Chomp

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8:

I spent the entire weekend locked in my room. Every little noise and creak of the house when I was alone had me jumping, especially during the night. Paranoid was an understatement and it didn’t help that my mom kept asking me about Rayna Belvoir, if that was even her real name. Even Theo and Cole wanted to know all the details of how I’d gotten one of the most attractive girls in the history of our town to visit me on a sick day, let alone talk to me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Theo was a little jealous even. 

None of it mattered to me come Monday morning as I readied myself for what could well be the last day of my school career. I tucked Uncle Hector’s old pocket knife into my pocket before shrugging on my backpack. I decided against getting a ride, skate boarding there instead to prolong the events due to unfold. There were so many things I hadn’t appreciated until I realized that today would be my last. I don’t think I’ve ever hugged Uncle Hector— not since I was like five anyway. But I figured, why the hell not? 

I wished Thorn High School was farther away because I got there all too quickly. There were ten minutes left before the first bell would ring leaving plenty enough time for Rayna Belvoir to hunt me down, snap my neck, and shove me down a flight of stairs. There was no real way of knowing whether shanking her with an old pocket knife would kill or piss her off royally, but I wasn’t ready to die yet. If I was killed, then I would go down fighting. 

“Leonardo!” I nearly jumped out of my skin when Lizzie Miller came out of nowhere, a worried expression in her eyes behind her glasses. 

“What?” I asked harsher than I meant it to come out. It didn’t really seem to faze the tenth grader. 

“Cole told me that you were sick,” and then she added more darkly, “And I heard that you had a visitor.” The expression on her face was enough to make my skin crawl. Did she know what Rayna was, too? There were no visible bite marks on her throat and my own had disappeared altogether. 

“I was sick, but I’m better now. As for the visitor . . .” I let the unanswered question hang in the air, hoping Lizzie would complete the thought and reveal something. 

“You should stay away from Belvoir,” Lizzie warned in a low tone, “You can do so much better than a floozy who gives girls hickeys at parties. And here I thought Claire Dames was a decent girl like myself.” I found myself rolling my eyes. Lizzie was just being her jealous self.  

“I already told you that I’m never going to—,” I stopped mid-sentence. Who was I kidding? This was my last morning ever and Lizzie would never get a chance to see me another morning unless that involved attending my funeral. I felt guilty when I envisioned how heartbroken she’d be when I was dead. “You know what, Lizzie? Forget it.”

Before she could reply, I had cupped her face in my hands and brought our lips together. There were people who stopped to stare in shock and awe in the hallway, some of Lizzie’s friends watching wide-eyed. The kiss was pretty chaste, and I pulled away leaving her breathing heavily. I grinned, seeing how her glasses had fogged up and she stood there with big doe eyes slack-jawed. I licked my lips, tasting the sticky lip-gloss she was wearing.

“Hmm, peach,” I noted before patting her shoulder and walking away leaving Lizzie dumbstruck. 

The student body was small and rumor spread fast. Of course, the rumor is never the same as the way it started. Word was from a few definite sources that I, Leonardo Vasquez, made out with Elizabeth Miller in the teacher’s lounge. Another was that I proposed and we were going to get married after I graduated and move to Alaska. The most prominent and popular one; however, was that I had cheated on Rayna Belvoir with Lizzie who was apparently my long-time mistress. All of them were ridiculous and I couldn’t even begin to understand how people could believe any of it.