out for you. We’re. Not. Friends. When are you going to get that through your head?” The words taste bitter in my mouth.

Sam’s eyes are glued to mine. His top lip begins to bow like he’s going to smile or laugh. I feel my bitchiest scowl falter. He stands with his hands in his pockets—the left one still bulging with his vest—and completely ignores the other two girls. For some reason a little trill of satisfaction runs through me that he acts like they don’t exist. He smiles like he knows better—better about what I can’t imagine—and says to me, “Did you know that in the Middle Ages people used to write the news on cemetery walls? Cemeteries were the first public parks.” My jaw literally drops, I’m so shocked at the random factoid. I guess we are technically in a cemetery, but I didn’t expect him to respond spouting like an encyclopedia. “Take care of yourself tonight, Hella Stella.” And with that, he walks away.

I can barely tear my eyes away from his back. What is he thinking saying something like that to me? And in front of our school’s biggest gossip hoarders. Doesn’t he understand that I already have enough people whispering about me? I get roller-coaster stomach as I turn back to the girls.

Janey’s gawking wordlessly at me. Her eyes are glazed doughnut holes imagining all the headlines she can spin out of this. “Do you have a mint?” I snap. I can practically see the cogs winding tighter in her head. She fumbles through her purse and produces a box of Altoids.

She pops open the lid and holds them out to me. “What was his problem?” she asks, her tone all sugar.

“Total freak,” Kate says, smacking her lips.

I snatch two mints and pop them into my mouth to banish the foul taste that’s still there. “Biggest freak ever,” I mutter halfheartedly. “Whatever, I have to get back to Zoey, byes.” I jump up and hurry away from them. I wrap my arms around myself as I go, trying to ease the queasiness that’s crept up on me.

“God, you’re such a fugly witch,” I scold myself. But Sam didn’t give me a choice. I practically begged him to shut up. Pleaded with him not to call me that. Maybe it’s for the best? Maybe it was the humane thing to do? Yeah, it’s better if Sam gives up trying to be my friend. It’s been too many years. I mean, he even knows I lied about Scott Townsend being my first kiss because I didn’t want to admit it was him. How could he stand me after that?

The mints mingle with the sourness in my mouth. The taste of shame or guilt or remorse. It’s rancid like the shish kebab Zoey and I got from a food truck the last time we were in Minneapolis. I spit the mints on the ground just before I exit the cemetery, tapping the heart on the iron gate to leave any clinging spirits behind me. The bonfire is almost exactly how I left it, except that there are more half-naked girls and boys dancing on the shore. Cole has stripped down to her bra and skirt and is gyrating against a senior football player who was a transfer last year too. Michaela’s still fully clothed, but she’s actually dancing with a guy, albeit two feet away from him—but dancing is dancing, right?