51 Shades of Mumu

Chapter 11

    "Hey, are you alright?" Hoytt asked with the warmest smile I had received in eons. I sniffled and made an attempt to discreetly wipe the snot off my face.

    "Here." He pulled an entire box of Puffs Plus tissues out of his bag and shoved it at me.

    "Thank you," I choked out. Jesus, here I was with Hoytt Quigley—and I was falling for him pretty damn Quigley—making a complete idiot out of myself with gallons of tears and snot practically bathing me.

    At long last, the Jolly Tan Giant sat down next to me and widened his eyes as if he were peering into my soul rather than at the mucus mask I was currently sporting.

    "He's a jerk," He whispered, attempting to put a mile long arm around me. I shrugged it off. As cute as Hoytt might have been, I was still hurt from Gorden's utter callousness.

    "I get what you're trying to do, but, just go away." It was the first mean thing I had said to someone since the school year began. One month in and I was already beginning to push people away.

    Suddenly, out of the blue, almost as if he had been summoned, a dorky looking kid who was absolutely covered in freckles and happened to be wearing the same Arctic Monkeys T-shirt as Hoytt strode on up to us.

    Actually, he kind of flung himself at us in a freckly fury.

    "HOYTT!"

  "Hey man!" Hoytt instantly jumped up, flinging the tissue box at me in the process, and spontaneously engaged in an elaborate handshake with the strange pasty guy.

    "Yo, we match!" Pasty Boy guffawed. I wanted to slap him across his bright pink face. Couldn't he see that his friend was comforting me? Given, I had shoved Hoytt away, but that didn't mean he had to go. That didn't mean he had to throw the tissue box at me and act as if being a five year old with his quirky friend was a thousand times more important.

    "Who's that?" He asked Hoytt while pointing at me.

    "That's—"

    "I'm Mumu," I jumped up, cutting Hoytt off. Enough with his doucheyness. Freckles needed to know that his friend was being more coldhearted than Gorden.

    "Faeleb O'Shaughnessy," he responded. "What's your favorite band?"

    "I just call him Fail," Hoytt whispered.

    Sweet Jesus. A normal person would've said something along the lines of "Nice to meet you," or "Hey!" But no. This guy, whose name I could not even begin to pronounce, was interrogating me about music. Not to mention that he had scrawled 'swag' all over his mysteriously hairless right leg. Ronan and Kigurl would have found him perfectly normal.

    Lydia chose that exact moment to throw her flamboyant self into the courtyard, colorful hair flying in every direction. MOOOOOOO!" She ran up to me, waving her arms around like the complete and utter idiot she was. She should've been a spokesperson for Benny's plethora of drugs. "Seriously," She blathered, "I am going to fuck Gorden up! He can't go breaking people's hearts like that! Who the—"

    She stopped her sass attack, abruptly taking notice of Faeleb and Hoytt. "Hi…Lydia," Hoytt said politely.

    "Sup," Faeleb raised his eyebrows and gave her a small smile.

    "Uh, hey…"

    Who was this awkward minion and what had she done to crackhead Lydia Brophy?

   "So, you guys know each other…I guess?"  asked, attempting to shatter the awkwardness.  Faeleb's face had gone from pink to tomato red, Lydia had begun sweating profusely, and Hoytt looked about ready to get hit by a truck. What in the world was going on?

    "Yeah!" Lydia piped up. "We're all in the same math class."

    "Yeah, we've gotta go," Faeleb hastily grabbed Hoytt's noodle arm and dragged him off.

    "Is Faeleb beautiful or what?" Lydia sighed dreamily as soon as they were out of earshot.

    I made a face and began walking back towards the cafeteria. as it possible to just murder everyone? My mind was a whirling blur of love, hate, and straight up confusion. ow did Hoytt feel about me? More importantly, how did I feel about him? What was Lydia going to do to Gorden? I wasn't over him yet and I surely didn't want anyone to hurt him. Then again, I had something against my new friend…she clearly liked Faeleb.  And I could clearly use that against her if it was called for.

*

    "How good are you at solving crimes?" I inquired while agilely leaping over a hint pile of dog poop in the center of the sidewalk. Ronan and I were walking home, and, out of all my friends, she was clearly the only one who thought somewhat clearly. Maybe she'd be able to shed some light on who was spreading the stories about my escapades with Andre.

    "Okay, I guess. It depends on what I'm figuring out…"

    "We need to find out who said stuff about me and Andre. Gorden broke up with me because of that!" I could feel the hot tears coming back. "Everyone says it wasn't them, but it had to be someone!  Either that or…someone overheard. OMG! What if it was Andre himself? What if he was bragging? Would he do that?"

    "Calm your tits! One suspicion at a time!"  Ronan looked about ready to kill me.

    "He is like, so mine! That crazy girl doesn't have a chance!  Like, I mean, she's not pretty, right?" A bleach blonde girl with thunder thighs and a crop top that would've gotten her expelled from Hempstead High strode past us. As much as I loved gossip, I couldn't stand that she was badmouthing someone who was most probably a lot nicer and prettier than she would ever be.

    "She's gorgeous!" I shouted, not even knowing who the poor victim of the vicious gossip was.

    "Shut up!" Wideload Barbie said dismissively.

    "She's not even worth it," Ronan said, rolling her eyes. "One class with that girl and I already want her dead. She says she had sex with Oli Sykes. Can you believe that?" Her eyes went huge. "Oli. Sykes. That is about as true as me saying I have huge man hands. Ugh, I want to throw up just thinking about that."

    I did not care much for Ronan's talk about people I didn't know. Or the fact that the huge wannabe Barbie girl truly did need to be taught a lesson. All I wanted—needed—to know was how my poor Gorden, my baby, had found out about Andre and me.