But I find myself looking for him. In class. In the cafeteria. In the parking lot. Even when I go home, this small hope lights up that he’ll ambush me in my room just like that first day last week.
I want to be alone with him again. Those few stolen moments—the car, the lab, the library—they’re like my letters from Misha. Something to look forward to.
I didn’t leave any graffiti last night after swim lessons, partly because I almost got caught the night before with him and it was a good idea to back off for a few days, but also because I suddenly didn’t want to.
Masen was the release now.
And I hated that.
When Misha disappeared, and I didn’t know if he was getting my words, I started leaving them at school for people to read. It’s stupid and childish, but one day a couple of months ago, when things got to be too much, I was afraid I’d start screaming. So that night, before locking up the pool, I made a snap-second decision and took out my Sharpie. I wrote on a locker—a special message for just that person.
It was a fluke. It wouldn’t happen again.
But the next morning when I saw him read it over and over before finally writing it down and taping it to the inside of his locker, before the janitor could clean it off, it became something I wanted to do again. The messages became more frequent, bigger and louder, but never personal. Never with students’ names.
Not until last week with Lyla’s business aired on the front lawn. That wasn’t me, and it was all the more reason for me to stop. Others were following my lead now, and I didn’t want it to get any more out of hand. They’d hired security, so it was only a matter of time before they got the cameras working and someone got caught.
Especially when I’d been using washable spray-paint and only using markers on things, like metal, that could be cleaned, and not damaged, with nail polish remover. But the lawn had to be cut, since whoever did it had used permanent spray-paint, and the pressure washer didn’t work. How long before it got really destructive?
Well, it won’t fall on me. I didn’t write anything last night, and I’m not going to sneak in tonight, either. We’re all going to the drive-in, and my mom will be holding me to my curfew.
But what would happen if Masen wasn’t around anymore? What if I decide it’s too risky to keep sneaking into the school at night? Will I act out some other way?
No. Weak people have vices. I don’t need Misha, Masen, or anything else to make it through the day.
But as I walk out to the parking lot at the end of school, I can’t help but look for him again. His tall form, his dark brown hair, his green eyes that always find me and send an electric current through my body…
I was mean the other night. Again.
On the floor, in the library, after the dirty talk and the name-calling and the touching and kissing…he’d turned gentle and held me. After he made me come, and I could feel his eyes eating me up, he didn’t push me farther than that. He didn’t try to take off the rest of my clothes or climb on top of me and rush me into something I might not be ready for. He just laid there, holding me.
And I pushed him off and ran away.
I’m attracted to Masen, excited by him, and intrigued by him, but he isn’t forever. I don’t want to go to the prom with Trey, but I want to go, and Masen hasn’t asked me. I don’t even know if he’s going to be here in a week.
I’m not risking Trey and my friends for someone who’s never given the impression he actually wants me.
No matter how much I’m starting to like him.
Lyla and Ten are already at my Jeep, waiting, since we were going to go get food after school today. She stands on the rear driver’s side tire, holding on to the roll bar and yelling to someone farther away in the parking lot, while Ten sits in the back.
I toss my bag in beside him.
“Where have you been?” I hear a voice ask.
I turn around and see Trey standing in front of me. I would usually consider his navy blue T-shirt and white baseball cap attractive on him, but now I just see bare arms, void of tattoos, and boring blue eyes with boring pierced-less lips.
I want my delinquent.
Lyla hops down from the tire and stands next to me, too nosy for her own good.
“I’ve called, I’ve texted, and I don’t like being ignored,” he warns.
I look around me, lifting up my arms to see if I have anything on my clothes. “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have lost my dog tags,” I tell him. “You know the ones that say I’m your property, and I report to you.”
I can hear Ten’s quiet laugh off to the side. Trey’s eyes narrow to slits.
“You know,” he starts, “a little reciprocation from you wouldn’t be out of line. Especially when the whole school sees you and Laurent fucking around with each other.”