"Here we aaaare!" Prudence happily sang, switching off her tank of a car.
"The senior queen eager to get back to her gangly throne?" I unfastened myself from the seat and grabbed my bag and my uncle's jacket. Prudence shot me the most girlish of sneers I'd ever seen, as she circled the car to my side.
"That's right, Didi, it's our senior year. So lighten up a little, or you'll drag the rest of us down with you."
"What're you talking about? I'm hyped. I'm pumped. I'm...humped."
Her stare was as flat as a plank of wood, while my responding grin was as genuine as the leather of my ten dollar knapsack.
"It's totally obvi' that you're just waiting for the next Sedan to tear through here and take you out of your misery."
"It's not that real," I muttered, starting the hike to the front doors.
"Ay, mami, do my eyes deceive me, or has our radiant royal flower blossomed ever more lustrously over the summer?"
Joaquin Cortez, ever the wannabe Fabio Lanzoni, was probably the biggest scumbag—flirt in the entire school. He sauntered over to us from across the lot, shoulders gyrating in an improbable formation of swag, with his creepy friends trailing behind him.
He reached for Prudence's hand, placing a lecherous peck upon her knuckles, straightening and giving her a good, long once-over.
"Mm, mm, mm...Girl, you are getting thicc."
Through Prudence's incessant, pitchy giggles, I wasn't successful in tucking away my scoff behind a phony mask of indifference like I would have done a year ago. "You're sandpaper smooth, Cortez," I sniped boldly.
His gaze finally found its way to my direction. "And you're...the new girl?"
I felt my left eye twitching.
Prudence gave Cortez's chest a tepid slap. "Joaquin, don't poke fun. You know Didi."
"Didi?" He looked at me again, and I forced myself to meet his gaze, though everything in me wanted to turn and tread back for the car. His eyes, along with his smile, widened with a mischievous gleam.
"Oh, yeah, the Goddess of Love!" He leaned forward to give my shoulder an amiable slap, as if I was just one of the guys. "How's it going, Cupid's Arrow?"
I felt myself straighten in a passing bout of confidence. "It's been—"
"Hey, that's great, good for you!" He turned from me to Prudence again, and just like that, I was dismissed.
"Anyways, Preciosa, a few of us are throwing a get-together later tonight. A little after-hours-first-day-back rendezvous. You game?"
Prudence gave a quirky, little bounce on her heels, her white, white smile flashing like a pearly beacon. She glanced my way. "Sure, but only if Didi can come, too."
Oh, fudge cakes.
Cortez's eyes barely flickered in my direction. "Oh, sure. Wouldn't think of letting the goddess miss out on the festivities this year."
I forced a smile to my face that only managed to stretch my cheeks in an awkward grimace instead. I could do with missing the festivities if it meant I wouldn't be group-hounded again over something as petty as my frickin' name.
"Sounds like fun," I said instead.
I was surprised Prudence insisted on my attendance. Usually, the time for a drunken throwdown was the only necessary prerequisite for an appearance by Prudence Livingston—plus one or not.
"Fantastic." Cortez still wasn't looking my way. "I guess I'll see you there." This was most definitely aimed at Prudence, as he pranced back to his friends, who were all now piled around on one of their trucks "discretely" passing a joint.
Prudence's high-pitched squeal made me jump. I followed her gaze to the forefront of the school entrance where, among the usual gang of her friends, he stood.
Ethaniel James Pierce.
Unlike the rest of the group, which consisted of the Three Lyns: Heatherlyn, Amberlyn, and Katelyn, three girls whom all coincidentally shared the final suffix in their names, Jeremiah Steinbeck, star swimmer for the Sitka High Wolves, and his kid brother, Roland. However, Ethan wasn't looking at his girlfriend, nor at me, but just past my shoulder at Cortez and the rest of the footballers with a sort of keen eye, as best as I could tell.
I suppressed an eye roll and shoved the small ache in my heart away. Of course, Ethan would've noticed Cortez's vexatious flirting with his girl.
I looked to Prudence to see her pouting at his obvious distraction, but it was short-lived, as he finally looked back to her and smiled, wondrous, warm, and everything I felt I lacked in my entire being, thrown into one single upturn of his lips.
I feel like the absolute most wretched person alive for even having such thoughts about my best friend's boyfriend. I know thinking isn't the same as doing, but thinking about Ethan at all in the way that I was, was like a constant brush through betrayal.
Friends don't do that to friends.
Prudence's returning grin was gravid with sensuality. "This is gonna be the best. Year. EVER," she purred from my left.
"You can tell that already? The first period bell hasn't even rung, yet."
She looked at me, full, maroon painted lips pursed. "Didi Downer, as always." She strutted ahead to her man of my dreams.
"Yup, that's me." I followed behind with my gaze to the ground. "Always has been. It's as if you don't know me at all."
When we reached the group, the piercing squeal, executed by the Three Lyns, was enough to make my ears bleed. They were already jumping like springs when they spotted their ring leader and were quick to surround her the moment she was within grabbing distance.
"Prue!" Amberlyn, a pretty black girl, squealed, giving me a flippant glance. "Prue's Friend," she greeted.
"Dodie, right?" Heatherlyn said, having the audacity to look genuinely perplexed.
It was true that we didn't exactly run in the same social circles, but come on. I was a constant glaring presence at Prue's side. But then maybe I was the one over-exaggerating my presence and its effect on people, and I really am that transparent of a human being.
"Right," I mumbled miserably. Not that they heard me. I could practically feel Prudence's eye roll beside me.
"What reeks of rotten Go-GURTs?" Roland waved at the air, pinching his nose closed.
I dropped my burning head to the ground, and slowly tugged my Uncle's jacket on over my shoulders, so as not to garner too much attention. I couldn't bear it if Ethan chose now, of all times, to notice me.
"How was your summer?" Heatherlyn asked, though I didn't need to look up to know that she wasn't talking to me.
"My parents are having their own little...thing going on. Best to stay out of it for my hair's sake," said Prue with an airy sigh. "But on the plus side, I just got my baby last week!"
Her baby being that military tanker on the lot behind us.
The four girls shared another uproarious squeal, making Jeremiah's face practically cave into itself from the force of his cringe.
"Do you girls have any respect for the sanctity of inside voices in enclosed spaces?" he whined, picking morosely at his ear.
"We're outside, though?" Katelyn stated, her tightly confused features glimmering as strongly as ever.
"And I found this really hot place in Anchorage I've got my eye on." Prudence went on as if neither of them had spoken. "After graduation, it'll be mine for the furnishing. But you three know that already. I texted you the deets weeks ago."
She turned then to her boyfriend, gaze softening in a manner I'd never seen her use on anyone besides him, and poised herself onto her tiptoes to immerse her mouth into his for a good twelve, painstaking seconds, with both Jeremiah and Roland gagging noisily behind them. I wish I had the courage to do the same, even if it was just under the pretense of false, good-natured humor. Finally, with a resound SPLACK, they separated.
"Ethan..." she greeted—more like moaned—into his ear, "I missed you, baby. I missed you soooo much."
"Prue," he said, voice smooth and deep and sounding, unsurprisingly, not breathless at all. You spend your free time taking down boulder-shaped bodies for as long as he has, your endurance would rate pretty high, too. "We just got together for Crown's Hill yesterday."
I frowned, brows dipping. Crown's Hill was the film I'd been dying to see for weeks, but of which Prudence claimed seemed like worse torture than sitting through one of my MASH marathons.
I pushed the hurt down to the ground and mentally stomped it into the dirt to remind myself of something I'd realized a long time ago: Prue would do practically anything for Ethan. Her attachment to him was stalwart, almost obsessive. Though I wasn't sure if that was coming from an observing standpoint, or from that jerk of a green-eyed monster poking at me with a stick.
"I knooooow," she whined gratingly into my ear, "but that was a full nine hours ago."
There was a pause, and then, "Didi."
My head snapped up at the sound of his heavenly, velvety voice uttering my name. Ethan's gaze was genial, inviting, and I realized that he had just greeted me. I fumbled for my words.
"S--sup?" my lips spilled over without my consent. I was back to making love gazes at my feet before I could see his reaction. But judging by one of the Lyns' scoff, it was about as smooth as I was capable of.
"Nice summer?"
Was he actually talking to me?
"Y--yeah." I hate myself. But I decided to push through. "It was all right. Y--yours?"
"It was all right."
Ermahgerd, was he teasing me? Was that a smile in his voice that I detected? Was he smiling at me? I wanted to look but didn't have enough nerve endings in my whole body to even feel my head. I just hate myself. Here Ethan was, teasing me, possibly smiling at me, and I hadn't the guts to even look at him.
A thrust at my arm made me look up at Prudence instead, who had just elbowed me with an exasperated scowl on her pretty face.
"You planning a fellatio fest with the asphalt later, sweetie?"
And then, much to my horror, the group burst into raucous laughter. I shot a withering look of betrayal at Prudence's head, but she only had eyes for Ethan.
On instinct, my gaze then finally flickered towards Ethan, too, and to my swooping pleasure and frank surprise, he was the only one not laughing, much to Prue's obvious dismay. But there was something in its place, a scrutinizing look that was borderline pity, and something like disapproval over his girlfriend's antics. I couldn't tell for sure before he cleared his throat.
"Okay," he announced. I didn't know what he meant by it until I noticed the rest of the group dropping their cackling crusade at our feet.
Was he...Did he just stick up for me?
Before I could fester away at the possibility, the bell for homeroom finally belted, and with that, Ethan broke his gaze from mine to swing an arm over Prudence's shoulder, leading her and the rest of the group through the front doors, with me trailing like a lost puppy behind them.
✧✧✧✧✧
I'd hoped that first period would go without a hitch, but I should've been less...stupid. I don't know what I was thinking. Certainly not that I'd be hindered by a duet of lip wrestlers at my assigned locker. It was only a minute before the warning bell sounded that they took any heed of my complaints, or maybe they just didn't want to be late?
In any case, by the time I shoved my unnecessary utensils into my locker and reached Algebra 2, it was a good two minutes after the bell rang when all the classroom doors were shut as a silent "pound salt" gesture to any latecomers. I took my chances and knocked, hoping to score a few gallantry points.
The door opened and I was met with Mr. Trench's stern, wizened face.
"I'm so sorry I'm late, sir. I was—I..." It wasn't my fault, not entirely. Maybe if I'd let those two horndogs at my locker know I meant business, I wouldn't be here right now with my teacher's shadow about to swallow me whole.
"Miss. Dolce, seeing as how this is our first day back, I'll cut you a break. But in the future, please practice accordance with the time you're given before the final bell."
I lowered my head to greet my old friend The Floor. "Y—yes, sir. Sorry, sir."
"Aphrodite, please take your seat."
As I entered, there was a roundabout of infuriating snickering that started in the back and then proceeded to spread across the room like a gathering of ignited matches. I couldn't tell if this was due to my being chastised, or because of the seventeen-year-long sting that was my mother's sudden bout of queer creativity, she'd had when it came to choosing my trying name.
I mumbled more languid apologies to Mr. Trench, and scaled my way through the congested rows of desks, ignoring the perverse stares and lingering bouts of chortling.
"What did he say her name was?" I heard Brody Sanderson, ace footballer, "whisper" across the line to his friend.
I realized I needed to look up to see an empty spot, so I did, catching one, thankfully, in the back, but un-thankfully, right next to a boy named Anthony Calvetti. He was dark-haired, good-looking, and someone you'd believe was primarily anti-social, were it not for the small group of large friends he associated with. He was also, unsurprisingly, due to his bulkier stature, a pretty decent wrestler for the Sitka Wolves. But I knew him mainly as one of Ethan's closest friends.
The desk we were to share was long, a two-seater, but it was still unnerving being so close to someone who in reference was so close to the someone that I wanted to be close to.
And in comes the guilt again.
I dropped my bag next to the available chair, slumping myself unceremoniously beside him, my shoulders squared to my ears, and eyes glued onto the front. I debated—fought with myself, really--on whether or not I should chance a glance at him. I didn't feel him looking at me, but still, to be caught would've been humiliating.
A few minutes in, I hear light tapping coming from his end of the table, and it was enough for my head to give an involuntary swivel in his direction.
He was making hammer-like motions with his pen in between his fingers, rapping it against his unopened notebook. He either didn't know I was looking at him or didn't care. But through his decidedly irritating little ditty, he neither looked at me nor said a single word. Not one.
And for that, I was grateful.