Becoming the Luna

Virgil is the one driving today and Dale rides shotgun even though it's Dale's car, Virgil's car is supposed to come over the summer break.

They're waiting on the road so I walk down the driveway and out the white gate, I'm in a grey t-shirt and black jeans, a pale pink scarf around my neck.

As I get closer to the back door, three doors open simultaneously, making me step back a bit.

Apparently, Dale and Virgil had wanted to open the door for me but Shana being herself, did it from the inside.

"Thank you." I mutter, getting in.

The mutinous expressions on Dale and Virgil's faces are almost funny but I'm too traumatized to laugh.

"You shouldn't have to wear this scarf if it weren't for those two morons in front." Shana sympathizes with me.

"Ah, it's fine." I mumble distractedly, pulling the scarf higher.

"You don't need to have it on in the car." Shana insists, snatching up the scarf.

I cringe in horror as Dale's and Virgil's eyes fly to my neck at her actions, my hair is even longer now but not long enough to hide the wide, reddish bruise.

Shana doesn't seem to notice the quiet chaos she had caused. "There." She clucks, arranging, and rearranging my hair. "Your neck can breathe some now."

I just lean back into the car seat, resigned to my fate of having their eyes on my neck at every chance they got, maybe I should invest in makeup. Heavens know my mom has enough to drown me.

Shana brings out her books to get some last-minute reading in and Virgil puts on soft music, to act as white noise for their quiet conversation.

I just lean back into the seat with my eyes closed and mind empty, trying not to imagine all the places that Elise could ambush me in.

The rest of the journey to school continues in this fashion and I hope I'll be able to live through exam week without bumping into Elise, at least when we have to meet next year, she might have forgotten about me.

I quickly throw my scarf around my neck and try hard to stop the flush climbing up my neck when Dale opens the door for me, I should be complaining but I didn't the first hundred times so doing it now would be just weird.

I mumble an indistinct sound of appreciation, checking and double-checking to make sure that my scarf is in place, I didn't have the mental fortitude to live through telling anyone why I have a wide ass hickey on my neck so it was best that the scarf stayed on.

School is already in full swing, a somber air coating the students who walked around with books in their faces or huddled around together in groups, trying to catch up on some last-minute reading.

As we walk through the hallway, other students wave and high five Virgil, Dale gets an almost equal attention while I just try my hardest to bury my face inside my scarf.

Shana still has her head buried in what looks like an English textbook by the time we get to our lockers.

"Are you getting anything like that?" I can't help asking her, dropping most of my books in my locker, I wouldn't be needing much anyway.

Shana snaps the book shut and gently bangs her head against her locker. "No." She wails. "Why do I need English anyway?" She asks with sudden fury, whipping around to look at me. "English isn't going to take a blood sample for me is it?" 

I just make a sympathetic sound and pat her shoulder, Virgil was done with whatever he was doing with his locker and Dale hurried to meet us as his locker was quite far away from ours.

We just loiter around, watching the students quietly bustle around when she walks up.

Nina.

A quiet, shy girl with huge glasses which didn't hide her pretty blue eyes.

She tentatively walks up to us with her books in her arms looking pale and shaky like she might pass out.

Shana stops her constant complaints about English to speak first. "Hi Nina!" She says cheerily. "Need something?"

"Um, yeah." The brunette mumbles and I think I hear her voice for the first time, it wasn't that she didn't talk but that I didn't listen, my head is always up in the clouds when I'm away from my friends.

Dale and Virgil that had been holding a conversation over my head turn to stare at her expectantly, making her cringe into herself and blush a dark red.

So it wasn't only me who reacted like that when they both stared with interest, Shana couldn't be human.

"I-I um, wan-wanted to talk to Hayden." She stutters shyly, eyes down and I feel Virgil and Dale become more imposing.

"W-What?!?" I splutter, blinking rapidly. "Me? Are you sure?" I can't help asking, because honestly why would anyone be looking for me?

"Yeah." She twists from side to side before fixing soulful blue eyes on me.

Unconsciously, I step forward, curious to hear what she had to say next. "Oh, what is it?" I ask gently, she's of a similar height to mine so we just stand there staring at each other.

She spends way too long staring at me that I'm starting to become uncomfortable, are my eyes too big? Is my hair too long? What could she want?

"Will you please be my date to the dance?" Nina asks in a rush, her bright blue eyes glassy. 

I go quiet at this, trying to absorb the shock that someone actually wanted me for a date, that someone just asked me on a date.

She glances down slightly at her hands then raises her head once more to fix those baby blues eyes on me.

What the hell am I supposed to say?

"He already has a date, Nina." Virgil steps forward, throwing an arm suggestively around my shoulders and blood climbs up my face.

I'm dying.

"Y-ye-yeah I-I do." I stutter hard, trying for the second time today to hide inside the scarf around my neck.

"Oh." Nina blinks like she hadn't expected it, she moves her eye from Virgil down to me, and the hand wrapped around my shoulders. My cheeks are getting so hot that I'm sure I'm about to evaporate. "I had no…"

"Move away peasant."  Elise shoves Nina away, making her lose her footing and nearly fall but Shana catches her in time, helping her unceremoniously to her feet to walk right beside me to glare at Elise .

"You should invest in glasses, Elise." She says coldly, crossing her arms.

"I haven't heard your response to my proposal V." She says in a sickly sweet voice, blatantly ignoring Shana.

Well, Shana is… Shana and refuses to be ignored. "You seem to have a hard time understanding the word 'no' and please stop texting and calling Virgil, he makes me carry his phone around in my purse."

I glance up briefly at Shana, she doesn't carry purses.

Elise's eyes darken at this and I pray that her wrath doesn't find its outlet through me.

Maybe height is a thing with prayer and only the tall people get answered first because she directs her cold blue eyes at me, a scowl on her coldly beautiful face.

Her hench girls walk up behind her and Mia whispers something in her ear, bleached blonde hair in a tight ponytail.

"So you think you're too good for Nina?" She says coldly to me and I throw my head back.

What?

I don't know how to feel when I find out that Nina had only asked me to the dance because Elise made her but I know I'm not happy at the way she was treated.

"You know I'm starting to get sick of your cliche meanness." I say in a firm voice that probably sounds like a cupcake screaming.

Elise looks incredibly shocked. "Oh wow, someone's starting to grow wings just because V takes an unexplainable passing fancy to you." She leans forward to continue to speak maliciously in a whisper. "Get this, take your ugly gay claws out of my boyfriend or I'll make you pay." She whispers darkly in my ears, out loud, she acts like she's already over it.

"Your scarf isn't bad for someone without taste, right girls?" She throws around airily and her hench girls titter behind her.

I note that Dale, Virgil, and Shana all clench their fists but don't say anything, was Elise that dangerous?

"You know what, this would be perfect to wipe my shoe with." She sprinkles salt on my wounded ego, riding on the wave of Virgil's and Dale's tolerance.

I know the only reason they are all quiet is that I'll get the consequences to whatever actions they make, it makes me clench my fists in anger.

"Right girls." She chants again and the painted zombies behind her giggle viciously, before I can guess her next step she's ripping the scarf off my neck.