ᴘᴇʀꜰᴇᴄᴛ ᴍᴇꜱꜱ • ʙɪʟʟʏ ʜᴀʀɢʀᴏᴠᴇ

Eight

It had been a couple of weeks since Daisy's little arrangement with Billy. She still didn't see much of him around the school, and also ended up making up with Tommy H. He was still wary of him after what he'd done to Daisy. He dropped out of extra credit after a few days, and everyone saw increasingly less of him as days went by.

The conversation always started the same...

"I haven't seen you at school today, Billy."

His replies would be either "Yeah, uh... I wasn't feeling very well so I slept in." or "I was around."

It was Halloween eve and Daisy hadn't seen Billy in two days. Before she used to worry a lot but she was slowly getting used to him not being at school at all. Dustin was in his Ghostbusters costume, ready to go to school. Daisy scoffed and shook her head. "Dustin, nobody will be wearing costumes at school. You're not a child anymore."

"All of us are... me, Lucas, Will, Mike." he pointed out as he sat down for breakfast and started eating.

"And the girls, Jane and Max? Are they also putting on their Haloween costumes?" She raised an eyebrow at his frown. "I'm guessing that's a no?"

"And you? Any plans for Halloween?"

She shrugged. "Steve's going to Tommy's party."

"What about your friend, Billy?" The question statted innocent enough until he spat the name like it was venom.

"Probably the same as Steve... and Jonathan and Nancy." Daisy sighed sadly. Great, another Halloween stuck at home, she thought as she stood up and picked up her bag. "Ready to go, Stanz?" Dustin grinned upon hearing his sister call him by his favourite character's name. He stood up and 

"No, no, no!" Mrs Henderson yelled from the other side of the house. She came out running, holding her camera. "Dustin, I forgot to take photos!"

"This oughtta be good." Daisy said, crossing her arms across her chest as she rested against the wall, thinking he'd be annoyed by their mother's enthusiasm, but he was actually very excited. He put on the Proton Blaster, pointing the pipe at the camera as he posed for photos.

"Who you gonna call?!" Mrs Henderson exclaimed after taking several photos with him posing differently each time and hummed the instrumental bit as she took three more photos. "You look so cute, honey!"

As soon as Daisy heard a car honking from outside, she straightened up. She wasn't expecting Billy to pick her up for school. She hadn't seen him at all the day before.

"I'm going, Ma! Love you! Love you, Dusty!" she yelled before running to Billy's car. She hopped inside, closing the door behind her before he sped off. "I wasn't expecting you to pick--" She stopped speaking when she turned her face to look at him. He had his glasses on, as always, but what stopped her was the gigantic bruise covering the side of his eye and cut on his right cheek. They didn't look fresh, probably a couple of days old. "Billy..."

"I don't wanna talk about it." he spat coldly, not looking at her. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. When he felt her look unconvincingly at him, he repeated, "I said I don't wanna talk about, Henderson. Drop it."

"I didn't say--"

"But you were going to."

Daisy bit her lower lip and looked away, sighing softly. "Take a left."

"What...?"

"Take a left over here." she replied, pointing at a side street that led to a small field.

For the first time since driving, Billy cracked the smallest of smiles. "Daisy Henderson, are you cutting school?" he asked, feigning shock, but still turned his car left.