It was a love hate relationship that I wished would just disappear. Damn feelings always rushed to the surface and stuck to you like a bad case of a rash.
I chose not to respond. It would only give them more ammo against me. I’d learned halfway into senior year that the best way to deal with my former best friends was to ignore the jabs until eventually they got bored. Unfortunately, they hadn’t grown bored, but in just a couple more months, I’d never have to see them again. The thought was kind of depressing, and I hated that feeling of wanting something you shouldn’t.
The others laughed. Jason was standing there, too, steel cold eyes alight with mischief. Freddy and Norman were right behind them—the devil twins, as I liked to call them. They were the polar opposite of one another. Freddy had shoulder-length golden hair, looking like a sun kissed surfer, and Norman had cropped black hair, pale as moonlight skin, and razor-sharp cheekbones, but it was their eyes that were the same. A beautiful green that seemed to change different shades depending on their mood.
They’d been the top dogs at our old high school. Popular, loved, and idolized. All of them had been on the varsity basketball team—the team I used to cheer for on the sidelines. Freddy and Norman also happened to live down the street from me in the small town of Sunset Hollow, and we’d been close since we were kids. Close might’ve even been an understatement for what we were. We’d been inseparable for years, and slowly, feelings had started to develop on both sides. Until recently.
I supposed it was sort of my fault for the rift between us. In fact, it would be a bold faced lie to claim otherwise. The whole thing was my fault. They’d tried to console me after the accident that took my parents. They’d tried to seek me out, but I turned them away every single time. Little had they known what actually happened that night on that lonely country road. It scared me even now. Haunted me. There was a reason I turned my back on them.
They told me I was different now. Weird. Too strange for them to accept. When I showed up at school on the first day of senior year, decked head to toe in black, with my hair a natural dark red and my lips painted onyx, they let me know exactly how they felt about it.
Every day of this last year had been a walking nightmare. Taunting jabs, pranks, and horrible cruelty had followed me everywhere, and they’d convinced the rest of the student body to play along. That was my life for a whole year. But it was better than pretending to be a robot. It was better than pretending nothing had happened. That was what people expected me to do—forget my parents died horrifically right in front of me.
The four of them breezed past us, Norman flipping me off as he went by. I tried not to let their coldness get to me. I tried not to let it hurt, but it did. Every single time, it was like a fresh wound. I watched as Jason and Michael looped their arms around two cheerleaders and weaved into the crowd, forgetting me entirely. My stomach was in knots. Flashes of the days gone by went through my head. There was a time it would’ve been my shoulders under those toned arms. Fuck, I’m pathetic.
“I know those broody eyes, and no, you’re not leaving me here stranded,” Maddie said, licking her fingers clean of the sticky candy. She knew I was thinking about bailing and catching an Uber back home. “Please don’t let those skidmarks ruin your one day in the sun…” She stuck out her bottom lip and pouted.
I grinned reluctantly. It was so hard to stay moody around my bestie. She was nearly the literal personification of sunshine, and I needed a little bit of that in all my doom and gloom sometimes. It was why Auntie Pip and Auntie Fe loved it when Mads spent the night and stayed for a while. She basically had her own room in the Hallowell manor. I knew how worried they were. I’d known for a long time, but I ignored it, and they didn’t like to bother me about it.
We spent the next hour roaming the carnival, and the sun was beginning to set in earnest. I breathed in cooler, crisper night air, pretending like it wasn’t tinged with the cloying smell of popcorn. I’d reluctantly rode the ferris wheel when Mads begged, but I hated it the whole time. I hated heights and the feeling of being trapped. For some reason, the farther away from the dirt and soil beneath my firmly planted feet I got, the more anxious I became. But I’d sweat it out for my best friend and try to enjoy the view from above.
The moon was full tonight. Full, close, and round. It was tinged ever so slightly orange, which was odd since I didn’t believe it was a harvest moon, but it was beautiful against a backdrop of stars. I kept my eyes on it as we went around a few times, grateful for the distraction. Maddie was having a good time, taking as many selfies as was humanly possible. That girl was a handful, but I loved her.
I was grateful she hadn’t ditched me. I wouldn’t have blamed her. In fact, I’d worried for a while that she’d get tired of my moodiness and my new take on life after the accident. But Mads wasn’t like that. Yes, she was queen bee, and literally every stereotypical thing a cheerleader was expected to be, but she was kind, and she was like
