NOTE: DO NOT MISS THIS WEEK'S AUDIOBOOK RECORDING! IF YOU'RE IN THE MOOD FOR SOME SCARY/CHILLING/CREEPY VIBES HIT THAT PLAY BUTTON! 

https://youtu.be/NK1jIgD1jxU

CHAPTER 17 

Elias

I should've listened to Tanner.

There's less than ten minutes left till half-time and I'm way past the point of being buzzed. But, hey, at least the rest of the crowd's right there with me. Mission Bay's section of the stadium's gone stupid crazy for the Warriors. We're fourteen points up, holding the lead, and the longer we stay on top, the harder people are starting to party. 

Josh is completely gone. Ever since the Warriors took the field and scored a enough touchdowns to keep us in the lead, he's been letting loose like I've never seen. Trish is sandwiched in between the two of us and is wasted to the point where she's resorted to using me and Josh as human crutches.

I'm trying to stay focused on the field instead of on the feeling of Trish's hand sliding down into the back pocket of my jeans. I step away from her, and she giggles at me like what she's doing is as harmless as a hug. But I know how she works. I know where she starts things and how she refuses to stop once she's got her mind made up. And maybe it's the alcohol, but I'm pretty sure she's still got her eye on me—relationship or not.

Trish's phone sounds off right in the middle of a school-wide Warriors chant, and she finally takes her attention off of touching me to read through her texts.

Her face lights up as she scrolls through her screen. I squint to try to make out the conversation, but the letters are even blurrier than usual.

She types out a lightning fast response to whoever she's talking to and then glances up at me from under her plastic eyelashes. It's weird. Looking at her now feels like I'm looking at her for the first time. I notice the truth slipping between the cracks. The little clues that give away how hard she tries to keep people from seeing the real girl underneath her perfectly placed make-up.

We messed around for most of the summer, and I never actually stopped to look at her. To know her. To see the warning signs of someone who was just as messed up as I was.

As I still am.

I just saw what I wanted to see.

An easy solution to a complicated problem.

Someone who'd help me prove that I wasn't the loser Brad made me out to be.

But now that I'm standing here, inches away from the girl I thought I wanted, I realize how much I regret making the mistake of messing with her in the first place.

Tonight's the last night she does me any favors. The last time she holds Josh over my head and our friendship in the palm of her hand.

After I meet Lacey, I'm pulling Josh aside, and setting the record straight.

Sober or not, I'm getting this off my chest.

Maybe alcohol's the push I needed to finally fix things.

"I've got good news," Trish coos as she taps her hot pink fingernails against her iPhone. They look like talons. Sharp. Pointed. Definitely capable of clawing someone's eyes out if she put her mind to it.

"What's up?" I say, hoping to come off all kinds of casual even though my stomach's twisting itself into knots.

"Your princess is waiting. Ready to meet your next fling?"

Trish slips into a breath of a laugh that nearly rips apart what little bit of patience I have left for her. She hasn't missed a beat tonight. Every single time Lacey's name has popped up, she's acted like a viper. But that's what I don't get.

She goes as far as letting Josh call her his "girlfriend" but continues to act like I'm doing something wrong for not wanting to stand on the sidelines waiting for her. Sorry, T. I'm not your boy toy anymore.

"How many times do I have to tell you that she's not—"

"She's not what?"

She squares up and narrows her eyes at me, begging for a fight. I swallow the resentment clawing it's way up my throat and sidestep my way out of starting WWIII.

"Nothing. Look, if we're gonna head over to see Lacey, go get your boyfriend. He's gonna fall off the bleachers if you don't hurry."

I point over to a very slap happy looking Josh standing at the edge of the crowd with a group of his friends. He's arm in arm with at least four other dudes who are teetering way too close to a rusty guard rail that's barely keeping them from falling a good couple feet down onto the field. Trish stumbles through our aisle to get over to him, and I follow after her trying my best to walk like the world's not spinning.

I get to the stairs, and, suddenly, a series of screams ricochet across the crowd. I take my attention off trying to walk straight and look through a jungle of arms and hands waving Warriors noisemakers as our QB crosses the touchdown line.

Maybe it's the magic of the moment or the fact that I'm tipsy enough to finally be able to let myself go, but I lose my mind right along with them. I jump up and down, scream the stress out of my lungs and get caught up in the moment—until it catches up with me.

My Vans slip off the edge of the beer-soaked stairs, and I throw my arms out to grab the first thing I can get my hands on. A dark-haired girl about half my size reaches out to steady me. It takes the two of us a second to find our feet before I manage to slur out what's supposed to sound like a sincere apology.

"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to run into you."

"You should really be more—careful."

Her eyes cut over to mine and suddenly all the warmth in my blood seeps out of my skin. I don't know her face. Not her frosty baby blues or her narrow nose or her thin lips. But she knows me. I watch her irritation melt into recognition and then transform into something else. 

Something that kicks up a hurricane in the pit of my stomach and sends off storm warnings in the back of my head. I ease up on my grip and try to separate myself from her, but the second I move, she wraps her willowy fingers around my forearm and holds me still.

"Wait a second, aren't you—Elias King?"

My tongue turns to sandpaper as I stumble over how to answer her. I thought tonight would be different. That I could disappear in the crowd long enough to find the one face that I've been looking for. I wanted to get lost with Lacey to the point where I could just forget about everything else.

But this girl's only a reminder of how wrong I was. 

A walking caution sign that I never should've said anything to in the first place. 

But now I'm here, stuck talking to a stranger when I should be halfway across the stadium with someone else.

I ease my arm out of her hands and try walking away like I didn't hear her question, but a soft tug on the corner of my t-shirt pulls me back.

"You're him, aren't you? The guy everyone's talking about online?"

I turn back around to face her and force myself to stay cool even though everything about this conversation has me on edge.

"Depends on who's asking," I say.

She giggles to herself but there's no light in the sound.

Her voice unsettles me.

It's hollow.

Cold.

And even though she's wearing a thin-lipped smile on her face, nothing about it feels right.

"What do you mean?" She asks, even though I'm 100% sure she completely understood me.

"What's your name?"

Another whisper of a laugh slips out of her mouth and my mind starts scrambling to erase the memory of the sound. But its already under my skin--slithering around where it doesn't belong. Once she finally gets herself together, she struggles to bring herself to look up at me again.

"I'm Cassie. I actually work for the school yearbook and I---I was wondering if maybe--"

She straightens out her wire-framed glasses and then shifts her gaze down towards a bulky black bag hanging around her neck. She fumbles with the zipper for a couple seconds and then unearths a beat-up camera from inside. It's a monster. The lens looks gigantic in her tiny hands, but that doesn't stop her from pointing it directly at me. I reach out and stop her before she manages to get her finger anywhere near the trigger.

"Look, Katie--"

"It's Cassie."

"I get that you're here for pictures or whatever, but I can't right now. I'm--supposed to be meeting somebody, and I'm already pretty late, but I'll see you around, okay?"

Her face falls a little, and her eyes start racing around her sockets.

"Oh my gosh, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to bother you. I'm sure you're busy. People like you are always busy and you're like mega popular, so I shouldn't have asked. Sorry, enjoy your night."

She shoves her camera back into her bag and zips it up so fast she doesn't realize what's happening until it's too late. A strand of her jet-black hair is jammed between the metal teeth of her camera case.

She winces a little as she tries to pull herself out, and before I stop to question what I'm doing, I untangle her hair so she doesn't hurt herself worse than she already has. I lean in close and handle her as gently as I can until the knot's loose enough for her to wriggle free.

She straightens herself out and looks at me, eyes wide, glasses crooked, and breaks into that same sliver of a smile that bothered me the first time I saw it. Maybe it's the sadness lingering between the lines, or maybe it's the emptiness in it that reminds me of how lonely my mom looks sometimes—I don't know exactly what bothers me the most, but I can't stand it anymore. I want it to dissolve into something genuine.

So I force it to.

I take the side of her face in my hands, straighten out her glasses, and then let the alcohol talk me into saying the first thing that comes to mind that might make her smile—

—even if I don't mean it.

"You know what, Cassie? I'll take that picture. But, if we're gonna do this right, I've gotta make sure those pretty eyes can focus on yours truly. I used to wear glasses, so I get it. Let's do this!"

And, just like that, she smiles. And, for a flash of a second and frozen in the snapshot in front of me, it seems genuine. It seems like it's from the heart.

Then something else seeps in with each passing click.

With each photograph. It plays out.

A truth.

My mom always says hearts don't lie.

That they can't hide.

And, hers.

It's dark.

Desperate.

Desiring too much.

Unrealistic expectation with the same amount of false hope.

Just under the surface.

Just enough to feel nervous.

Just enough to feel the drain only a blackhole heart can do.

The truth.

No amount of photos is going to fill a void like that.

All it does is leave me unsettled as I walk out of her world and go stumbling back into mine.

Trying to ignore the fact, that no matter how far away I get--

--I still feel her watching.

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Thank you guys so much for reading/listening! This week's read is low-key terrifying so if you haven't had a chance to listen through--please do! Next update should be on FRIDAY, JAN. 17TH.  See you then!