Candy Gram ✓

NOVEL VERSION HERE

A/N: Wanna revisit the angst/cringe/fluff? Or just wish that this story had been longer in the first place? Or maybe, you want to read this story from an author who's actually now completed their senior year of high school (because they wrote this as a freshman and it shows 😃🦆)????????

The first three chapters are up now on my profile. Here's chapter one!

CHAPTER ONE

I don't know why, but there's something really off-putting about seeing David Marquez in a dress.

Just, damn this week. It's Monday morning, and I'm already to that point. Because, look, I won't lie to you: I'd like to be able to tell you that I love school spirit. That I love dress-up days, I love adorable little hyper-consumerist holidays, and I love how guys at my school use these opportunities to break our dress code in ways girls could never get away with. But that would be a complete and total lie, and I hate lying just as much as I do dress-up days.

There's one event that's worse than all the others, though, and that's Cupid Days. Eons ago (or what fucking feels like it), the student council managed to create a whole week surrounding Valentine's Day—already a stupid holiday choice—wherein they not-so-subtly try to rob us of our meager savings by promising cheap pieces of candy and personalizable messages, to be delivered by upperclassmen boys in scanty, objectionably undersized women's clothing.

It's not the fact that they're dressing femme that grinds my gears. Honestly, if this weren't a small town in South Dakota, maybe I'd be experimenting with such fashion myself. What people wear isn't my business, I know that. What bothers me about the Cupids is how in my fucking face they have to be about it.

I'm already starting off my Monday in a bad mood. Usually in homeroom, I'd sit next to Sirina, or Squawky Sadie, but they're both in the auditorium with the rest of the student council, organizing people's candy grams to hand out to the Cupids. The Cupids, our deficiently-clad, scab-eating, foot-sweat-sniffing harbingers of Valentine's doom.

So yeah. Sirina and Squawky Sadie are both gone, and I didn't even manage to grab my third choice seat buddy. Oh no. Josiah sits in the seat before me, his shoulders hunched forward and one hand fisted in his curls as he tries to finagle his way through what has to be AP Chem homework. He always forgets he has AP Chem homework.

And because Josiah is too busy with chemistry, and because Carter Schulte snagged the seat next to him before anyone was even awake, I swear, I'm stuck next to Edward Flores. My ex.

Yeah, this day is off to a fantastic fucking start.

At least Edward has the sense to not speak to me. I forgot my earbuds at home, and after I refused Edward's offer of one of his buds, he has sat in complete silence, listening to whatever kind of music gets him tapping his pencil against his desk so vigorously at eight in the morning. He'd hate me for saying this, but his attempts at "brooding" are generally laughable. Today is no exception.

I've had literally nothing to do for the past five minutes. No earbuds on-hand, no phone allowed, no assignments to scramble to finish. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Nothing except for, of course, thinking about how much I hate this school spirit week. I already saw David at our lockers, covered up somewhat by his heavy puffer jacket, but I saw a red sequined skirt, and I just know that I am going to have to deal with him and his obnoxious, plucky ass all day as he parades about in/makes a big deal of a literal piece of fabric.

The door opens, and I instinctively flinch—but I'm lucky. It's Sirina and Squawky Sadie. I don't care much about the latter, but the former is my best friend, and when I see the scrunched-up face she makes when she spots Edward sitting next to me, I nearly burst out laughing. It's like she can read my mind. I love her.