Thrill of the Fall

It didn’t take Alex long to figure out who the author of Astin’s letter was. Even though he was shy and kept to himself he was extremely observant. He excelled in his psychology electives, earning him the nickname of “Freud” from Evie, who couldn’t have cared less about egos and the different levels of subconsciousness. Once word got out within the triangle of friends that Astin had a secret admirer, Alex wasn’t phased. There were only a few boys in their senior class that didn’t have the courage to talk to his best friend. He could understand why; her reputation had a habit of overshadowing her. But most males, with their 18-year-old wisdom and hormones, saw Astin as a challenge. They liked the easy girls anyway, for they didn’t value intelligence over a couple inches. It was rare, in their high school, to find a guy who genuinely had a girl’s best interests at heart. Alex knew those guys quite well seeing as he’d met them on numerous occasions.

The Lawson family didn’t have money like the Caignon’s did. Alex’s mother worked as a kindergarten teacher while his father owned a construction company. For everyone but Astin’s parents, the recession hit hard. Because of this, Alex found himself a job at the local music store. It wasn’t anything fancy. The carpet was stained with years of water damage and it almost always smelled musty, but the nine dollars and fifteen cents he earned per hour made it worth it. Besides, when the store wasn’t busy (which it typically wasn’t), his boss allowed him to pull out his guitar and play. There were a handful of regulars that frequented the store more often than only when they needed new strings. Five kids from his school were included. Alex had never heard their band’s music but he knew the girls loved it. They were gaining popularity all around town but if it wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll from the 1950s Alex wasn’t interested.

One of the members of the band stood out to him more than the other four. Not only because of his appearance, but because he shied away from the spotlight the most. It was ironic to Alex because he assumed he fronted the band. He never came in and asked instrument-related questions. In fact, the only time he ever came in at all was when he was with another member of the band. After having multiple lengthy conversations with one of the guitarists about strings, pedals and cabinets, it was almost impossible to forget their faces. He never caught a name, though, and he surely didn’t know what their band was called.

Alex didn’t understand how he instantly knew who’d written the letter. While Evie was skimming through the previous year’s yearbook in search of who it could have been, he kept quiet. If he was wrong he didn’t want to falsely accuse anyone, especially if Astin didn’t react to his suspect positively. All he had were assumptions. Since they weren’t fact, he decided it was better just to keep his mouth shut and wait to find out just like the two girls were. The only thoughts that comforted him were that his suspect was a good guy. He didn’t have a reputation like Astin’s or Evie’s, even though those two couldn’t have been more different. He frequented the same parties as Ev but no raunchy stories ever surfaced about him. In reality his record was squeaky clean -- exactly what Astin needed.

As the trio of friends sat at their usual lunch table, Alex tried to ignore the feeling of one-hundred sets of eyes burning through his back. Fortunately for him, he was never involved in the rumors that went around about Astin and Evie. He made sure of that early on when he learned that if you didn’t give them (meaning the members of their class who thrived off gossip and everyone else’s lives) something to talk about, they’d move on to someone who did. It wasn’t until Evie spoke up that he was drawn from his bout of daydreaming.

“Hello? Anybody home in there?” she asked as she waved a perfectly manicured hand in his face. He rolled his eyes. “One, don’t do that. Two, that girl over there is eyeing you like a piece of meat.”

Alex turned around slowly, making sure to look oblivious so the girl didn’t feel awkward once she realized he caught her staring. Once he followed Evie’s line of vision, he identified the culprit: Shelby Warrick.

“She’s pretty, Alex,” Astin said quietly. There was a hint of a smile on her face as well, letting him know she genuinely meant it.

“Yeah,” Evie agreed. “You should go talk to her.”

Alex shook his head and turned back around, facing the two girls who were staring at him with wide eyes. Shelby Warrick was a junior, known around school for losing her virginity to the captain of the baseball team who was three years her senior. As cruel as school children are, he’d earned fifty bucks from his fellow goons who bet him he couldn’t sleep with her before her freshman year was over. Otherwise, she seemed like a nice girl. She was certainly pretty but not anything out of the ordinary. Nothing about her drew him in. It took a lot to catch Alex Lawson’s eye; Shelby Warrick just didn’t have it.

“I don’t know why we even bother trying to get you a girlfriend,” Evie scoffed. She was too busy flipping through a magazine to see Alex give her the finger. Astin chuckled.

“Maybe because I have standards -- unlike you.”

This caught Evie’s attention, for her eyes locked themselves on Alex’s frame like a target. “I do have standards, thank you very much.”

“No, Ev, you don’t. All you require is a dick and two legs and I’m pretty sure if they were hot enough you’d fuck them even if they only had one.”

Alex’s sense of humor was dry. So dry, in fact, that it was practically a desert. Still, Astin watched her two best friends go back and forth with a smile on her face. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for the two of them so she’d learned a long time ago to just let them have at it; they eventually ran out of insults and gave up. Even though it wore on her that her friends couldn’t get along, they rarely placed her in the middle of their disagreements. They knew better.

Once the bell rang, signaling their lunch period was over, Astin collected her things and waited for her friends to do the same. No matter where she was going, she always had one of them by her side. It made walking through the hallways easier. When she had someone to distract her from the way everyone’s eyes always followed her and the way girls would whisper about her, it didn’t bother her as much as it normally would.

“Fuck!” Evie panicked as soon as she reached her classroom. Astin and Alex stared at her with blank expressions on their faces, waiting for her to continue. “I forgot about this paper I had to write.”

Against his better judgment, Alex chuckled. “Of course you did. I’ll let you know how graduation is.”

“Oh, aren’t you hilarious, Alex,” Evie fired. “No one likes comments from the peanut gallery.”

“Now I know how everyone else feels when you open your mouth, only then it’s comments from the cocotte gallery.”

Astin’s eyebrows raised, impressed. “Nice word,” she said quietly, making sure Evie didn’t hear.

“Cocotte? Is that even a word?”

Before anyone could answer, Evie’s British Literature teacher appeared in the doorway. He didn’t look amused with her choice of vocabulary, for he ushered her inside without muttering a word. Alex and Astin shared a glance before shrugging and continuing on to their own classes. For Alex, that meant music composition; for Astin, it was study hall. Alex walked her to her locker before stomping off towards the art wing of their high school. Once Astin entered her combination, another carefully folded note fell out and onto the floor.

She looked around before picking it up. She opened it long enough to see if there was a name signed at the bottom but there wasn’t. Without giving herself a chance to read it thoroughly, she refolded it and put it in her purse. To her, it didn’t feel right reading something so personal in the middle of the school hallway. And she definitely didn’t want the wrong person to walk by and see her. Many scenarios flashed through her mind; the only one that stuck was word getting out about her secret admirer. With the way news traveled, she was sure that whoever was writing them would know their secret was out and would be too embarrassed to continue, even if no one really knew who it was.

Once she got settled in the library, she dug it out of her bag and began reading:

Astin,
I know you don’t know me. You wouldn’t. I’m not like the people you hang out with. Not saying you hang out with bad people or anything -- actually I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just wanted to say that I’ve always found you to be the most beautiful girl in this entire town. I don’t know why people treat you so badly. You don’t deserve it. I don’t know you like that but I know you aren’t who/what people say you are. I hope you’ll find out who I am one day. As of now I’m too fucking chicken shit to tell you up front. Maybe someday soon.

Astin sucked her lips over her teeth to hide her smile. She may not have known who was writing the letters, but she did know they had the near-impossible ability to put a smile on her face.