eternal flame - s. harrington

Chapter 10: You Think You're So Special

I felt like everything was falling apart. It had been a couple of days since Will went missing, and even though my dad was doing everything he possibly could, no signs of my brother had been found.

I was so angry at everyone for not showing up to the assembly last night. I couldn't believe how insensitive people were. How is it, that they couldn't spare an hour of their day to show support for a little boy who's gone missing? I wish they knew how humiliating and upsetting it was to sit around, staring at the empty field, hoping for someone to show up.

On top of that, my mom was losing it. This morning I woke up to find her in Will's room, talking to herself. She told Jonathan and I that Will was in the lights, talking to her. She also mentioned something about seeing a monster last night.

I had done a lot of research on psychology in my life, since it was an interesting topic and was useful when trying to understand people and their actions, but never had I ever seen something like this. My mom had struggled with anxiety my whole life, but it had never been this bad before. I was worried she might be experiencing some sort of psychosis.

I was going to stay home today and look after her, but she assured Jonathan and I that she would be fine by herself, and insisted that we go to school, so we did.

Jonathan had been acting weird too. He didn't tell me anything about his day when he came home late last night, he just went into his room and didn't come out until this morning. He also wanted to take separate cars to school, even though we usually carpool together to save gas.

Now, it was around lunch time at school. I walked into the cafeteria and sat down at the same table as my friends. Joe and Lucy immediately rushed to ask me how I was doing, while PK and Abby were nagging to eachother about something, like always.

I listened to Abby and PK's argument for a while, using it as a good distraction from everything. Suddenly I felt a surge of anger in me, when my eyes landed on a table where Steve was sitting with Nancy, Tommy H. and Carol.

While I was staring at them, I imagined myself walking up to the table and giving Steve a piece of my mind. I just wanted to yell at him for promising to show up to the vigil and breaking that promise.
I imagined all the things I would say to him, all the names I would call him in front of the whole school. The closer to public humiliation, the better.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Abby staring at me, and then turning around to look at the same table I was looking at, before turning back to me.

"I can't believe Harrington got with a sophomore.", Abby chuckled. Her comment got me to snap back to reality. I turned my focus to Abby, "What?", I asked. She leaned closer to us and said, "Word on the street is that he swiped Nancy Wheeler's V–card last night.", she smirked.

"Abby, that's gossip.", Lucy noted. "Where'd you hear that?", I asked. "Reed told me. Apparently Steve couldn't stop talking about it during swim practice this morning.", Abby said.

I rolled my eyes and sighed, "Well. Good for them, I guess.", I said nonchalantly.

"Yeah.", Abby snorted, "But see how Nancy's friend isn't sitting with them? The, um... What's her name?", she pondered.

"Barbara Holland?", Lucy suggested.

"Right! Barbara!", Abby snapped her fingers, "Poor girl. At least I didn't dump you guys the second I started dating Reed...", she said.