High School Lover

by Rose Croft

  And, yeah, I cyberstalked him. I followed his Facebook page, but it was only a public page that promoted his work, where fans gathered and praised his movies. It was the same on Twitter and Instagram. He probably had a publicist or someone else handling his social media accounts anyway.

  I even considered posting a message on one of his social media accounts, but what would I say? Hey, remember me? Loren from back in the day. Do you think about me? I think about you. Remember you told me you loved me? Oh, btw, love your films. Yeah, that would go over really well, Loren, you delusional stalker.

  I shook my head and ran my hand over my face as the stark reality pounded me on my chest. Mike was dead. Fucking Mike was dead. And, I hadn’t seen him in years. And, I still missed Andrew. Too much. Much too much.

  Eight Years Ago

  “This is fucking bullshit.” Andrew’s impish green eyes narrowed as Mike and I pushed our desks up to his. The color today would be forest green. Yes, I could admit that, day after day, I’d noticed Andrew’s unusual eyes and kept a mental note of the different shades of green. I’d never seen eyes like his. They changed colors depending on his mood; sometimes they were pale green, indicating he was happy. Maybe. I never knew for sure because his smile usually resembled more of a smirk.

  Sometimes Andrew’s eyes were sea-glass green, beautifully vacant, as if he were bored, unimpressed with the students around him who had what he would consider trivial conversations about their plans for the weekend or the latest gossip. Like he was destined for something more in this life than what we mere mortals were interested in.

  Other times they were shamrock green when he was talking about something passionate like a novel we’d read. I thought back to the past semester when we’d had to read The Scarlet Letter and he went on a rant about how our society was not much different from back then.

  “Women are still shamed for having sexual desires. It’s ridiculous. We praise guys for sleeping with girls, but we look down on girls who sleep with guys.” There were a few snickers heard around us as I sat next to him, wondering what planet he came from. No guy I went to high school with was ever this cerebral or cared about social issues like that. I had to admit I was kind of intrigued.

  Until he pulled me into this conversation. “Wouldn’t you agree, Loren? Don’t you think it’s unfair how girls have to suppress their sexual curiosity for the sake of upholding some stupid fantasy about being pure?”

  As he anchored his attention on me, my face burned almost to the point of chapped. To say I was embarrassed was an understatement. I was never one to jump up and voice my opinion. I was always the unassuming spectator on the sidelines. As I nervously glanced around, I noticed all eyes were on me. Think, Loren, think! Finally, I found my voice, which was unsteady. “I, uh, think that…I don’t know.” I saw Andrew’s eyes roll in dissatisfaction and somehow I trudged on, for some reason not wanting to disappoint him. “I don’t think it’s fair that the rules should be different for guys.” I flashed a glance at Andrew, and his facial features seemed to relax as though my answer appeased him.

  “C’mon, how hard can it be to rewrite the ending to Macbeth?” Mike asked in his uber-positive voice, pulling me back into the present. “Does anyone have any ideas, because I don’t even freaking understand this story.”

  “We could write an opening scene where someone kills the witches before they can tell Macbeth what’s going to happen, and then there wouldn’t be a story. Summary—someone killed three stupid old witches before they could tell Macbeth about the future, and Duncan remained king. The end.” While Andrew spoke and sketched, I leaned in closer to see his drawing, because his artwork was intriguing. Very morose, like the current picture he was working on—a man who seemed to be melting under the hot sun as his skin fell off, exposing bones that gleamed in the sunlight. Most people would probably find his work repulsive; I found it weird, too, but it was amazing nonetheless.

  Mike and I laughed, and I made what I thought was a witty retort. “The moral to this story is snitches are witches dead in ditches.”

  “Ah, someone’s got jokes.” Andrew dropped his pencil on his notebook and sat back in his seat.

  I eyed him apprehensively.

  He smiled without sarcasm, I think. “No, I’m serious. Good one, Scout.”

  “Scout?” I scrunched my forehead, puzzled. “As in the character in To Kill a Mockingbird?”

  “Yeah. Remember, you always had short hair in elementary school?”

  I put my hand over my face. “Oh, God, my mom always kept my hair short so she didn’t have to fix it. It was such a bad look on me.”

  “You loved playing soccer and were pretty good—a hell of a lot better than me.” I thought back to the first time I saw him in elementary school. We’d played soccer together on the playground, and I took the ball away from him and scored a goal. Later, as we were lining up, he’d told me I looked like a boy with my short hair. I think I called him stupid and stomped off. Good times.

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  Mike gripped the edge of his desk leaning in. “Speaking of soccer, do you remember when I played soccer with your brother Doug about six years ago?” This was usually Mike’s intro into telling a convoluted story. Mike was sixteen, a year younger than Andrew and I, but we were all juniors in high school because Mike started school a year early. Doug was the same age as Mike but a sophomore. Yeah, my parents didn’t hold back when they decided to have kids. Mike and my brother used to hang out all the time when they were younger. They were still friends, but somehow Mike and I grew closer as friends as we had more classes together and shared a love of basketball. Doug’s main interest was golf, and that’s all he was focused on. I swear that’s all my brother did—live, breathe, eat, and shit golf. He basically played in tournaments year-round and hoped to be recruited by Stanford on a golf scholarship someday and eventually join the PGA Tour.

  “Oh, yeah. I remember.” I nodded although I never went to their soccer games. As a kid, I loved to play but never had any interest in watching someone else play. Regardless, I prepared myself, knowing that it would be hella entertaining because Mike never lacked for a funny story. Mike was the lovable jester who kept everyone amused in class.

  “I think that’s the last time I played,” Mike said matter-of-factly and dove into his story about his stupid youth soccer team. “Anyway, I think we were both ten or eleven and were warming up before the game. It was early November and fucking freezing. I didn’t realize it was going to be cold that morning so I didn’t wear sweats. As the cold wind hit me, I felt my balls shrivel up and almost fall off like dead leaves.

  “Then Doug walked over as I was cupping my goods, trying to warm them up. I thought I was being inconspicuous. Apparently not, because he said, ‘What are you looking for? The world’s smallest dick? Or do you need to take a piss?’” God, this was already the most ridiculous story ever, but I was all ears. The bar for what I thought was funny was set pretty low.

  Mike rolled on. “I laughed at him because we joked like that and said, ‘Yeah, why don’t you help me find it, asshole?’ We’d just recently discovered a newfound love of bad words and our penises.” You would’ve thought we were sitting next to a campfire the way he told the story. What made it even more entertaining was how he spoke in a dorky cadence, and his voice cracked occasionally as if he were a preteen hitting puberty.

  “Your brother and I were passing the ball back and forth, and then he thought it would be funny to fire it off and hit me in the crotch. I fell back because it hurt like shit and I thought I’d need to go to the hospital. It took me several minutes before I could sit up. Your brother was an asshole like that, Loren. I got him back later when I filled a Gatorade cup full of ice and dumped it down the front of his shorts. He was jumping around on the sideline. We wore shorts that had built-in underwear, so he had double layers and was trying to get the ice out as he screamed like a bitch. I thought he was going to drop his shorts, but he kept pulling the
elastic of his two-ply underwear and it looked like he was playing with himself as he tried to get the ice off his dick.” By this time I was cackling like a hyena on crack. And I didn’t hear Andrew laughing, so I wondered if he thought I was a nut for going crazy over stuff he probably thought wasn’t that funny.

  “Wow. I know Shakespeare was revered for his dark comedies, but I didn’t know they were that hilarious,” Mrs. Wright, our teacher, said behind me. “Have you come up with any ideas on the project, Miss Douglas?” She liked to address us in a formal manner. Why? Who the hell knew?

  “Um, sure.” I eyed Andrew and Mike, looking for a lifeline here.

  “Yeah, we’re still kicking the can around,” Mike added, which wasn’t very helpful.

  “Tell me some of your ideas.”

  Crap. I panicked because I was flatlining on ideas, and Mike didn’t know what the story was about. So there was no way he would say anything unless it was a story about Macbeth trying to kick him in the balls on the soccer field.

  “What if Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene were a lie?” Andrew’s voice cut through the silence, and I glanced at him, wondering where he was going with his train of thought.

  “What do you mean, Mr. McKeon? Are you saying you want to rewrite the scene where she gives one of the most quoted phrases ever—‘Out, damned spot’?” Andrew had been sitting relaxed, leaned back in his seat with arms crossed over his chest, but at Mrs. Wright’s question, he sat up straighter.

  “No, that’s not it at all.” He ran his fingers through his already tousled inky black hair. “I would still keep the sleepwalking scene, but what if it were all premeditated? What if Lady Macbeth were a sociopath and didn’t kill herself?” I tilted my head, watching him in wonder. Lady Macbeth a sociopath? Who even thought of things like that in a high school English class? However, I shouldn’t have been surprised because he’d also quoted Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre when proving a point in the past.

  “Sociopath, interesting.” Mrs. Wright was definitely interested in his idea, because her voice always rose when she was excited to hear a thoughtful opinion. “Go on.”

  “What if in the end, she knows Macbeth’s reign is coming to an end and she forms an alliance with Macduff and has a hand in killing her husband, buying herself sanctity while maintaining ‘the good life’ under Malcolm’s reign. In the end, she was never in love with Macbeth; she was only about self-preservation. In the play, she had remorse, but I would argue that she couldn’t be redeemed. Or at least that’s how I’d rewrite it.”

  His eyes were raised as he waited for a response from our teacher. I had to admit I was amazed how his brain worked. When he spoke, I liked how he paused as if carefully choosing his words. It also didn’t hurt that he was very appealing with his model-sharp angular features, tall frame, and an I’m-very-intelligent-but-might-have-mental-issues kind of way.

  “I love this idea,” Mrs. Wright said behind me. “Now plan an outline of how you want the story to flow. Turn it in Friday so I can approve it, and then you can work on your script.”

  I guess I was staring at him because he lifted his lips in a cocky half-smile.

  My cheeks heated, and I turned to hide my embarrassment and watched Mrs. Wright stroll around to confer with another group. After a few moments I collected myself and faced him again. “Wow. For a ‘bullshit’ project, you seemed to put a lot of thought into your answer.”

  His smile grew even wider and, dang, if I didn’t notice perfect white teeth and his full bottom lip. “I can’t help it that I’m smart and I like to read. You two might try it sometime, especially you.” He cuffed Mike on the back of the head. “At least get the damn CliffsNotes to these stories.”

  “Hey.” Mike’s grayish-blue eyes narrowed into slits as he laughed and shoved Andrew. “Why do I need CliffsNotes when I have you to interpret for me?” These two always played around like this.

  I eyed the clock, noticing the bell would ring in five minutes. We probably wouldn’t have another chance to work on the assignment in class.

  “So, do we want to meet at someone’s house to put the outline together?” I suggested. “I have a basketball game tonight, but we could do it tomorrow night or Thursday. My house?” I played point guard on the girls’ varsity team, and we’d made the playoffs.

  “Thursday works better for me. I get off work early,” Andrew said. “Seven?”

  “Sure.” We looked at Mike.

  “That’s good.”

  “Cool.”

  “Good luck tonight, Scout.”

  “This is seriously going to be my new name? Scout?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Andrew appeared grim, as though he were delivering bad news, but his lips twitched.

  I shook my head and gathered my books, trying to hide my smile.

  I was mindlessly flipping through the channels, sitting on the sofa in the media room, waiting for my friends. Mike showed up first. “Hey, the Mavs are playing on TNT. You wanna watch it?”

  Normally, I would’ve loved to indulge him in watching an NBA game, but I was still down after our loss the other night ended our basketball season, and I needed a break from the sport. Besides, our work was due tomorrow. I clicked off the TV. “Mike, we have to get this outline done. You know it’s worth half our grade on the project.” I pointed over to the minifridge in the bar area. “There’s drinks in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  “Still down after the loss, huh?” Mike had been very consoling at school yesterday and tried to make me feel better by telling me I played a great game. I was surprised to find out that Andrew had been there, too. I’d never seen him at any high school sporting event.

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s always next year.” I found it sweet that he always tried to see the positive in any situation, and God knows, if anyone had a reason to be down, it was Mike what with his family situation.

  While Mike grabbed a soda, I fired up my laptop. I heard my dad in the hallway talking to someone. I glanced up and saw Andrew, and my heart sped up slightly. “Hey.”

  “S’up, Scout?” Andrew surveyed the room as he moved around casually, bumping fists with Mike. “Nice place. Your dad must be slaying it chasing ambulances.” My father was an attorney who specialized in personal injury. His friends joked about his profession thanks to the lawyers who ran ads where they’re basically yelling the whole time about how they’ll fight for every dollar to seek justice. They usually had some stupid nickname, too, like “Mad Dog” or “The Equalizer” with an eagle flying in the background and patriotic music playing. My dad, however, never ran cheesy commercials, and he was passionate about helping people. He’d built a reputation as a respectable attorney, sometimes foregoing fees when his clients couldn’t afford them. My dad made good money, no doubt, and yes, we had a nice house, but it wasn’t like it was a mansion. We lived in a small town, Briar Estates, about fifty miles north of Dallas. If we had lived in the city, we couldn’t have afforded a home this nice.

  “He does all right. You want something to drink?” I set my laptop aside, unfolding my legs as I pushed myself up.

  He glanced at the bar with the assortment of bottles lined against the wall. “Whoa, someone’s ready to have a party. I’ll take a Jack and Coke.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There’s soda and water in the fridge.” I walked over to the minifridge and opened the door.

  “That’s lame,” I heard him say and laughed it off, leaning in to survey the beverages.

  “Come on, Loren, are you scared?” I almost jumped at his deep voice near my ear. Did he just follow me over here?

  I twisted my head, seeing what seemed like discontent on his face. Again, I felt uneasy and for some reason wanted his approval. It also didn’t help that I was completely intimidated by him as he towered over me in close proximity, looking like some angsty Zumiez model. And he smelled incredible. Some guys in high school seemed to bathe in cologne, but Andrew wasn’t one of them.
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  He leaned in, and his lips curled up. “I’m just fucking with you. I’ll take water.”

  “That’s sooo not funny!”

  As we were wrapping up the final touches on our outline two hours later, Andrew stood up and wandered over to a built-in bookcase that was lined with CDs and records. On the wall, next to the shelf, were some old pictures of my brother and me. I heard Andrew chuckle.

  “That’s how I remember you in elementary school.”

  “I hate that picture,” I scoffed, knowing he was looking at my short hair.

  “Actually, I thought you were kind of cute.” He thumbed through old records. I was at a loss for words.

  I quickly glanced at Mike, who was watching something on my laptop, not even paying attention.

  “Your parents have an eclectic music collection.”

  “Yeah.” I cautiously strolled toward him. With his back to me, I had a great view of his broad shoulders and nicely shaped butt.

  “Hey, guys, I’m gonna head out,” Mike announced with his arms thrown up in a stretch.

  Andrew and I waved goodbye, and we went back to scanning through the music.

  “Your parents still have vinyl? Very hipster of them.”

  I laughed. “I’m sure these were their records when they were teens. Probably nothing here that would interest you.”

  He side-eyed me—his go-to look, apparently, because he’d done it in class several times when I watched him sketch beside me. “Why not? What kind of music do you think I like?”

  “You seem like a punk rock or grunge person. Like Iggy Pop or Nirvana.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted as he continued to peruse albums. “Ah, and you know this by…”