Homecoming

I grabbed a comb, brush, dry shampoo, and hairspray from the bathroom. Just in case we wouldn’t be able to get back home before school started.

Today was not a particularly good day for Connor, and it’s only four ten am.

I run through my house looking for today’s essentials. I ran to the kitchen, getting pop tarts, his favorite, then back to the bathroom, for butterfly bandages.

Rushing into the living room, I grab my backpack and yell loud enough to wake my dad up to let him know I was leaving earlier than usual. It’s four twelve as I rush down my porch and to the repeatedly honking black SUV. I get in and Conner hits the gas, I buckling in my seat belt quickly and hold onto the dashboard. “I can’t fucking believe that little bitch!” Connor tears one death-gripping hand from the steering wheel to toss his phone from his lap to me, his eyes still trying to burn holes into the road.

‘Morning, Homecoming king!’I read first. ‘Are you ready to play my game? You’ve got two and a half hours to finish this dare.’ I chuckle, “What the fuck do they think this is, Saw?”

“Apparent-fucking-ly,” Connor replies bitterly with wild hair, red eyes and PJ’s on. I smirk at the sight, but then remember how upset I’m supposed to be.

“I don’t think that kid fucking knows me Nate, I’m gonna fucking kill that little bitch, just wait, ‘cause I’m gonna hunt that mother fucking cock-sucking son of a bitch down and strangle him while…”

‘You guys didn’t fuck long before passing out. Don’t worry, I didn’t watch, but boy could I hear even from outside the room. When all the moans of ‘oh fuck Nate, Nate, Nate, akdjfhdieksjlkfuckshitdamn NATE!’ ceased, I went in and snapped a picture.’ I gasp. Connor’s still talking, or threatening.

“And if it’s a girl, I’m gonna get Kailie to fucking kill that mother fucking slut hoe bitch trailer fucking trash, cocking sucking…” I ignore him because he always does this when he’s mad.
‘Then got it professionally developed and copied it one hundred times. Those pictures are posted all over the school as I type this.’ I look up out the windshield to see we’re heading in the direction of school, which I figured, but, “How the fuck are we supposed to get in?”

‘If you can get in and take them all down before kids start coming then I guess your secrets still safe with me until the next dare. that is if you can find them all. you may need help.’ And that was the last of the messages from this morning. I close the phone and don’t waste time with being shocked before trying to figure out a way into the school before hours.

“There’s a pool door, isn’t it?” Sleepy Connor mutters after a stream of random cursing. “Ginger!” I immediately think, “She’s swim team captain and should have a key.”
The tires of the truck screech as Connor skids to a stop. His head snaps over to me with this slightly crazed look in his eyes, he starts shaking his head furiously, “No, no, no, no, no. No. NO! We’d have to tell her why!”

I tense. “And?” I can almost feel my best friends urge to hit me as his hand twitches, his face reddens, and smoke nearly blows out his ears. “Get that crazy look off your face, Connor. Would you rather my second best friend to know or the whole entire school?” I’m trying to be the cool, calm, and collected one. I wonder if he’s noticed my shocking level-headedness with all this since the beginning.

Let’s clear this up, shall we? I’m gay.

Another thing, no one knows. And that’s the end of it for now.

I quickly text Ginger, ‘Emergency; be there in like…two.’

His car makes a quick illegal u-turn in the direction of Ginger’s house as I clutch the door and dash, wincing. “Now that horse-fucking ass sucking trick hoe slut cunt is really gonna get it…” Connor gets there in record time, even though we wasted five minutes driving all the way to school first. As I see Connor pull his hand back to honk the horn, I grab it, “It’s four in the fucking morning.” I know he considers still doing it for just a second just to piss off Ginger, but refrains and I jump out the truck and head around to her backyard. I grab some pebbles from the flower bed lining the back of the house and back up, looking straight at her bedroom window, I aim, my tongue even sticking out the side of my mouth and my eyes narrowed as I throw the first pebble. It’s hits the middle of the window and I wait a few seconds before throwing another, waiting, throwing another, waiting, and throwing another that goes straight through the glass. I wince then bite my lip. The light immediately flicks on and the window is swung open to revile an angry, super curly haired Ginger with a death glare stuck on her un-made face. “Nate, I’m gonna beat your ass if you don’t have a good reason for this!”

I cut to the chase, “You have a pool key, right?”

Ginger folds her arm, her eyes still narrowed as if considering whether or not to tell me the truth, “Yeah…”

I think about the dare, a hundred pictures…all over our huge school. “Throw on some clothes, get the key, and come down.”

“What?! No, do you know what time it is? Why the hell do you want to break into the school?”
“Connor and I are being blackmailed and as we speak, we’re wasting the two hours we have starting at four am to get into school and find and dispose of one hundred…compromising pictures of us.”

She cocks an eyebrow, “How compromising?” Bitch. I look at my phone, four twenty- I guess Connor does too, because this time he can’t resist the urge to honk the horn hard and loud.
“That fucking douche bag!” She shouts and I sigh.

“It’s a long story…” I look away from the window for a moment.

I hear shuffling and then the window closing, I rush to the front door, Connor honks the horn again as I pass him in the driveway and I flip him off.

Ginger comes out in sweats with un-straightened hair in a ponytail and keys dangling in her hand, “I’m doing this for you, Natey. If it was just him, I’d let his reputation burn and kick the ashes.”
I roll my eyes and nod as she slides into the backseat. They don’t greet each other as Connor speeds out the drive and towards the school once again.

We get there sooner than expected and all jump out and start running for the pool door.
Ginger puts the key in the lock and opens the door to revile pitch black, “Stay here.” She puts her hand on the wall and lets it guide her to where I guess was a switch as the pool room lights up. There have to be at least twenty-five pictures of me and Connor too close together on navy jersey sheets, fully exposed, knocked out, and my leg over his with his hand loosely in my hair. “Oh my fucking God!” Ginger screeches. “You guys fucked?!” Her eyes widen and her mouth drops, her hands flying to her cheeks like the kid from ‘Home Alone’, I bite my lip to stop from laughing.

She looks over to us for an answer, as if it wasn’t already obvious. “I-I me-mean um when…?”

Conner’s eyes widen and he starts hyperventilating, he pushes his hair off his face and that’s when I see the trail of blood down the side of his face. He calms down and rushes, starting to rip down the pictures before I can pull out the bandages I just remembered I had brought. “Count every one of them so we know we got a hundred!”

Ginger, noticing the seriousness of the situation, because otherwise she never would have never listened to anything Connor said, does as told.

I’m just standing there, looking at the pictures lining the walls and run to the other side of the gym and out the door, the automatic lights turn on and pictures are lined sporadically along the halls. My mouth, stomach, and heart drop. In my state of shock, Connor and Ginger run up and I look over to them, Ginger’s green eyes are wider than ever and Connor’s are once again glazed over, his bottom lip quivering and suddenly tears are itching at my eyes too. At the same time, we start running down the halls chaotically and ripping counted pictures off the walls.

At five o’clock we have forty pictures.

At five thirty we have sixty.

At six we only have eighty five and a half hour left.

This is when the dare gets hard. There are no more obvious pictures on the walls, they are hiding places like on bathroom mirrors, posted under cafeteria tables, folded into tiny squares and tossed on the floor.

We’re working up a sweat by six ten while running around an empty half-lit high school in out pajamas.

Finally, at six twenty, we’re spotted.

“Hey! Hey, how’d you get in here? Who are you!?” The janitor shouts down the hall, we all look at each other before making a mad dash towards the pool. I can hear the dangling of his keys are he chases, but we’re far too fast as he doesn’t even make it into the pool room by the time we’re jumping into the car. We’re all panting looking horrible with bed heads and half-dressed with ripped sexual pictures in our hands.

Suddenly Connor freezes and his head drops onto the steering wheel, thankfully missing the center where the horn is. “What’s…wrong?” Ginger asks that and I’m surprised, only not as much as I would have been before this incident. I’d like to think this little dare has brought us just a tad bit closer together.

“Th…” He pants loud, being the one who worked the hardest, “The-there’s only. We-we only got ninety-nine. Ninety-nine!” He pulls his head up quickly and hits the steering wheel, making the horn screech then starts pulling at his hair, looking crazier than ever. I take his hands into mines, pulling them from his black locks and then put my hands on his cheeks, “Connor, calm down.”

“How can I!?” He screams in my face and I jump a little, startled, then he looks at me with apologetic eyes, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Nate. I just…It’s just that picture, that one picture could be it.”

“No,” We’re looking into each other’s eyes, “It’s not.” I pull the butterfly bandages out my pocket and push his hair out his face to patch the cut from when he fell out of bed and hit his head on his nightstand this morning.

I pull the pop tarts out my bag and hand them each one. I can tell we’re all thinking about the dare we’d just…almost…finished as we eat and there are now slight smiles on our faces.

X

Connor still looks pissed off; like he wants to punch a brick wall, or even better, someone’s face. After dropping Ginger off and thanking her, we had about twenty minutes to get ready at my house, more time than was expected actually. All Conner did was shower, do his hair and put back on his plaid pajama pants and hoodie, not his usual style.

Right now, people were avoiding out path as we walked to our lockers, eyes scanning everywhere for the last picture. Before opening his locker, he punches it, fuming then spins the dial as people walk past him, staring. He turns around before opening it but I cover his mouth before he can let out a vicious string of curses. I turn him back around and tell people to just fuck off.

And as soon as he opens his locker, taped right on the door is the last picture. His dark circles eyes glare and rip it down quicker than I’ve ever seen anyone do anything and rip it into a million pieces. He lets out all his anger onto it, glaring at the shrinking image, not afraid of paper cuts. I’ve never appreciated photography so much. I watch as the papers fall and a quick tear rolls down my cheek but I angrily wipe it away. Exhausted Conner looks up at me after his job is done and smiles, but I can’t seem to return it.