The Girl who Cried Wolf

six. shoot the messenger

"Give me your number," I command the bastard boy from the woods as he shut his locker, almost jumping out of his flawless skin as he noticed me leaning against the row of blue lockers beside his. He obviously was not expecting me to interact with him, let alone demand his number. Considering he's met me more than once he should know that I'm not a very subtle person. I couldn't tell where this newfound burst of confidence came from, but I could tell it intrigued him as he smiled at me and furrowed his brows. 

"Excuse me?" He laughed, fixing his backpack strap over his right shoulder after stuffing it with objects from his locker. It was the end of the day and after six hours of debating my decision to take our little relationship to the next level, I finally grew some balls and marched up to him with my head held high and pride held higher.

"I never repeat myself," I inform him, almost feeling every body part I have sweat as much as humanly possible out of pure nerves and anxiety. I wish every damn day that I had enough confidence to do things such as family reunions, parties and one-night stands. But, I guess had to have at least one flaw so I didn't become too big-headed for my own safety. "Also, what's your name? Unless of course, you'd prefer to stay bastard for all of eternity,"

"I admire you for being so bold towards me. And for that," He trailed off, holding his hand out which he nodded to, waiting for me to hand over my phone which I did after getting into the contacts app just to ensure that he doesn't lurk in my photos and find the embarrassing amount of screenshots I have solely because the text I sent was funny and I wanted to remember it whenever I feel sad. Handing the phone back to me, he smiled warmly. "Don't call me at weird crackhead hours."

Instead of verbally replying, I quickly click on his contact and begin texting my reply of 'I'll call you whenever the fuck I want to' and smirking slightly as his phone dings, his eyebrows rising upon reading the text from my unsaved number. "Now you have my number too uh," I trail off, dragging out the uh as I glance down to once and for all know his name. "Ethan."

"Hmm, like the sound of that," He hums to himself, looking down at me with a cheeky smile, almost as if he could sense the butterflies having a gladiator-style death match in the pits of my stomach. With one final look at me, he turned around and walked off out of the hallway.

Without his distracting presence, it becomes all too obvious how empty the hallways are besides little old me. The sudden lonely feeling clenched my heart in its greedy palm, but it wasn't the feeling of being alone that really scared me, it was how false that feeling felt. 

I head towards the door quickly, fumbling in the pockets of my blue fur-lined jean jacket to fish out my rapidly dying phone. When I do, I quickly call my Nanna, holding the phone to my ear as my eyes dart around my surroundings as if I was a crackhead hallucinating. 

When my Nanna finally answers after what felt like an eternity of rings, she is unable to get a word out before I begin rambling, almost sounding like I was drunk and slurring, "Hey, Nanna. I stayed back a bit late at school, would you be able to come pick me up?" 

"Sorry, Honey. I'm out of town for tonight on a business thing. Maybe call Tram to come get you?" She replied sympathetically, clearly not hearing the desperateness in my tone. I was aware that my paranoia was almost certainly unjustified, but that revelation wasn't enough to ease my erratic heart. 

I think about Tram and how I already inconvenienced him enough. I couldn't call him, especially if this whole situation is a part of my almost supernatural fuckedup-ness.

"Oh, that's okay. I'll call someone else," I reply, nibbling at the skin of my lip as the exit doors appear in my line of vision. I scurry to the doors, wanting to be on call with her when I get outside. The sinking feeling in my stomach slowly eased the longer I heard her voice and the closer I got to the burgundy doors.