The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Crushed by Another's Crush

Previously: "A Sex Change at School" 

Micah Larson jerks his chin at you. "T'sup?" he says. A hooded curiosity shows on his face as he studies you.

"Hi," you gasp back at him.

Then you tear your eyes away and dig inside your bag while trying to ignore him. But you feel your face turning hot as you fruitlessly paw through your old clothes, trying to find a book—any book!—to pull out.

You do at last pull out a notebook, and then because you can't help it you glance up at Micah. He seizes the chance with another jerk of his chin. "M'name's Micah," he says.

"Hi," you say, and duck your head to stare at the open notebook. It takes you a stupidly long time to realize you've got it turned upside down.

"Yeah, so what's your name?" he asks.

Shit shit shit shit shit!

"Mah— Mickey," you stammer as you turn the notebook around. It's full of math notes and equations, but you haven't got a pencil, and besides, it's notes from weeks ago. You almost tear the paper as you flip violently forward to a fresh sheet.

"Yeah, so what are you, a junior? That's what I am."

Fuck me fuck me fuck me!

"Yeah, I'm a— a—" A sudden idea comes to you. "You know I don't go to school here!" you blurt.

"Yeah?" That's so interesting he pulls out a chair and sits down next to you. You flinch. And yet you can't not glance at him even as you strain to keep your eyes bent onto the notebook.

"So what are you doing here if you don't go to school here?" he asks.

* * * * *

Micah Larson, you have heard, is bad news. He runs with a rough crowd, likes to get in trouble, and he doesn't just cross boundaries, he erases them and doesn't put up new ones. He is dangerous to know, not because he's violent, but because he has neither an "off" switch nor a steering wheel.

He is also dreamy-pretty in a bad boy way.

Which is weird, because to Madison—who otherwise fantasizes about clean-cut, stacked-with-muscles hot-bods like Ethan Clayborne—should look down on him as a scruffy low-life. Micah is on the short-and-slight side, with a skinny frame and stringy hair that he wears down to his shoulders under a too-big, backward-turned ball cap. He favors sleeveless shirts that show off wiry arms, and too-big pants whose cuffs almost swallow the tops and back of his scuffed and scarred hiking boots. In short, he grooms and dresses like the delinquent loser he is, the kind who skips most of his classes to hang out by the portables smoking pot—and not because it's cool but because he has no other ambition than to get high and dodge the pain of learning.

But he's also so pretty! He has a soft, vulnerable face, with big, dark eyes that are watchful and a little haunted—like a puppy that wants, but is too wary to ask. They give him the air of a child—almost a male waif—instead of the delinquent that his reputation suggests.

At least, in the pressure of the moment, that's the only thing that can explain your desire to take him in your arms, to coo and cuddle him, and brush the hair from his face and kiss life's little wounds away from his lips. That's the kind of thing that Madison, to her own horror, has caught herself fantasizing as she's watched him from a distance in the Personal Fitness class they share.

So it's a hell of a crush—for yourself as well as your borrowed persona—that you are suffering now.

* * * * *

It's also a hell of a thing (you discover) to be a natural talker. You find you can't shut up once you start explaining your first lie, and you can't stop adding new lies, and filling in the details of those lies with yet more lies, all while being unable to drag your gaze away from Micah's open and curious stare.

"I'm waiting for a friend," you stammer. "Jenny, uh, Ashmore?"

"You go to Eastman?" A crease of puzzlement disfigures his clear brow.

"No, I'm— I'm homeschooled." You twirl your finger in the air to indicate what a stupid thing it is to be "homeschooled."

"Oh, that's cool," he says. "My mom tried homeschooling me when I was, like, ten. She had to give up. What's your name?"

"Uh, Mickey. It's a nickname for, uh, Michelle."

"Oh, that's cool," he says. (It seems to be a catchphrase with him.) "Micah and Mickey," he murmurs. "Micah and Michelle. You let anyone call you 'Michelle'?"

"Well, uh, my grandmother—"

"'Wouldj'a let me call you 'Michelle'?"

"Uh ... Why?"

"I 'unno. Maybe 'cos it comes out easier. 'Micah'n Michelle."

"Well, I mean—"

"So where d'you live?"

Oof! "Um, down south of town. Kind of close to the wilderness."

"Oh, you go out there a lot?"

"Well ... Sometimes—"

"I like to hike out there sometimes. Go out, get myself lost, do some thinking. We should go out'n do that together sometime. Whaddaya do when you're not studying?"

So you are forced to establish that you like to swim and ride your bike and sometimes hike in the Wilderness, and that you've got friends at both Westside and Eastman, and that you want to be a graphic designer or maybe an interior decorator when you grow up, and that naturally you're terrified of going off to college (though maybe it won't be too bad if you wind up going to Keyserling) and that you don't think there's anything wrong with being homeschooled, only that it is kind of hard to meet new people except through the friends you already have but sometimes it's hard keeping connected with them.

And the whole time Micah listens with a sober interest, pushing you just enough that you can't stop making up answers, while offering very little about himself, save that he has a weekend job bagging groceries at Eagle Foods, and that he has two cousins who attend Eastman. Twin brothers, in fact, but they're not identical and no one has any trouble telling them apart.

But then comes the moment that you're dreading, when he asks for your number. You have no number to give him, of course, save for "Will Prescott's," and how would you explain that? But when you try to demur, telling him that you don't think you'll be seeing him again, he casually bats away your excuse.

"Sure you're gonna see me," he says. "I 'unno," he answers when you ask him how. "I just know it. Like when you feel something's gonna happen for sure. So gimme your number, 'cos I'm gonna call you." And when you finally tell him that your mom checks your phone and won't want to see calls or texts from strange boys (which you hope will be a turn off for him) he just tells you to give him your x2z.com handle, and then takes your phone and sets an account up for you when you tell him you don't have one.

"You gotta be sure to check it," he says as he give the phone back. "You won't see my DM if you don't."

The bell rings soon after, and he saunters coolly away, leaving you exhausted and trembling.

* * * * *

After that, your ambush of Jenny Ashton is almost an anticlimax. You wait until she's she's settled at a library table with her phone, then sneak around to touch her on the back of the head with the metal band. She falls forward, and you catch her and arrange her to look like she's napping with her head on the table, and watch her. (During the time you're waiting, you send her a text telling her that something came up and you won't be able to see her after all about that "girl Caleb is interested in".) The danger is that one of her friends might come looking for her, but nothing happens during the ten minutes that she's unconscious, and when the metal band appears on the back of her head you pick it up with forefinger and thumb, confirm that her name now appears on it, then make the fastest dash ever for the parking lot and your truck. You throw yourself, panting and gulping from all the adrenaline, into the passenger seat.

"How'd it go?" Caleb asks as he turns over the motor.

"Got it, no problem," you reply between gasps. "Worst part was waiting."

"Why?" he asks. "Some guy come in and flirt with you?"

You whirl with a squeal. "How'd—? Who told—?" you demand before you can stop yourself. You gape at Caleb as he gives you a mild look.

And you gape at him just a little too long: long enough for him to make the deduction.

"Whoa!" he says as his eyes widen. "You did get flirted with!" He grins. "Didn't you?"

"No, I—! Shut up!" you yell as Caleb howls with laughter. "It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my idea! Anyway it wasn't flirting—"

"Sure it wasn't!" he chortles. "But tell me all about it, man! I'm not puttin' this thing in motion until you do!"

So, with red-faced grimness, you relate the absolute minimum about how you were followed back into the library by someone from one of Madison's classes, and how he spent all of seventh period talking to you. And when you get to the part about the guy setting up an x2z account for you—or for "Mickey," actually—Caleb insists that you check it right then and there for DMs.

And, God damn it, there is one:

Me n cuziens doing party F nite want u and ur frnds all cum.

"What?" Caleb asks in answer to your guttural, "Oh my Gawd!"

"Nothing!"

You try to put the phone away, but he's stopped behind a dozen cars waiting to exit the lot, and is able to reach over and wrest the phone away from you. He chortles over it, and over your burning face.

"We're going, Will," he says. "DM him back, saying you're coming."

Next: "The Party Gang" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"