Nightmare {h.s | au}

1.9

Friday was here. Everyone in school was wearing a green or black shirt with the mustang displayed boldly on the front. There was a quote of some sort of the back of everyone’s t-shirt from years past. It was nice to see everyone unified like this to support the football team.

We cheerleaders wore our uniforms with pride and our hair pulled back into hair straightened ponytails with a black bow. We had all had to arrive early to school too so that we could have everyone looking as a unit. The only differences between us were how we had each done our makeup. It had made me feel out of place when people started smearing their eyes with glitter and shining eye shadow. The only thing I did was put on eyeliner, mascara, and chapstick. No one had said a thing about it or even dared try to. Angelina and I had been made co-captains of the squad. It wasn’t a huge thing. All it the status did was say that we were in charge at games and practices when Shelby Lancaster, our coach, couldn’t make it.

I found that the football team looked very good as well. Each one wore their away jersey tucked into a pair of khakis. They looked unified as much as we did. But it felt…cliché to be tacked around all of them. I never realized how many jocks and cheerleaders I spent my time with. It made me feel almost gross.

Today I’d make extra sure to include everyone in our senior class that I could except for Harry. Angelina had noticed and gave me “the look” so that I’d at least try. But ever since Tuesday, I’ve been cold and distant in his presence. We didn’t speak to each other unless it was desperately necessary which I found to be very little. It was almost nice. He was still around Reece too much for my liking and had apparently apologized to him and me for his behavior. Reece had let him back into the circle of trust.

“You’ve been acting weird all week, Eden,” Bennett said as he pointed a French fry at me. Everyone at our lunch table had mixed their chorus of agreements making me feel like I was being cornered.

“Just…worried about the game this week, I guess. It the first game of the season so you guys can’t lose and we’ve got to do our best to keep the crowd roaring…” I lied. Reece looked at me like he knew better and Angelina joined him but nether said anything. “I’m just stressed.”

Bennett nodded like he understood completely. I was thankful that he didn’t look into things too deeply but I was even more thankful that the subject had been dropped. When I looked around at everyone, I noticed that Harry was looking at me while munching on a red apple. Everyone seemed too into their own conversations to notice.

I finished what was left of my sandwich before leaving without a word. My feet carried me to the library in hopes that he wouldn’t follow me there. I dropped the book I had finished reading off at the return cart and went to go hide in a literature section that he wouldn’t be able to find me in if he did follow me.

My fingers traced the spines of books as I sought out comfort. There was nothing warm about the hard spines that caged stories, fictional or nonfictional people, words, truths, lies…I never thought that there was anything not comforting about a book until I realized within my last three months that I could just be put into a book. Someday I’d just be a story, one that I didn’t want my kids to know if I had any, one that would make people believe I did this to myself, one that was full of venom. Those people would be right and that venom? I was a snake, one more deadly than that of a taipan.

I tugged Thirteen Reasons Why from the shelf without checking to see what it was about and trudged my way to the checkout counter. Mrs. Mann checked the book and forced her glasses to sit on her nose multiple times throughout the game. Once done, she slid to book back over the counter. Her pale pink nails chipping and broken. I quietly thanked her before heading to art.