May Kill Me

Seven

By late October, New Glasgow turned into Halloween Town.

Every storefront, restaurant, and lamp post was decorated with spiderwebs, plastic black cats, pumpkins, dangling skeletons, and tombstones.

Mia didn't contact me since her bizarre text, and I decided for my mental health to not check her or Jonathan's social media accounts.

That was when Abigail Turner found me at the bookstore and shoved a flyer right into my face.

"We have to go! Drea and Kris are in." She beamed at me, her rainbow-colored acrylic nails digging into the paper.

I stopped shelving, holding the pile of books close to my chest, and leaned closer to read whatever it was that the flyer was advertising.

"A frat party?"

"A frat party in Acadia, Bronwell College." Abigail's smile widened.

"Abi, I didn't even go to Frosh. You can't seriously think I'll attend a frat party." I shook my head at her and went back to shelving, "Besides, these kinds of things are pretty dangerous. Your drink can get spiked. One Google search about frat parties gone wrong, and you'll opt for staying at home with a book and a cup of tea."

Abigail made a small huffing noise and stuffed the flyer into her Hello Kitty backpack.

"Strength in numbers, Oceane. That's exactly why I want all of us to go: We'll get an Uber, and stick together throughout the party." She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

Abigail Turner was not the kind of person you'd expect to find at a community college. She brought an iPad to every class, had a neon-pink pencil case overstuffed with a crazy amount of colorful Muji pens, and color-coded notebooks which she kept in meticulous order.

Abigail was preppy, upbeat, and had the air of an overachiever to her. When I saw her for the first time, taking diligent notes on her iPad, I was sure she got here by some kind of mistake: the girl acted like she had her eyes set on an Ivy League school since kindergarten. I haven't figured out her deal yet, but I didn't want to pry either.

"An integral part of college is to experience things, not watching them on someone's Tik Tok." She insisted.

"I don't have Tik Tok," I shrugged at her, going back to shelving.

"Okay, fine, whatever. But don't you want to have things you remember, you know, once you graduate? You'll have all these memoirs of doing fun things, hanging out with friends... Don't you want that?"

"What I want is a degree," I replied drily, moving along the shelves with my books. Attending frat parties was not exactly something I called memory building.

"And you'll get your degree! But look," Abigail fished her iPad out of her back and turned it to me.

"This is a comprehensive list of all the things I want to experience while in college."

The screen was filled with neatly written bullet points. She quickly turned it away from me before I could figure out what any of them said.

"Attending a frat party is one of them."

"You can go, I'm not stopping you. It's me who doesn't want to go. Why does it even matter if I came along? You have Drea and Kris."

"Oceane..." She raised her voice, and the lady on the aisle opposite turned to look at us, clearly not appreciating the noise.

"Sorry," Abi gave her an apologetic smile.

"You are my friend, and this is what friends do, they include each other in things. I swear," She crossed herself (which I found a tad dramatic and unnecessary), that if you're not going to have fun at this party, I will never ask you to attend another one ever again."

***

"My god, I'm so glad you're here!" Andrea Bash breathed out an actual sigh of relief when she saw me walking through the front entrance of my apartment building.

She was dressed in flared blue jeans with rips on the knees, along with a lacy bodysuit with a plunging neckline, and a black fake leather jacket.

Her tan was so fresh and strong that she almost glowed under the streetlights.

I gave Drea a polite smile, thinking of the striking difference in how the two of us must have looked. I wasn't dressed to impress with my black skinny jeans and plaid jacket over a black hoodie.

"We're going to walk to Kris's place and get an Uber from there. Abi texted me earlier today: she should be there getting ready." Drea wasn't looking at me as she was spewing all this information, which wasn't unusual behavior for her.

Drea was Abigail's friend, but their friendship didn't make sense to me, either. And Drea was always, always, strapped for cash.

"Honestly, I'm, like, so relieved you decided to come. There's no way I would have been able to pay for my share of the Uber if it weren't for us splitting the ride four-way. Oh, we have to make a turn on McKinney Road." Drea lifted her eye off the phone and looked up at the upcoming street sign.

"Abi said you'd come, so it'll be easier for us to foot the bill. Okay, there it is." Drea made the turn, and I followed her.

So this was why Abigail was so adamant about me coming... That made sense.

Bornwell was pretty far, about forty minutes away from New Glasgow by car. I checked.

Drea never seemed to have enough money, Kris didn't have a job and was living off a pretty small allowance her dad gave her monthly, and Abigail lived with her parents in the next town over and took the train to school. I knew she babysat her cousins from time to time.

"Frankly, as much as I want to go, I warned Abi about the whole thing: I don't want her to have high expectations or something." Drea was a fast walker, even in her high-heeled boots she outpaced me quite a lot, and I had to walk at a speed to keep up with her.

"High expectations about what?"

"Her boyfriend: he's attending Brownwell, and is part of this fraternity or something. They're been dating for about a year, and then — about two months ago — he breaks up with her and blocks her number." Andrea stopped to type something on her phone, and I nearly bumped into her.

"So, it's a shitty thing he did, for sure! But, Abi just can't accept it. She wants to go there and have some kind of showdown. I mean, I know she'd never admit to it, but I'm almost 100% sure that's why we're going."

I had no idea that Abigail even had a boyfriend, on the account of her never bringing it up and me never asking. The idea of Abigail as a vengeful, obsessive ex-girlfriend just didn't compute. It was a stark contrast to her always sunny and energetic disposition.

"I can't imagine her doing something like that, going all the way to a frat party to confront an ex." I protested.

Andrea let out a snort and continued walking.

"You just don't know her. This is mellow Abigail. You should have seen the shit she pulled off in high school. How do you think she ended up losing that scholarship to Babson?"