Saint Mary's Academy wasn't competing in the prison lookalike contest like my school. This place probably got mistaken for a college campus, somewhere that demanded respect and even had a gate at the front. I parked in a visitor's spot and got out to creep towards the edge of the gate. The metal doors were open, but I still waved my arm inside first to make sure I wouldn't burst into flames or struck down by lightning, as if these hallowed grounds punished students like me with a lower grade point average.

I glanced down at my jeans and ratty old shirt, knowing I'd be caught immediately for being a fraud. Taking a deep breath, I pondered my life choices and wondered if the regret alone would kill me.

A chorus of laughter caught my attention as a small group of fellow teens climbed out of a car. One of them carried a pizza box while another balanced a horde of soda in his arms. I brightened, waving at the one girl whose hands were free. "Hey! Hey, you!"

She was about three apples tall, and half her height was the blonde bun on top of her head. A litter of freckles covered her youthful, peachy skin. As she approached me out of curiosity, her soul sucked the youth out of me, and I felt my back ache like a washed up thirty-year-old. We were before and after pictures.

Before the world crushed me.

And after I realized it was too late.

"Hi?" The girl asked, regretting her decision to talk to me every second that passed. She waved at her friends, who went inside the school first.

"Hey," I said. "Could you go in there and grab a girl for me?"

The girl crossed her arms and raised a brow. "Any girl? Or do you want to be specific?"

"Hunter, please," I said, pressing my hands together in mock prayer. Resting my chin on my fingertips, I smiled in my most innocent way possible.

A beat of silence passed between us, which made me feel sillier and sillier.

"Do you have a last name?" She asked an obvious question, but I didn't expect there to be a world filled with girls named Hunter.

I admitted, "I don't know her last name but the Hunter I'm talking about is tall with a blonde bob, and like has an air of royalty." I waved my hands around as if I was magically forming a picture. "Like she could probably say the meanest thing you've ever heard in your life, but she's actually like super nice and she's beautiful. Are you picking up what I'm putting down?"

"Are you looking for Hunter Cabot?"

"Your first guess is my only guess, so yes, please."

"And you do know her, right?"

"Yeah, we're best friends," I lied, crossing my arms and standing my ground as I challenged the cherub. "Do you know all your friends' last names? Off the top of your head? List all your friends government names to me right now and alphabetically."

"Jeeze, relax." The girl rolled her eyes and breezed past me. "You could have just said the glitter bracelet commercial girl."

"Thanks!" I called out. "I will do that next time!"

Done with me, the girl threw me a thumbs up and disappeared into the private school. My anxiety rattled out of my mouth in a shaky sigh, and I dragged myself to my car. I jumped up on my hood that had been baking in the sun. The heat prickled my skin through my jeans.

My eyes stayed on the gate, waiting for my mystery girl to appear. My stomach twisted into unbreakable knots as I believed someone else was going to walk out, like the girl I had a date with was only a dream. Who knows? Maybe a car slammed into me on that rainy night, and I was suffering from coma induced delusions.

Then, an angel chorus sang out as the girl I kissed, walked through those gates, looking back and forth until she spotted me. Hunter's eyes widened like she had seen a ghost. With a small wave, I slid off my car and smiled. Her surprise soon deflated, and she hunched down, stuffing her hands into her blazer pockets. She was all legs in her uniform and the small peak of thigh and knee made my brain whizz like the end of firecrackers.

She stopped in front of me and asked, "So, you found me out?"

"I did."

"Are you mad I lied to you and now you're here for a 'gotcha moment'?"

Still smiling, I shook my head. "No, actually. I skipped school to come here, and I was wondering if you would also like to ditch class to go on a second date with me."

Hunter dropped her arms. "How did you even find me?"

I winced. "I have a feeling you will not like how. But I found you through your glittery bracelet empire." And, like I predicted, Hunter's eyes widened again. Her face pinched as she groaned, dropping her grimace into her hands. For my own enjoyment and a little revenge, I took a step closer and sprinkled a little salt in the wound. "Before our date, I need to know how they made the pizza glittery, like was it a fake pizza made of glitter, or did they spray glitter onto real pizza?"

"Oh god," Hunter groaned again, but with more horror and spun away from me, no longer able to be close to me or look me in the eye. "That is horrible. Now you know the skeleton in my closet, and..." She grimaced at me finally. "I have to kill you." Her façade cracked, and she smiled, a look I matched and doubled in excitement.

I suggested instead, "Or let me live and go on a date with me."

"Deal."

We grinned at each other, and I motioned to my car with a small bow. She walked to the passenger seat, and I met her on the other side and leaned on the van's roof. "Were you able to keep any of the bracelets?"

"No, but I stole one."

"Cool." I snorted.

"Shut up." She hopped into the family van, and I took a second to myself to look up at the sky and thank whatever pro-queer goddess out there that was listening and got into the car with Hunter Cabot.

Hunter Cabot.

#

Since I already used my allowance on our first date, the only option was to bring Hunter to my house and watch a movie. I rolled up to my house and said, so innocent, like it was a positive, "Oh! No one's home."

I parked the van near the mailbox, freeing up space for the others. The driveway wasn't wide or long, so I'd like to avoid the usual game of Tetris. I showed Hunter inside, explaining, "You can just leave your shoes here." Using the wall as balance, I toed off my converse and kicked them into the rest of the shoe pile.

"Do you have a big family?" Hunter asked, carefully untying her shiny shoes and placing them carefully out of the way.

"Do I?" I had to laugh. This descended into a full history of my family's situation. I gave her the full tour, but we ended up in the kitchen. She studied the hundreds of photos and commemorative magnets on the fridge with a small smile.

I leaned against the counter beside her. "So, I've got drinks, snacks, and whatnot."

She hummed. "Never had whatnot before."

"You're in luck. No seriously, do you want soda? Juice?"

"Water will be fine." She chose the classiest option, and I really wasn't about comparisons, especially when our backgrounds had nothing in common, but for a second, standing next to her, I forgot we were both in high school. For now.

"So, like," I said, struggling to string words together. It wasn't every day I met someone new and tried to get to know them. "What's your house like?"

"Um," Hunter thought about it as I gathered some ice from the tray in a cup and poured in some medium quality tap water. She took with the drink a small thanks, then explained. "I'm an only child. It's just me and my parents. My dad is the President of this really stuffy architecture office, and my mom is a dermatologist."

"That's why your skin is perfect."

Hunter flattened her lips again to laugh. She always held it back. It fascinated me.

"They both work full time," she added.

"Must be quiet."

"Absolutely silent," she said as a joke, but it didn't sound funny. "You should see my listening history on my phone. I'm always playing an audiobook or a podcast, to the point, if I tell my parents a funny story from one, I refer to the hosts as my friends." She laughed forcefully before she looked away and took another sip.

"I do too," I said, patting her back. "You go ahead to the couch, grab the remote, and find something for us to watch. I'll pop the popcorn."

"And get the whatnot," she teased me again and a small thrill fluttered through me. These feelings were young and new, like my heart grew wings and I was just learning how to fly. She disappeared, and I shook my shoulders, doing a little dance to get out some of this nervous energy. Once I had our snacks, I walked into the living room but froze.

Hunter Cabot was sitting in my house.

With no parents.

Hunter sat on my couch with a quilt my grandmother made draped over her legs. She smiled expectantly at me and suddenly, the knowledge of being alone and nothing in-between us fried my brains into smithereens. There was nothing left rattling inside my skull, but a burnt looking chicken nugget.

If I acted normal in this situation and Hunter was still interested in me, it was going to be a miracle.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Did I miss a week? Yes. Was it for the greater good? You'll never know. MY BOOK COMES OUT THIS TUESDAY PLEASE CLAP. 

If you like this story, don't forget to vote and leave a comment. All comments are read, appreciated, and printed out to go on my fridge. And if you're interested in supporting me--an asexual biromantic gay--please pre-order my sapphic romcom THE TRIAL PERIOD, out w/ Wattpad books on Feb. 4th :))

See you next week!