There is no real reason I should be thinking about Lianna right now. Whatever rivalry Lianna and Zoey have is none of my business. I should keep my nose out of things lest it seeps into my own life and ruin it more than I’ve already. It is far too late for that now. She is already in my head.
Lunch drones on like every other class. It’s no better at taking my mind off things.
Liza and I dump our trays together.
“I’m gonna hang out with Riley tonight,” Liza says as she scrapes mash potatoes into the trash.
Riley is one of the three girls currently sitting at our lunch table. The one with brown curly hair and straight bangs that fall over her blue eyes. I’ve never heard her talk about anything besides theater and the clearance items at the mall.
“Okay,” I say because I can’t think of anything clever to say. Maybe I should make a self-deprecating joke.
She might take me seriously.
She’s looking at me, probably wondering why I’m such a loner-type. The trash smells. I’m too un-bothered to scrunch my nose.
Liza sighs and tosses the tray onto the dirty dish cart. It slams into the stacked trays.
“Can you just cheer up? All you ever do is pout and stare.” She glares at me and crosses her arms.
I can’t get any words out. What does she want me to do? It’s not like she’s going out of her way to change things either.
“Whatever.”
I watch her walk back to the table. She shoots a few quick words to Riley and slings her bag over her shoulder. I’m left there, standing by the trashcans, unsure what to do.
Liza walks out of the cafeteria.
The worst of it doesn’t come later when I’m walking down the hall towards my locker. The world is crumbling, one layer at a time, and I feel nothing. I’m stripped bare, but I can’t feel the pain or the fear. Liza made it seem so simple.
Cheer up. Get over it.
I wish I could. The warmth of the sun mixed with Liza’s warm smile had made me feel as if there wasn’t a thing that could hurt me. I felt safe within the shelter of innocence the season had given me.
I would do anything to get it back.
I open my locker, ready to toss my bag in and be done with it all when a note falls to the cold linoleum floor.
At first, I think it’s a mistake. I shut my locker door and look around the hall, but there’s no one. A chill runs down my spine. I pick the note up anyway.
It’s regular line notebook paper, the kind anyone can find in any store. But the more I look at it, the stranger it looks and feels in my hand.
I raise it to my nose.
It doesn’t smell different. It’s just paper.
I glance once more down the hall. Still no one.
My hands are shaking as I peel the paper apart. Every sound, every crinkle, sounds like thumps as if the sound of my heart has moved to my ears. And it might be, but I’m too focused on the note and the pretty cursive writing that I forget. Her name is on my mind before I read it completely.
Lianna Coates.
I don’t know why it’s her who flies through my head. It could have been anyone.
She’s here, flashing in my head, with her signature smirk. She could knock me down with a look, could kill anyone with her walk, and for some reason, our paths have crossed.
The note is short.
Locker-room.
It’s not even a complete sentence.
My heart thumps against my ribs. I know what it means. I don’t want to believe it. I close my eyes, trying to sort out the whole breathing thing because I’m not doing it.
Breathe. Just breathe.
I’m fine then with the note clutched in my hand and my back against the wall of lockers. She wants to meet me in the locker-room. That’s easy enough to figure out, but I don’t know why she wants to see me.
Lianna has never laid eyes on me until yesterday. We’ve never spoken or even acknowledge one another and yet she’s quick to shorten the gap between us. I don’t want any of it. The thought of being in the same room as her makes my skin crawl in disgust.
It’s almost unbelievable how much I hate her.
I crumble the paper and shove it in my jean pocket. This will be the only time I’ll give in to her. I’ll settle this curiosity of mine and put her’s to rest.
She’ll find out I’m no one she wants to be around. Right now, she might think I’m someone she can use to cure her boredom, but after a while, she’ll learn the truth.
I’m no one special.
***
Yesterday’s rain has left the school’s pathway to the gym grimy with mud. It sticks to the bottom of my sneakers. It sloshes with every step I take. I cruse the school for not laying down cement or at least stepping stones. It’s only to fill the empty silence.
I’m setting myself up for the worst. I know it and I have the ability to turn back now. Lianna has no hold over me. None what-so-ever, but this need to prove something to her makes it hard to turn around. It’s too hard to pretend I never saw the note.
Something in her commands and the way she looks at me makes me feel like I have no choice.
I think back to today at lunch, the moment I realized I was no longer a friend Liza wanted in her inner circle. The way she looked at me and the way she brushed me off like I’m a speck of dirt, felt like a punch in the gut. Since we were little, since we met in grade school, we’ve been the pairs in class who partnered and couldn’t be separated. I took it in stride, never shy to declare her as my friend, but the memories are bitter now. So much has changed since the simpler times of childhood. Adulthood has taken her from me, has made her boy-crazed, and has turned her into someone I don’t understand.
Her disgusted look still burns.
The doors to the gymnasium are unlocked. I open the glass doors and peek my head through, holding my backpack up on my shoulder with one hand. The lobby is empty with two round tables next to the gated concession stand. The doors leading to the gym are shut. The lights are on, but they don’t help the room feel any less cold. The awards lining the walls are daunting as if they’re judging me for stepping into their footrace. I’m not athletic. I barely made it out alive after the required semester of gym. I haven’t set foot in the gym besides prep rallies.
As I walk in, my eyes fall upon the large glass cabinet. Trophies from football, basketball, and volleyball line the clear shelves. The silver and gold blind me, calling for me to gawk and awe in their presence. I spare them a glance over, but my eyes flicker back to a picture in the upper right corner. It’s an old photo, dated for 1995. The girl in the photo is smiling wide for the camera, her hand holding a basketball and her other on her hip. She’s dressed in the school colors, blue and white, but her flushed rosy cheeks jump from the photo. Her blonde hair, curly, is pulled back in a tight pony-tail.
She looks familiar. Like someone I know, but I can’t place her.
I leave the lobby and walk through the open gym to the hallway that leads to the locker-rooms. The blue painted walls are darkly lit. The shadows mimic the flickering habits of ones from horror movies. A lump grows in the back of my throat and I swallow, my shaking hand losing its grip on my bag. I part my lips to take a deep breath. I question why I’m here, why I’m torturing myself for this one person who I scarcely know.
Something within me has decided I should be the one to break inside the mysterious life of Lianna Coates. It feels like my duty to crumble the walls that separate her from the rest of us. We’re peasants, she’s royalty, but I know I’m worse than dirt to her. She sees me as a toy to amuse herself with. I don’t know how or why I think that. I don’t even know why I think it’s my right to center myself in this silent war between the school slut and the entire school.
I put those thoughts behind me and enter the locker-room.
The door swings open. I stand in the doorway. For the first time since I’d set foot in the gymnasium, I feel like running. I’ve talked myself into coming here under the pretense I’m satisfying both our curiosities. But as I look into the dark locker-room, I realize I’ve fallen into a trap I won't be able to free myself from.
With my hand still on the door’s handle, I turn on my heels. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in Lianna’s world—even when she’s the one inviting me in. It should have been the first clue I was becoming the butt of some joke. One that ends on me being the laughing stock at my own expense. She wouldn’t get the chance if I left now and pretended none of this ever happened.
But as soon as I turn, a hand grabs my arm and pulls me into the locker-room.
The door slams shut and I let out a yelp. My bag falls off my shoulder and onto the floor. I let it go, stumbling back into the person who has a firm grip on my arm.
“Hold still.”
It’s Lianna. Her warm breath fans over my ear. Her warm body against mine startles the words right out of my head. Speechless, my eyes flicker around the room, only seeing shadows. Her grip loosened from my arm, but she doesn’t let me go.
She turns me around with a gentle hand. When we’re face-to-face, I can see the intense look taking over the plains of her face. The light flickers through the door cracks and illuminates her face. She could’ve been mistaken for an angel, but I know what she truly is. Her eyes narrow on me.
“Be quiet,” she whispers. Then, she pulls me around the other side of the lockers.
I go along with her, too shocked to do anything else. The warmth of her hand and the way she whispered in my ear made my heart race and a burning flush rise up from my chest. From the tip of my ears and down, I burn with a fire I’ve never felt before. I feel as if I’ve been plunged into molten lava.
We round the corner. She pulls me to the door that connects to the coach’s office. Her hand hesitates on the handle.
She looks back at me. The height difference is accentuated. I crane my neck up and she looks down. That signature smirk plays at the corner of her lips.
“Do you trust me?”
I don’t, but I’m already here.
I nod. Her eyes crinkle as her smirk spreads into a smile.
Her hand is warm in mine as she pulls me into coach Malcolm’s office. If he caught us in his office we’re going to be in big trouble. But Lianna doesn’t seem to be the type that cares about authoritative rule. In fact, she seems like the type to seek out trouble. She’s the revel who goes against all the founding rules in society just to give a big fuck you to everyone else.
It’s refreshing, frightening, and exhilarating all at once. The different emotions I feel jolt me away from the world I’m leaving behind. I don’t feel the need to right against her.
We enter the office. She presses me back against the wall with her side pressed against mine. The heat between our bodies distract me and all I can think about is the curvature of her body. Her lips, her eyes, and the way she smiles. It’s at the forefront of my mind. And then I’m thinking about if she were a boy.
There is only one thing I can think about. One girl. One boy. The kind of thing teenagers would do when they're pressed against one another. It seems simple. Just human nature.
But this isn’t simple. I’m me and she’s Lianna. We don’t go together like anyone else.
Or how girls and boys do.
I don’t know how my mind has gotten here, don’t know if I really care because Lianna is leaning in close to me.
Her cheek brushes against mine.
I’m waiting for her, staring into her eyes with no understanding how to do the things she wants to do.
I think she’s going to kiss me. But she turns away.
My heart skips.
“They’re here. Come on.”
I don’t know who they are or why we’re waiting for them. I’m too wrapped up in how I thought she was going to kiss me. And then there’s the sinking realization that I’d secretly wanted her to in the first place.
She pulls me along to another door on the opposite wall from the one we’d come from. She puts her face up to the window and I see just a sliver of light peeking out from behind the blinds.
She pulls back, sets the blind back in place, and flashes me the whitest of grins. I think I might stop breathing. It’s a smile that hints to mischief and is also a promise for trouble. The voice in the back of my head is telling me to turn around and to get as far away from her as I can. There’s a reason why I think she’s no good. There’s a reason why people don’t like her or avoid her at all costs. Lianna Coates brings bad luck and is sin walking on legs.
I’d known it all before I’d gotten her note or had been brave enough to be alone with her. The voice has been yelling at me this entire time to stop what I’m doing and to head back to safety. But I can’t turn back now. She’s the one keeping me here, anchored to this world, even if I want to deny it and pretend I have the strength to keep living.
Before Lianna had come storming into my life, I’d been heading towards death. That was easy to see.
Now, I don’t know what I’m doing, but it feels better than spending my days passing in my bed.
She nudges me to the door. “Take a look.”
I take a shaky breath and switch spots with her. As I lean in, pulling the blind away just a sliver, the voice tells me once more to run.
And then I see them.
Zoey is down on her knees and standing above her is a boy who looks familiar.
Jack Nicolson. He sat behind me in French, but I barely see him in class because he’s always away at football games.
My hand tightens around the blinds. I got to slam them shut, but Lianna stops me.
“Wha—Why?” My voice is shaky. It’s clear from where we stand about what they’re doing. I just don’t know why we’re watching them or how Lianna knows they would be here in the first place.
“She thinks she’s smart. She’s not,” Lianna says, her voice dripping with malice. She scrunches her nose. “She makes them pay, you know that?”
I gape. “She does?”
“She’s got her own sex ring going on right under the school’s nose. I’ve seen her take in four new guys this past week and over a dozen the past month. Pretty fucking hypocritical, isn’t it?”
Lianna pulls out her phone. She clicks around a few times until she pulls up the camera. She places the phone up to the window and winks at me.
The camera snaps a few times.
“You know, Maya. I think we’re going to get along.”
I swallow. “We are?”
She looks up from her phone. “Yeah. We are.”
I don’t know if it’s a threat or a promise. The way she says it makes a chill run down my spine.
I should have ignored Lianna from the start.
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