Blood

Human blood. Not mine, but some other girl's. It wasn't even fresh when Brandon tasted it. A week-old and preserved in a bag with anti-coagulant, he found it at the back of his dad's fridge when he was eleven. But it was enough.
Mine was the first he asked for fresh. It had been over six years, but his taste for it hadn't gone away. At first I said no. Not because it was a strange request. I was his girlfriend after all. Why not? People all over the country, the world even, were getting drunk on blood. Ordering it from online companies where anyone, any age, could sell pints of their own for a few bucks. Going to shady clubs where girls draped themselves on sofas like a banquet and let men taste what was inside them.
Doctors and scientists and feel-good-self-help authors were raving about the effects of human blood in our diet. It was boosting overall health. Giving extra strength. Creating more stable life-styles. Whatever that meant.
Brandon had never tried it fresh. But bagged blood could only satisfy someone so long. The more he drank, the more he wanted. I should have been flattered he was asking me and not some random girl at a bar. But still, I said no, and I wasn't even sure why. It bothered me, him asking, him even drinking it in the first place, but I knew it shouldn't have.
Deaths started occurring, but they were small, and not given much credit.
A notification on my phone from a news app: Man in hospital predicts own death if not given blood to drink. Request denied. Man dead within twelve hours from unknown causes.
A reporter on the late-night news: A man was found dead at the scene of a murder. The victim was drained of blood. Story to follow.
An expert on a talk show: We have no conclusive evidence to suggest that the new blood-diet is leading to either murder or death. There are very few substances that can kill a person merely from withdrawal, and human blood is not one of them.
The price of blood went up anyway, from ten dollars a bag to twenty, then forty, as demand spiked. Bars offered blood cocktails and vodka spiked with blood, which was cheaper, event though most people preferred straight shots. Grocery stores even stared carrying it in the refrigerator section, bottled and labeled with the type. Apparently B+ tasted different from O-. Pushing my cart through the store, I tried not to vomit at the thick dark liquid. And still the prices went up.
"Please?" Brandon said. "It won't hurt. I have the analgesic wipes to numb your skin. You don't even have to do anything. Just sit there. I won't take much."
I could always tell when he'd been drinking it. His eyes would get a little bloodshot, like he'd lost sleep over the drink, and his pupils would dilate, predatory. He would look at me the way guys sometimes did, all up and down, taking in the blue of my veins against my wrists, the jugular at my throat. Sometimes he would touch his fingers to my pulse, and I could feel the ache in that touch, the desire for more. When he kissed my neck, my wrists, even the backs of my hands, I could tell he was holding himself back. He said he could smell it, and I believed him.
But he hadn't had any in a while. It cost too much. He'd already borrowed a couple hundred from me, and I knew I was never getting it back.
Sitting on the couch, in the dark, my head on his lap, he traced the vein down the side of my neck, chin to collarbone. His hands were shaking.
"Please?" he whispered. "I promise not to hurt you." He rubbed my collarbone with his thumb. The pressure was faint, he was so weak, but still his touch made me shiver.
When I shifted to look up at him, the angle accentuated the hollows of his eyes, the sharp lines of his cheekbones. He wasn't eating. Couldn't sleep.
He looked so tired and broken, that I knew. The news reporters were wrong. The lack of blood was killing him. If he didn't get more blood, and soon, he could be dead in a few days.
His voice got low, like he was about to cry. "Please?"
I was done being selfish. He needed me. Needed my blood. I didn't need it. Not all of it. Why had I kept it back so long. Maybe there was a way to fix him. Make him whole again, without blood. Ease him off it. But right then, he needed me, and I couldn't say no. I wouldn't. And, I realized, opening my mouth, I wanted him to drink my blood. I wanted it the way I wanted him to kiss me when he would stand two inches away. So I smiled with that same kiss-me look as I said, "Okay."
That wasn't my first mistake. But it was almost my last.

Three months later, I was still anemic, still fingering the scar ripped down my wrist.
"Please," I begged, as my mom pulled up in front of the school. "Please, don't make me go back. I'll finish out the school year at home. He'll be there. He'll be waiting for me."
But he wasn't.
I locked myself in a bathroom stall and cried all through first period with too much of every emotion.

At lunch, I stood with my brown paper bag at the cafeteria doorway and watched people whisper.
Three months, I imagined them saying.
I heard she did time.
I heard she was working at a blood-bar.
You think she's got any scars?
"Hey."
I jumped.
A guy stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes at me.
"That was hello," he said. "I'm Stefan. Wanna sit at my table?" He was my height and almost as skinny as I was with dark hair and dark eyes. He wore his clothes loose and comfortable. He pointed across the cafeteria and a couple girls waved from a wall table.
I nodded.
They were too close to one of the cafeteria TVs, turned to the news station.
"In your opinion, doctor, should this be classified as an epidemic?"
My seat was facing the TV, so I stared at each item as I revealed it from the paper bag. Plastic-wrapped tuna sandwich. Applesauce. Candy bar.
"While the link between blood withdrawal and certain symptoms cannot be ignored, I believe this is something that can be managed is the public chooses to stay educated."
"You always pack dessert?" Stefan asked.
I nodded.
"Dessert is the best part!" he said.
"I think some people want to believe in something terrifying every chance they get."
"Ugh. There talking about the whole blood-diet debate again," one of the girls complained. "I don't see what the big deal is. I've tried it, and yeah it was really great, but it didn't do anything weird to me."
I peeled the top off my applesauce. I'd forgotten a spoon.
"Is it true that some of the symptoms of blood withdrawal, if left untreated, can lead to serious illness or even death?"
"Here," Stefan slid his hot-lunch spoon over to me. When I looked at him, he crossed his eyes at me, then grinned. I took the spoon.
"If you are experiencing unmanageable fatigue, and intense cravings for human blood, coupled with insomnia, please seek immediate medical attention."
"The scary thing is," the other girl at the table said, her eyes on the television, "that you can't tell just by looking at someone if they're craving your blood. It shouldn't creep me out, but it kind of does, you know? I mean, no one's going to kill anyone for their blood or anything, but it's still kind of weird to me. I guess I haven't tried it, so I don't know what the hype is all about."
"Oh, it's worth trying," the first girl said.
"So, how's day going so far?" Stefan asked me.
I shrugged, and put my sandwich back in the bag. I didn't even eat the candy bar.

It had still been three months by the end of the day. I'd counted because it felt like three years or three weeks, and I thought I'd go insane if I didn't keep track of how long I'd been alive. How long I'd been surviving.
"Why don't you ever talk?" Stefan asked me after school, standing in the parking lot with the group that let me sit by them at lunch.
"I talk," I said.
He smiled and flipped messy hair out of his eyes. "Now I believe you. I thought for a while you might be mute."
I shrugged. "I don't have much to say."
"Everyone has something to say," he said.
When one of the girls suggested we all go swimming in the school pool since it was starting to warm up, I wrapped my summer sweater more securely and crossed my arms.
"Are you coming?" Stefan asked. He looked me right in the eye, not up and down like most guys did, like they were imagining the look of my veins under my skin in a swimsuit.
I shrugged. "I might come for a bit," I said. "But I have to run home first. Text me if you guys are still there in a couple hours or so."
He tipped his head. "We're not going to still be there, " he said. "You know that."
I blinked.
"You should come and stop acting like you can't have fun with us."
"I'm not," I said. "I've just got some stuff to do at home."
He considered this.
"Come on, Stefan!" one of the girls said.
"I'll catch you guys up," he said.
"'Kay," and they was gone.
"What's bothering you?" Stefan asked.
"Nothing," I said.
He nodded, like he understood what I meant, not what I said. "You know you don't have to lie to me, right?" he said. "You don't have to tell me. But if you need to tell someone, let me know."
I didn't have anything coherent to say to that, so I nodded and pressed my thumb into the scar on my left wrist. In three months, no one had ever asked. They'd assumed they already knew.
He kept looking at me, so I looked at the ground.
Then I held out my wrist into the space he'd opened up between us. And I pulled up my sleeve to show the scar. It ran ragged from the center of my wrist off to the side, where the skin had torn.
"I tried to get away," I said.
He didn't touch it. He took in the sight in less than a second and then his gaze was back on mine. "A boy," he said.
I didn't nod. I didn't have to. "I tried to call 911." I realized I'd been waiting, needing to tell someone. Anyone. "I was so gone by then, I could barely remember how to push the numbers," I said. "He kicked my phone across the room. But I guess the call went through anyway. I didn't wake up for a while, but they said they found me on the floor of his front room in a puddle of blood. He'd run, I guess. He said it was an accident, and he didn't realize. But I saw his eyes. I asked him to stop, after a minute, you know, but he didn't. He put his hand over my mouth and nose so I couldn't scream and kept drinking my blood. So I tried to get away, and this happened. But he still didn't stop."
His mouth to my skin, the needle and IV tubing ripped out of my vein, his teeth red.
I looked at the pavement again, focusing on the yellow spray-painted line. I pulled down my sleeve and breathed.
"My therapist said I was making it up," I said. "But I wasn't."
We both listened to me breathe too loudly.
"I have a question," he said. "Could I give you a hug? Also, do you want to go dancing with me this weekend?"
When I looked up, his eyes were clear. Sincere.
"Yes," I said. "I'd like that."
He took first place for best hug.

He picked me up that Friday. His car was silver, and smelled like french fries and chocolate. We went swing dancing, and he was good.
When he spun me, his eyes were full of the music. He didn't glance at my throat. Not even when I tipped my head back and laughed. Not once. It made me want to laugh more, free and giddy.
When I came up too fast from a dip, and almost blacked out from not eating and not sleeping for three months, he bought me a plastic bottle of water and let us outside to sit down and breathe.
"I'm sorry," I gasped, still out of breath from twirling and sliding.
"For what?" he asked.
I gulped at the water, waiting for my head to right itself. "We should be dancing."
He smiled. "I asked you on a date because I wanted to get to know you. Sitting is as good as dancing as far as I'm concerned."
"So what do you want to know?" I asked.
"Do you like slides?"
"What?" I laughed. "You asked me on a date to find out if I liked slides?"
He stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. "There's a park close by. You want to go?"
"Sure!" I capped my water and followed him. Walking the three blocks, I let my hands hang at my sides, the one closest to him empty and wishing it wasn't.
The gate was open, but all the lights in the park were off.
"This is creepy," I said, and crossed my eyes at him.
He laughed.
Still holding the plastic water bottle, I climbed a slide and swung myself on top of the monkey bars, hooking my knees and dangling upside down.
"What makes you the happiest?" he asked.
"I'm happy right now," I said.
"Every day. What makes you happy every day?"
"People," I said. "Good people. And ice cream." I pulled myself back upright and swung my legs. He climbed up beside me.
He was so close, our shoulders were touching.
"You smell good," he said.
"Really?" I sniffed my hair. I'd washed it with baking soda and vinegar, so I doubted that was it. "I'm not wearing any perfume."
He shook his head. "Not perfume. You smell good. Just you."
"You want some water?" I asked, holding out the bottle. "It'll make you smell good."
He didn't laugh, but after a second he took the bottle and gulped some.
"What about you?" I asked as he handed the water back. "What makes you so happy every time I see you?"
He looked back at the gate we'd come through, and then all around the park, like he was about to tell me a secret. "Finding good people," he said. He looked right at me. "Like you."
"I'm not such a great person," I said.
"You're better than me."
I laughed. "Uh-huh, because you're so evil, taking me dancing and buying me water." I held up my bottle.
"I'm dangerous," he said.
I chuckled. "Define dangerous for me, please." I took a swig of water. And then I saw his face, and I felt like the rest of the water bottle had dumped, cold, into my stomach. I shouldn't have laughed.
"As soon as I get close to someone," he said, "they get hurt."
"You're cursed?" I asked, making a last attempt to keep it light. Wishing I was wrong. But I wasn't.
"No." He had his hands together, elbows on knees, one fist inside the other. "No, if anything I curse other people. When they get too close."
I swallowed. "So, you're telling me not to get too close?" My voice was getting quieter.
"I'm telling you that if you do, you'll end up hurt. Promise me something?"
I looked down at the water bottle in my hands.
"Don't get attached to me, okay?"
Too late, I thought. I could hear my blood in my ears.
"You scare me," he said. It was so quiet I could barely hear it over the rushing in my head.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I care about you."
And I knew. I knew, I knew, I knew, and I wanted to scream. Not in terror. But in agony.
I realized I was crushing the water bottle in my hands.
"This is about blood," I said.
He didn't nod. He didn't need to. He closed his eyes, and I felt the last bit of togetherness inside me crumble.
"I've been fighting it," he said. "The craving. But I'm not safe. I can't fight it forever."
And I saw how he hadn't always been so thin, so ragged. He played it off well, leaving his dark hair just a little too long, wearing his clothes a little too loose, like the look was natural. When he wasn't smiling, he looked so exhausted he could hardly hold himself up.
"Run," he said. "Just run. Run as far and as fast as you can. Take my car if you need to." He held out the keys.
"You'll die," I said. "You'll be dead by morning."
"Get away from me! Please." The keys dangled from hand, his eyes still closed. "Please, run. Now. I don't want to hurt you too."
The playground was so dark, I thought the ground was farther than it was when I jumped, and hit it hard.
But I didn't scream even then. I didn't cry. I didn't beg to stay. I didn't tell him it was okay or I understood. I didn't even get mad. I picked the keys back up from where I'd dropped them in the fall, and then I ran.
I ran all the way to his car, locked myself inside, and called 911.
When they found him, he was already dead.
And I was alive. I was alive.
He had kept me alive.
That was when I screamed.

3,040 words

reading recommendation: The Vampire Box by Tessa Gratton

(photo courtesy of Marco Arment)

Dead Stars

2,146 words - teen speculative fiction

I was so startled at not being dead, that I almost died all over again.
Blood crashed through my veins like white water rapids. It pulsed in every part of my body, making my toes curl and my fingers twitch.
Wait, no. Not my fingers. Whose fingers were these?
They were short with wide nails. Mine had been long with round knuckles. I flexed my hand, and the fingers moved. It was my hand, but it was definitely not my hand.
Who the heck was I? And why, in the whole wide universe, was I alive?
I'd been dead for, well, maybe for forever. I don't know if was actually dead, or just not living. Either way, I had never been alive before. At least, not for so long that it didn't matter. But I knew what I looked like. And it was not this.
My eyes travelled down the hand to my wrist, forearm, elbow. This arm - supposedly my arm - was thicker than it should have been. Shorter too.
I tried to move my head, and found I couldn't. Maybe I wasn't alive then.
But I pulled in air - real air! - through my nose, and felt my lungs inflate with a burning sensation. My chest ached and my breath caught. I choked on air coming up and then on water following it. My middle tightened and I coughed so hard I thought this new throat would split.
My head finally moved and pain - literal, physical pain - spliced my in half from the crown of my head to the arches of my feet. I screamed. The sound was loud in my head, echoing inside and out. I had never felt pain before, and it was so agonizing, so real and deadly and there, that it almost knocked me unconscious.
No, maybe I had felt pain before. Maybe. A long, long time before.
The pain zinged down my spine again and I shrieked as a flash of something lit my mind.
Woods.
Was I in the woods now?
I realized I'd closed my eyes and opened them again, straight up into blue.
The sky.
And that was when my ears started to turn on. I'd heard this body scream. But now I could hear things outside myself. Voices maybe. A rushing. Birds chirping.
"Can you hear me?"
I turned toward the voice and gasped at more pain. "Yes," I said. "But I can't move." My voice was lower than I remembered. Definitely feminine, but throaty and hoarse. Maybe it was just the pain coming through.
A face blocked out the blue above me. I couldn't focus on it for a moment. Then it cleared and sharpened. Two dark eyes set in the midst of shaggy dark hair. I thought for a minute it might be a bear, but he was human. His beard and hair had gone rogue.
"Stephanie," he said.
And I knew that was most certainly not my name.

"I really think we should take her back to a hospital," the bear guy said. He still hadn't told me his name.
I pulled my blanket tighter around my shoulders. I felt too broad, too wide. This body wasn't fat, by any stretch of the imagination. But I was heavy, full of compacted muscle. I think I might have been strong, but I hadn't tested it out yet. It was just too weird.
The fire in front of us crackled conversationally and I leaned closer to it, loving how I could feel the heat on my skin, taste it in my mouth.
"She's fine!" This came from the other guy in the group. He was sitting the closest to me, almost touching. He was shorter than the wild bear man with black hair cut close to his head and no beard. He looked military tough, while bear looked wild-man tough. I wouldn't have wanted to get in a fight with either of them.
"She doesn't remember a thing," Wild-man said. "No offense, Stephanie."
I leaned even closer to the fire, then remember that was supposed to be my name, and looked over at him. "Uh, it's fine," I said.
Liz, the fourth member of this group shook her head, the beads on her pale cornrows braids rattling together. She hadn't told me her name either, assuming I'd miraculously remember it at some point, but military-guy and called to her, so I'd picked it up. "If she's still all out of it tomorrow morning," Liz said, "we'll head back. But it'd be a waste to throw out the whole trip just because she took a fall off the raft."
Wild-man sighed. "Kay. It's cool." He stood up. "I just don't want her to end up like that girl in the news a couple years ago. Remember her? Same sort of thing. Out doing the rapids with her friends, and next thing anyone knows, she washing up down river."
My mind flashed an image at me again. Woods. Water.
"What was her name?" I asked.
They all turned to look at me like they'd forgotten I was there.
"The girl who drowned a couple years ago. Do you remember her name?"
Liz shook her head. "It was all over the papers, but just for a few days. I only looked at it because we'd been planning to take the same route, but the story made us switch at the last minute. Didn't you read it too?"
"I think it started with an M," Military-man said. "Her name. Like Melissa, or Maveny or something."
"Merissa?" I asked. "Was it Merissa? I need to know!"
"Yeah," said Wild-man. "Yeah, I think it was. But that's not the point. The point is I don't want you, Stephanie, ending up like that girl, whatever her name was!"
"Yeah," said Liz. "But that girl was dead when they found her. Stephanie isn't. So chill."
Wild-man held up his hand. "Fine. I'm going to get more firewood to keep this burning tonight." He tromped off through the underbrush.
Military-man leaned closer to the fire and he and Liz exchanged a look.
"You really don't remember anything, Steph?" Military-man asked. He reached for my hand like he was going to hold it, but I buried my hand in the blanket before he could. I'd held hands with someone before. I was pretty sure. But not with him.
He settled his hand on my leg. "You're not just joking with us?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I honestly don't remember. Not any of this anyway. But I do remember something."
"Yeah?" Liz leaned her elbows on her knees.
I didn't know how they were going to take this, but it had to be said, if we were ever going to figure out what was going on. "I remember something from someone else's life."
Liz took in her breath and leaned away from me.
Military-man didn't move. "What?" he said.
"I don't think this is my life," I said. "I don't think this is even my body."
Liz swore and crossed herself.
Military-man still didn't move. "What exactly are you saying?" he asked.
"This might be Stephanie's body," I said, "But I'm not Stephanie. I'm Merissa."

"What the heck is going on?" Liz asked.
Wild-man tried to put his hands on her shoulders but she knocked his hands aside.
Military-man had taken his hand off my thigh, but didn't move away from me.
"Either Stephanie's lost her sanity," Liz said, "or she's been possessed by a dead girl. Either way, she needs to leave. Now!"
"I told you we should have taken her to the hospital," Wild-man said.
Military-man opened his mouth, and closed it again. Finally he said, "So, if you're Merissa, where is Stephanie?"
That was a question actually worth pondering. "I don't know," I said.

I liked the look of the stars. I remembered learning that most of them were already dead by the time we saw them. The light travelled so far that the stars had lived out their entire lives before the light got to our little planet. I didn't remember where I learned it. But it was in my brain. And I wondered if the dead stars knew how I'd felt, being dead too.
Was I still dead?
I guessed the stars lived forever then. Because if the universe was infinite, the light would keep going and going and going, and people on planets further and further away would get to look at the stars that didn't exist anymore. At least, the stars didn't exist where they had been born. Their existence traveled with the light. If you can see something, isn't it still alive? What is life anyway?
Maybe that was what was happening to me. My existence was traveling along. I didn't exist where I had been born anymore. But I existed here, in this time and place.
Well, sort of.
All this wondering was making my brain hurt, so I rolled onto my side and stared at the trees. But when you've been dead for so long - two years or two life times depending on who's perspective you choose - it's hard not to think about the fact that you're alive now.
I pressed my fingertips into the ground beside my face hard enough to feel the blood pulse in them. It felt good. It felt like breathing. Like blinking. It was the feeling of being alive. And I'd missed it.

I woke later to the sound of voices. It was a gradual waking, like the voices had been talking for a while and had dragged me out from under a whole pile of sleep.
"That's the thing." I think it was wild-man. "I don't think she fell."
"What?" Military-man's voice was sharp. "You think one of us pushed her? You think I pushed her?"
"Shhh! No. That's not what I'm saying."
"Then man up and say it!"
"I'm saying..." Wild-man seemed to deliberate, and I heard the fire crackle like he was poking it to irritate it. "Look, I don't know what happened. I just know what I saw. And it looked to me like she jumped."
"What? That'd be crazy. She knew we were hitting the hot spot on the rapids. She's not an idiot."
"No," said wild-man. "She's not an idiot. Not at all."
Military-man took in his breath like he needed strength not to punch wild-man. A fist-fight between them would have been something. "What are you saying, man?"
"I'm saying she might have done it on purpose. She might have jumped knowing this was the spot that other girl fell out. She might have wanted to..."
"To what?" I could picture Military-man getting up in wild-man's face, all ready for a take-down.
"Did she have a reason to want to die?" Wild-man said it so quietly I could barely make out the words.
But I heard the resounding crack of a reply. And the thud as wild-man went down.
The question echoed in my head as they scuffled in the leaves and dirt behind me. I held still.
Did Stephanie have a reason to want to die?
Did she?
If she did, why wasn't her body dead? And where the heck was she?

I got up early the next morning, right before the sun. I didn't go far, just to the edge of the river. There was a bit of a drop-off into the water under me, but the water was clear and calm, going slow and steady. Peaceful.
Nothing that would kill a person.
I dangled my feet over the edge and thought about being alive, and then dead.
"Stephanie?" I called. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"
I waited, but there wasn't any response. I hadn't expected anything. Didn't people need like a seance or something to talk to dead people? Where were all the dead people? I hadn't disappeared, obviously, and I'd been dead two years. So where had I been?
I tried to remember, but it was like trying to remember being born. It was a different state of existence. My living brain couldn't remember things it hadn't been around for. I rubbed my temples.
This was what I wanted, right? To be alive? And if Stephanie didn't want this body, I sure did. I might not remember much from being dead, or from being alive before, but I sure as heck knew I hadn't meant to die.
"Stephanie," I said to the blue - the sky and the water. "If you don't want this life back, I'm going to keep it." I didn't ask permission. I didn't mention the possibility of her wanting it back.
Because it didn't matter either way. It was mine now.
And I was holding on.

(photo courtesy of Scott Cresswell)

Pink

Young Adult
PG
3,053 words
This is a sequal to Sonic, which I wrote last month. 

"I want to dye my hair pink." I'm the one who says it. It's my idea.
Sonya looks up from twirling a paper cone in the sugar fluff that unspools from the Nostalgia Electrics cotton candy maker I got for my birthday two years ago. "You what?" she asks.
"Pink," I say. "Not all my hair. That would be tacky and way too bubble gum. But streaks."
Sonya is looking at me, not the machine, so I run my finger through the bowl of sugar wisps and lick it off.
"Hey!" Sonya slaps my hand away. "You got the last two."
"Pink like cotton candy," I say.
"You'd have to bleach it," she says. The machine's hum drops in pitch as the sugar runs out, and Sonya switches it off. "And anyway you're too emo for pink."
"Nothing permanent," I say. "Hair chalk. Wash out, you know? Stop looking at me like that!"
Sonya turns the skepticism on her cotton candy and peels a layer of soft sugar off the paper cone. Poking it into her mouth, she looks at the clock. "School starts in half an hour. We'll have to speed."
The store we pass on the way to school only has a rainbow box of hair chalk. But there are three shades of pink. When we get to school, I jump out of the car before Sonya has it in park and run to the bathroom.
"You're going to be late for first period," she says when she finds me in the girl's bathroom five minutes later.
She leans against a sink while I draw on my hair with the bright pink, then the soft pink. I draw a defiant streak down my bangs with the neon pink, and feel a thrill down my spine.
Sonya's mouth makes an "oo."
The girl in the mirror isn't me anymore. Not Emily. She's a parallel version. All the soft edges sharpened. The focus enhanced. The saturation turned up. The girl in the mirror is bold and bright. Daring even. When she smiles, it isn't even my smile. It's more a smirk. Almost tantalizing and mischievous.
I want to be that girl in the mirror. The kind of girl who wear pink in her hair.

"Emily!" Smith stands up from his desk so fast he almost knocks his chair over. "What happened to your hair?" Smith is staring at me like I've gone bald.
"Uh, pink?" I say. No one else filing into the classroom is giving me a weird look. Still, I reach up to make sure my hair is indeed still there.
"I can see the color," he says. "I meant, why is it pink?"
I shrug. It isn't all pink. Just streaks. "For fun." Why is he talking to me?
Sonya pokes me in the side. "I think he meant, why isn't it still all gothic black?"
I roll my eyes. "I'm not goth!"
"Uh-huh." She folds her arms. "And that notebook isn't full of depressing poetry either, is it?" She smirks.
"It's not! This is my algebra homework. Which I am failing, by the way." I flip it open so she can see, but Sonya lets out a squeal and bounds to the door. Literally bounds. Like a rabbit.
"Francisco!"
I don't watch the embrace. I've seen it plenty of times. Instead I shut my algebra notebook and slid into my desk. I'm rummaging around in my backpack for my other notebook when Smith slides into the desk next to mine. We don't technically have assigned seats, but since school is a good three weeks in, everyone has claimed their territory already. I don't actually know the name of the girl who usually sits there, but for all intents and purposes, it's her desk.
"So," Smith says. "How's your week been?"
"Good." Trying to act like this conversation is a normal occurrence, I go back to rummaging around for the notebook. I must have left it in my locker. Drat.
"The pink looks nice," he says.
"Thanks." I flick a look at him to find a compliment to give back. He looks the same as ever. Long. Tall. His hands are lifting the lid of the desk up and down, testing it. It squeaks. I don't even know why we have these elementary-school desks since no one puts anything in them except lame notes and chewed gum. I am about to tell Smith he has nice hands, because he does and I never noticed before, but I realize that sounds weird and catch myself. Then it's been too long to say anything, so I zip up my backpack, use my foot to scoot it under my chair, and face forward.
Our AP Chemistry teacher is always late, so I'm not surprised he isn't here yet.
"You're coming to the drive in movie tonight, right?" Smith asks.
"Of course. Double feature right?" I am actually excited for these movies. Plus, Sonya will be there. Everything is fun as long as Sonya comes along.
"Right." He's taken out a rubber band and begun looping it around the desk hinge.
Sonya slides into the desk next to me, and, of course, Francisco into the seat next to her.
Our teacher bustles into the room with an overflowing folder of papers. "Good morning, class!" he says.
It's the last class of the day.
He sets his papers on desk at the front of the room and turns to draw on the whiteboard.
"What are you doing?" I whisper to Smith.
He loops the rubber band through itself and pulls it tight. Then he lifts the desk lid up and down. It doesn't squeak.
"Oh," I say. I lift my own desk lid and peer at the hinge. Mine doesn't squeak.
Smith takes out his Chemistry notebook and flips it open. There are drawings, so naturally I have to peek. They are diagrams, spilling over each other, flooding the page. Little numbers and calculations are written up and down the sides. None of it is tidy. I realize I've been looking too long and snap my eyes away.
"Building an enclosed balcony off my room," he whispers to me.
"Oh," I say, and nod like I understand all those sketches.
Smith grabs a pencil, flips to a new page, and starts another sketch. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with Chemistry. When he sinks a little in his chair and stretches his legs, our desks are close enough that our knees touch. And, unlike at Sonic over the summer, he doesn't pull away.
The weird thing is, neither do I.

I've never been to a drive-in movie before. The parking lot entertains me.
Sonya is driving, since she's a senior and actually has a license and a car. Francisco is riding shot-gun. Which leaves me to bounce in the backseat. And bounce I do.
The parking lot is a series of hills. Every other row of parking spaces is tipped one way and the other, letting cars and the people in them look up at the giant screen. It's like a whole parking lot full of giant speed bumps, and Sonya doesn't take them slow.
I am laughing by the time I get out.
I added a few streaks of purple to my pink and black hair in between school and now, and am feeling obvious. The opposite of vulnerable. Like my hair is a super power. I feel invincible and dangerous. The kind of girl who parties with her friends all Friday night, turns up the music, and dances on the hood of the car. Which is exactly what I am doing when Smith pulls into the space next to us.
I grin, because tonight, I am not Emily. Tonight, I have pink and purple hair. Tonight, I am noticed.
Smith stares at me, and it's the same stare he gave me when I walked into class earlier. And I realize, it's not a what-a-weirdo stare. It's a holly-cow-how-did-I-not-notice-this-girl-before stare. And it just makes me smile more.
I pull Sonya up onto the hood of the car with me as a new song comes on, and I feel something give inside me. The song is fast, and I love the way it pumps my blood for me. I have never danced like this before. It's movement and ease and pace and adrenaline and laughter. When the song ends, Sonya and I collapse panting and laughing against her windshield. I am shiny with sweat, but if Smith's expression is anything to go by, I know it looks good on me.
"Water!" I say, spotting a cooler in the back of Smith's car. He hasn't unloaded it yet, but he does when he sees where I'm pointing.
When he hands me a paper cup full to the brim and it sloshes onto my shirt, I laugh, take a gulp and fling what's left at him.
He jumps back and grins, still dry.
Sonya laughs too, surprised, I think. She gives me a quirked-smile look, and I know she's wondering exactly what I am wondering. Then she slides off the car and goes to Francisco.
"Where are you sitting for the movie?" Smith asks.
I shrug and give him a playful smile. I didn't even know I knew how to give a smile like that. Then I stretch my arms luxuriously and settle against the hard windshield. It's really not comfortable. But I feel powerful, draped across it like that. "Where would you like me to sit?" I ask.
He shrugs too. "I brought a bunch of blankets and stuff if you want to sit in front of the cars."
"Sure," I say, like it's no big deal.
I help him spread all the blankets out, one on top of another, until the blacktop isn't too hard underneath. Sonya jumps of me from behind.
"What's this?" she asks, in that too loud way of hers."
"Blankets," I say.
"You're just full of the obvious today, aren't you?" She surveys the scene. Smith pulls an arm-full of pillows out of his trunk, and Sonya raises her eyebrows at me. She whispers, "Do you-"
"Join us!" I say, cutting her off. "There's room for four. And you've got to admit this is better than the back of your car."
She considers, and then her eyes light up, mischievous. "Yes!" she says. "Yes, it is."
When Francisco returns a few minutes later laden with cheese-drenched nachos, I am happily cross-legged in the middle of the blankets, clutching a pillow and watching the previews. Sonya shuts off the music and tunes her radio to the station playing the soundtrack for the movie.
"Francisco!" she squeals. Every time, she always has to squeal his name. Sometimes it makes me laugh. "Come here!" She dances over to the blankets beside me and plops down, patting the space on her left.
"This is nice," he says, sitting down and stretching out his legs, careful not to spill to nacho cheese.
And then Smith is there. He its down right next to me. Like, whole-arm-touching right next to me. He tosses his pillow behind him and stretches his long self out.
"How tall are you?" I ask.
"Six three," he says. Then he looks me up and down. "You're tall," he says.
"Yeah, average height for a guy," I say. "True story."
"Tall is good," he says, like it's a fact he's reciting.
I'm not planning on sitting there looking up at the screen and getting a crick in my neck, so I copy him, grabbing up the extra blanket beside me and pulling it up to my chin.
Sonya flops down next to me. "Francisco doesn't have enough room," she announces. "We'll have to squish." Again I see that mischievous glint in her eye and I almost roll mine.
But before I get the chance, Smith has his arm around my waist and has slid me right into him.
"Better?" he asks Sonya.
"Yeah, that's perfect!" she gushes.
I almost want to kick her. Especially when she slides closer and almost elbows me in the face. Almost. But not quite.
Because Smith stretches his arms over his head, and I shift, and somehow his arm is under my shoulders, and my head is against the dip between his shoulder and his chest. And I don't mind. Actually, I more than don't mind. I don't want to move.
The previews end, and the movie starts, and I don't even watch most of it, even though my eyes are glued to the screen. I can feel Smith breathing. I've never been this comfortable in my life. I want to close my eyes and fall asleep and maybe never wake up. Or at least never have to get up.
He adjusts his arm beneath me pulling me closer, and I curl into him.
And the movie goes on and on.
Only, two hours later, it's suddenly over.
There's a thirty minute break between movies, and I know I have to get up. And it suddenly hits me how strange this whole thing is. This is Smith. Once again, I am squished between Sonya and Smith, only this time, I am guilty and Sonya is encouraging it. How did my life become this?
I feel myself push up onto my arm. My little blanket falls off my shoulder and the cold comes in. I realize how warm he was. How fast the end of summer gets cold.
Sonya grins at me. "I need to use the bathroom," she announces. "Like, right now!" She grabs my hand, flashes a smile at Smith, and hauls me across the mini-hills of the parking lot.
She is grinning like a psycho. "What happened?" she squeals. "Tell me everything! And we've still got a whole other movie to watch!"
"Uh..."
"You were cuddling!" she says. "Oh my goodness, you two would make an adorable couple!"
I can't seem to breathe right. "I guess he likes pink hair," I say. "Too bad we didn't figure that out earlier."
She waves this away. "Whatever. I'd never trade Francisco for anyone else. Not even Smith."
"Who does everyone call him by his last name?" I ask. "I don't even know what his first name is."
Sonya considers this for a moment. "Yeah, neither do I." She shrugs. "So, how much do you like him? Like, if he tried to kiss you tonight, would you let him?"
"Sonya!" I smack her arm. "I've hardly even met the guy. I mean, yeah, I hung out with him and his friends a few times over the summer, but we've never even really talked."
"So talk to him and then kiss him," she suggests.
I roll my eyes. "The next movie is going to be starting soon I do actually have to use the bathroom."
"Oooo. Don't want to be late for the next movie. Smith is saving your spot for you. Keeping it nice and warm."
I walk into the bathroom with a reply.
When I get back to the blankets, Smith is indeed saving my spot for me. Not that anyone would take it after witnessing the last movie. We are front and center of our group, like everyone came to watch us cuddle instead of the movie.
I walk past Smith's friend Mike sitting in a camping chair right behind the blankets. He winks at me, and that is when I freeze up inside. I keep walking, but the power and invincibility of earlier is sucked away.
What am I doing? I am not this kind of girl.
What does Smith think of me? We haven't been on a single date. We haven't even had a proper conversation!
I sink down onto the blankets and stare at the screen, not meeting Smith's eyes.
Sonya sit down next to meet and scoots up close. "Do you know where Francisco is?" she asks.
I shrug.
As the second set of previews starts, I don't move, curled into myself, legs crossed, neck starting to ache from looking up.
"Do you have enough room?" Smith asks. He sounds confused.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm fine, thanks." I want to lean back. I want to get the cramp out of my neck. I want to curl up under my blanket because I am starting to freeze.
And yes, I want to lean into Smith again.
But I can't seem to move.
"I can't see," someone behind me complains. "If you're going to be up front, you can't sit up like that."
So I grab my blanket, spread it over me, and lay down, arms crossed over my chest, making myself as small as possible.
I don't know what to do.
Sonya elbows me lightly in the side, but I don't look at her. She elbows me harder.
So I shift an inch away from her and she claims the space.
I breath in and out.
I want to turn toward Smith. But I can't. I can't do it. Everyone behind us is watching. And maybe I like him, but I don't even know him. I want to get to know him. I want him to ask me out. I want him to like me. I like that he noticed me. And I can't seem to do a thing except lay there like a mummy.
Smith shifts closer to that his arm is against mine. And I don't move.
Just shift, I tell myself. You can do it. But I am paralyzed. All the courageous flirting form earlier is gone. I am Emily again. And Emily is terrified. Emily has never had a boyfriend. Never cuddled with anyone. Never had pink hair.
"Are you comfortable?" Smith whispers. "You can scoot closer if you want."
"I'm good," I say.
The movie has started, I realize. I don't know what's going on. I try to force myself to slid closer to Smith. Sonya is practically shoving me with her elbow. But I don't.
And a few minutes later, his arm is gone from against mine.
I feel cold. So, so cold.
How did I end up here?
When I get home, I decide, I'm washing to pink out of my hair.

The Agency

1,991 words - teen fiction

She was sitting on my front lawn when I got home, leaned back on her arms, face tipped up toward the sun.
"Hello?" I said. I pushed my sweaty hair out of my eyes and hitched my back pack higher, feeling how damp the shirt underneath was with sweat. "Can I help you?" I'd never seen her before, so I figured she was waiting around for one of my roommates. Jack especially always had girls hanging around.
She let her chin fall and gave a slow blink. When her eyes took me in, a huge grin split her lips. "Derek!" She jumped to her feet, messenger bag hitting her thigh, and held out her hand. "I'm Emilia, your girlfriend."
I had already taken her hand by the time the words hit my brain, and the handshake slowed, then stopped all together.
"Wait." I pulled my hand back. "Who's girlfriend did you say you were?"
She beamed. "Yours, of course."
"Uh." I looked around the yard, expecting to see Jack or Scott hiding in the bushes, laughing. "I don't-"
She held up her hand. "Wait. I know you're thinking this is weird because we've never met before, but I didn't have time to come up with anything else. I was going to wait around and pretend to bump into you or ask for directions or something, but what if you were in a hurry and didn't notice me properly? And besides, I wanted to start off the relationship with the truth. Lies never make a good foundation, right?"
She didn't want to lie, so she was pretending she was girlfriend?
"Look," I said. "I'm sorry. I'm not following this. Did one of my roommates put you up to this?" They could have hidden a camera in the bushes, or on her even.
She laughed, high and delighted. "No, of course not!"
"Uh-huh." I didn't believe her. I looked at my front door and back at this girl. "Well, like you said, I actually am in a bit of a hurry. Got a lot to do today. It was nice meeting you, Emily."
"Emilia." She didn't move. She didn't even stop smiling, like she was waiting for my amnesia to pass and for me to remember that I had a blonde girlfriend. It wasn't that she was bad looking or anything. Her smile especially was something from a commercial or billboard. Under normal circumstances, I would have been flattered by the attention. This was not normal.
"I know you must be confused right now," she said. She rummaged through the messenger bag and pulled out a bent-up pamphlet. "Here. This will explain some of it. I know it's weird, and I'm sorry. But I thought this would be the best way, just upfront and honest."
I eyed the pamphlet, then sighed and took it from her outstretched hand.
The Agency
Everyone Has a Match Somewhere
"The Agency?" I asked.
She nodded eagerly. "You needed a girlfriend, so they sent me."
I unfolded the pamphlet, but there were lots of blocks of text, next to pictures of happy couples, and my brain was feeling as tired as the rest of me. I looked at my front door again.
"Do you want to come inside?" I asked, and anticipated the smile that came. It wasn't because I wanted her to come inside. But it was hot, oppressively so, and I was starving. This Emily girl clearly wasn't going anywhere, and I had to get cooled off and fed before my brain did any more processing.
The air conditioner was instant relief. Over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she talked. I didn't say anything because there is only so much crazy a man can take in one conversation. I sort of listened and mostly thought of how to get rid of her.
"How did you think everyone found true love?" she asked, licking a spot of jam off her finger.
I swigged my water bottle in response.
"The Agency takes care of it. All of it. Well, we try to at least. Sometimes people get married to the wrong person. The Agency tries to prevent that from happening as much as possible, since they know the couple has less than a thirty percent chance of sticking together. But people are so stubborn. And, of course, we're all sworn to secrecy. So it's not like we can walk up to the couple and tell them they're leaving their real true loves all alone. Plenty of failed marriages were just because the wrong people married each other."
"Okay, okay, okay," I said, pulling out another set of bread slices. "So, what? You're saying this is like some hidden distopian agency that matches up couples? How do they know who everyone is supposed to be with? And if they're so secret, how to they get the couples to pair up?" Her story wasn't adding up, and I was willing to call her on it if it meant she'd leave sooner.
"Oh, lots of ways," she said, not at all put off by my questions. "The Agency has connections around the globe, so they can make just about anything happen. Offer someone a job in a new state where their match lives. Send someone a free coupon to a new store where their true love works. Host a party targeted to a specific couple. Rig a drawing so that two people meant to be together both win the all-expense-paid cruise to the Bahamas. It can be as simple as shorting someone's electricity so they have to contact the electric company while their significant other is on call. But it's all about timing. If people meet too soon, they might get together, but they are ready to commit or they haven't worked out their flaws, so the relationship falls apart. If the Agency waits too long, one of them might have chosen to settle down with someone else, which can be disastrous. With you-" She pointed the jelly knife at me. "The paperwork got mixed up. Almost never happens. We were supposed to meet five months ago." She stuck the knife in the mouth and licked off all the jelly.
"Right," I said. "Yeah, I thought something should have happened five months ago."
She gave me a head-tilt consideration, catching the sarcasm easier than I thought she would.
"Only people who work for the Agency know about it," she said. "So I can see how this would be difficult to accept. But, hey, even us employees have a match somewhere out there. I always wondered who my soul mate would be." She smiled a little and didn't drop her eyes like a normal person after a statement like that.
I leaned back in my chair, sufficiently creeped out. If my roommates were recording this somehow, I was sure they would be laughing right about now.
"Look," I said. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not interested in having a relationship right now." With you, I added in my head. "I'm just focusing on school and work."
She laughed, like I'd told a clever joke. "And that's why you've asked out a different girl every weekend for the past seven months?"
"Okay," I said. "This is getting old. My roommates have to have set you up for you to know that. Did they offer to pay you? Because I can compensate you instead. I just really don't have time for this."
"Do your roommates know you like dogs and wish you could get one?"
"I don't know. I probably mentioned it to Jack at some point."
"Do they know you donated a couple hundred dollars to the local humane society to make sure a couple dogs there didn't get euthanized? Do they know that you volunteered every summer at the local pet store growing up, so you could play with the puppies there? And that your mom never let you have a dog? Do they know you've checked out almost every book on dog breeds from the library? Do they know that you've read Where the Red Fern Grows at least a dozen times on your kindle app?" She cocked her head. "I've been wondering. Do you cry every time you read it?"
"Okay," I said, standing up. "That is called stalking." I felt like I was standing naked in front of her. "Geeze! Did you hire a PI or something? This could not get any creepier."
"I'm sorry!" She stood too, and for the first time, her blunt vibrance was held back. She bit her lip. "I'm sorry. That was stupid. I didn't mean to sound creepy."
"Well, good job. Next time you stalk someone, I recommend waiting until the second date to bring it up."
She dropped her gaze. "I'm telling the truth." Her voice was quiet. "The Agency has stuff like this on everyone. Even me. There aren't hidden cameras or anything, but all the online stuff, electronic stuff, anything there's a record of, background checks, phone usage info, stuff like that, they can access it all. I wasn't supposed to get your file, since I'm your match, but, like I said, the paperwork got mixed up. I had to learn everything about you and run all the info through the system to pair you up. But then the paperwork came through and you'd already been matched five months ago. With me." She glanced at me then back at the floor. "I'm sorry."
I took a deep breath. It was hard to stay creeped out with her looking like that. And, I had to admit, there was no way my roommates hired her. They didn't have the cash for a private investigator. And this was going way beyond a prank. If this was all an act, she was a great actress. If it wasn't, she was completely insane. Those were the only two options. No way was she telling the truth.
"If you want me to leave, I will," she said. "But you'd be giving up both of our best chances at happiness."
Ominous? Just a little.
She looked up at me and met my gaze. "Do you have a date this weekend?" she asked.
I let out a snort of laughter. "Why don't you tell me, miss stalker?"
She frowned and dropped her gaze again. "Can we just go on one date?" she asked. "Just one. And if you still are creeped out and think I'm lying, then I'll leave. I promise. If you still want me gone after one date, I'll go. And I promise I'll never come back."
"No," I said, before I could think about it too much. Because going on a date with a creepy girl was never a good idea. Because what if she lured me out into the woods and murdered me? What if she was escaped from a mental hospital? What if she was a hired assassin sent to take out everyone who liked dogs?
What if she was telling the truth?
"No," I said again, louder. "I'm not going on a date with you. You need to leave. Now."
Her breath hitched, like she was about to cry, and she swallowed hard. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I am so so sorry. I didn't mean to ruin everything like this. I just wanted to tell you the truth. I wanted you to be happy." She clutched at the strap of her messenger bag. "Derek?"
I frowned at her.
"I hope you find someone who can make you happy." She gave a tiny laugh, more like a sob almost. "Without creeping you out first." She walked to the door, opened it, and looked back at me, giving me a sad smile.
And in that smile, I could see, plain as the heat barged through the open door, that she believed she was telling me the truth.
"Good bye, Derek," she said. And walked out the door.
 "Wait."

photo by Josef Seibel