"Hi Amara!"

Turning to the voice, I smiled and waved, trying to remember the name of the person I was greeting. It took me twice as long as any other person to reach my table, because of how many times I stopped to say hi to people I barely knew. The cafeteria was like real life social media for me, and I dodged likes, comments and attempts to slip into my DMs on the regular.

"What are we talking about?" I asked the whole table when I finally sat in the gap between Kamillah and Cece.

"I can't find my bracelet anywhere!" Olivia complained, showing me her bare wrist. "And I never take it off, so I'm thinking it must have fallen off."

"I can ask if anyone found it?" I suggested as I dipped a fry into gravy. "Do you have a picture of it? So if we see it anywhere we'll know it's yours."

"Thanks, Amara." Olivia was already scrolling through her phone for a picture.

"Seriously, did you forget how to walk?" I sniped at the body that crashed into me while I attempted to eat. "It's not like my table hasn't been here this whole time!" There was a gravy stain growing down the front of my shirt that I knew would be difficult to get out.

"Oops!" He didn't even attempt to look sorry, instead, he held my gaze sharply when I looked up.

Oh! It was the cutie from last week. Maybe he'd come to ask me out... The thought died as I saw his expression. This wasn't a cute accidental-on-purpose bump so he'd have an excuse to talk to me. His glare was giving anger, so I didn't bother curbing my annoyance.

"What?" Hadn't anyone ever told him staring was rude?

He practically growled at me, "Gotta talk to you. Stairwell, now."

Well that was a full turn from the flirting he'd been doing last time we met. As he walked away, all the girls I sat with leaned in, excited to know what was going on. Of course he chose a day that Cece and Olivia sat with us. This would have been bad enough with just Kamillah and Lacey's teasing curiosity.

"Holland?" Olivia gaped, her blue eyes widening. I looked at her like maybe her rose gold hair was tied back so tightly she was losing brain cells, but no one else seemed as confused by her random utterance.

Kamillah snickered as she dabbed at the stain on my shirt with a club soda soaked napkin. "Holland Ryan." She clarified and nodded at his retreating back.

"Center forward for our Bulldogs. Seriously Amara, you should know this!" Lacey shook her head at my unawareness.

So he was an athlete. I shrugged, I couldn't be expected to know everyone in our huge school, much less athletes. "Eh, sports. I'm pretty sure the two of you could care less about sports and you only watch for the boys who play, Lace."

"People watch sports for another reason?"

Cece didn't laugh at Kamillah's words, eyeing her as if admitting to watching for boys was immature. Once upon a time, Cece would have joined them giggling for exactly that reason. Now if it had nothing to do with her socials, and the possibility of being discovered, it was childish and not worth her time. She examined her reflection—reminiscent of many light skinned Bollywood actresses—in a compact, fixing makeup that didn't need to be fixed and sounding bored as she asked, "So why does he want to talk to you?"

"I'm about to find out."

He'd chosen the creepy never used stairwell at the back of the cafeteria. Groaning, I shoved through the door; that was the last place I wanted to be.

"You've got to stop." He said before the door fully closed behind me.

"Stop what exactly?" Was he in possession of brain cells?

"Your sick, twisted, whatever this is... I'm not interested in being involved. I don't want to mess with anyone, don't want to hurt anyone, definitely not looking to kill anyone."

Before I could ask him what drug he was on, he deadpanned, "I read your note. The one you dropped that day."

"Oh. You said you didn't."

"I lied. You were chilling by my locker and I figured it was some secret admirer thing, but you chickened out when you saw me there."

Secret admirer? I couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled out of my mouth, and he scowled. "You popular bitches are all the same."

Shivers ran down my spine at the spite in those words. I stepped back towards the door, but I wasn't about to let him think he scared me. "You unpopular idiots all have the same desperate chip on your shoulders. I was laughing because you thought I chickened out. Me. But thanks for your very original assessment of me."

"Just leave me out of whatever you're planning."

Wow. He really thought he was talking to a psycho.

"I'm not who you think I am," I sighed and told him about finding the note in my locker four nights ago and that someone had broken into my locker after.

"Who?"

"How am I supposed to know?" My tone climbed higher, and I took a deep breath to steady it. "It was dark and I wasn't about to confront them! I swear I will never be in this building again after everyone leaves. I have anxiety every time I have to go into an empty hallway now."

"Woah." At least he seemed to feel appropriately bad for this. I couldn't figure out how to read him.

As I told him why I was at his locker, which I hadn't known was his until just then, a small bothersome thought grew. "I was right, the note was supposed to go to your locker."

"How do you figure that?" Holland's anger seemed to have dissipated and he slouched against the railing behind him.

"Because you said you're getting more notes." I wished I didn't sound small as I said it, but fear was slowly taking hold of me. What if I was the girl mentioned in the note? What if he was messing with me? What if he was involved? He clearly had no love for "popular bitches" like me.

My back pressed the bar on the door behind me, ready to shove it open if I needed to. With a deep breath I looked into those gorgeous bright hazel eyes of his. "What did they say? No, you know what, you wanted me to leave you alone. That's fine. I'll stop what I'm already not doing, and you can leave me alone too. And please, please... if you do know what this whole thing's about, please leave me alone."

"Heads up, Holland!"

I turned in time for the ball to collide with my jaw, and I flexed it in annoyance.

I'd met her twice, convinced myself she was psychotic, and still she distracted my focus from the one thing that was always easy for me. The game. Grabbing the black and white ball from the ref, I slammed it onto the ground and kicked it back into play—I needed to shake Amara Pierce from my head.

When she left, I noticed that some of her friends had followed us to the stairwell. They probably thought some stupid shit like we were hooking up in private or something, and wanted to eavesdrop. Right. Maybe, if I hadn't accused her of being insane. I wondered if they actually heard any of what we said. Probably not, since no rumours had come back to me before the end of the day. That would have been a dumpster fire and a half. Still that wasn't what bothered me most.  

She begged me to leave her alone. Like she was scared. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. She was popular, and weren't the notes all implying death to popular girl?

It was like she thought I would kill her. I thought I made it very clear that I wanted nothing to do with any of it. She didn't know me though, so she couldn't know how un-me violence was. 

When the whistle blew at the end of the game, I tore off the field, with one thought in mind; prove to her I wasn't that type of guy. Yanking up my gym-bag, I headed straight for my car. I would regret the lack of shower later, but at that moment, it didn't matter.