The Richardson List

Cole had decided to accompany Carter on the bus on that day, his familiar figure leaning against the bus stop sign. She hadn’t noticed her friend until he called out her name, waving his hand in the air trying to gain her attention.

Her gaze had been focused on the road beneath her, her mind focused on something entirely different. Her thoughts centered on Skye, as she again attempted to somewhat figure out the mysterious boy. This proved to be an impossible task; too many gaps and secrets were unknown for her to even begin to understand him.

During math the day before, he hadn’t even mentioned anything that wasn’t school-related, and once again was engrossed by his precious cell phone the rest of the class when he wasn’t asking Carter for help.

She was way past confused. He had done everything for her that a boy would do for his girlfriend. Not only had he kissed her, if this were the only thing she could have easily understood that he wanted to use her, but he had walked her to class. He had ditched his friends during lunch to hang out with her. Not a lot of guys would do that, she heard more than enough complaints from angry girlfriends.

If he was simply using her, he would’ve just kissed her. He knew he would be able to get away with it. But he did all those things. And now he was acting as if he didn’t.

When she saw Cole, Carter returned the wave.

That morning she had been quite weary and was unusually slow with her daily routine, which is why she was later then usual to leave her house. It was no surprise that as she moseyed down the sidewalk the bus was approaching its designated stop.

She broke into a jog and the bus waited for her to catch up, which only stole a few moments. The bus driver still gave Carter an irritated glare as she flashed her bus pass; however she chose it ignore it. Bus driver’s never seemed to be in a cheery mood.

Her gaze trailed along the seats, passed a few empty spaces and over a few familiar faces, until it stopped on Cole. His head was bowed and eyes were fixated on his lap, what he was staring at was concealed by the seat in front but Carter knew it was his cell phone.

Trudging down the isle, she ran her fingers through her bangs.

“Hey Cole,” she greeted him politely before swinging into the seat next to him, dropping her backpack in front of her.

Cole’s response was delayed as he quickly finished up his text, brows furrowed and worry lines creasing his forehead. Once he had finished he hummed momentarily and met her gaze.

“Hey Carter,” he returned with a smile, clearly distracted by something else.

Even though the girl had noticed something was troubling her friend, she made no attempt to ask him what exactly was bothering him and avoided it completely. On any other occasion she would have loved to hear Cole’s thoughts, but lately she had her own problems to deal with. It was selfish, that much she could admit, but if she simply acted as if she were oblivious he would never know the difference.

And Carter knew from experience that Cole wasn’t an open book in the slightest and on many occasions it took her plenty of pleading to try and crack him open.

Instead she grinned back at the boy.

“What’s good?” she asked, this was far from an invitation to hear his troubles, she kept it casual, nonchalant.

“Uh,” he sighed, mauling over something for a few moments. She watched gingerly, wondering if he was going to spill. “Lot’s of things, you?”

“Math test today.”

“With Wyler? That’s gonna be crap.” He laughed.

Carter never openly expressed her dislike for any of her teachers, unlike many students that she could name, but it didn’t mean that a select few weren’t able to tug on her nerves. Mr. Wyler with his excruciatingly long explanations about nothing in his agonizingly monotone voice being something that easily irritated her.

The rest of the bus ride had been consumed with mindless small talk, Carter quickly escaping into the school before Cole could voice his dilemma.



Skye had invited Carter to lunch once again. During Math he had slipped her a note, his familiar scrawl in blank ink had proposed the idea. She quickly wrote back, in her much neater writing, and agreed. He sent her a thumbs up.

They had met in front of the cafeteria doors where it was crowded as it always was, with students who felt they were too cool to eat. That or they either had no money. Most likely trying to play it off as the former.

When Carter saw him, he beckoned her over with a swift wave of his hand. She followed the command as he said his goodbyes to the surrounding group of people before turning to Carter with a slight smirk.

“Hey Skye,” she greeted him. “Where are we going to eat today?

“Outside.” He began walking towards the exit, glancing over his shoulder to see if Carter was keeping up with him.

Carter scrambled beside him, hiking her backpack higher over her shoulder. It still hung low, falling under the small of back. Audrey had altered if after she had bought the thing, claiming that Carter looked dorky if she wore it otherwise without her expertise. She hadn’t heard any of her advice in a while, now that she thought about it.

“Oh, okay,” she mumbled, the palm of her hand finding the nape of her neck. “I’m good with whatever.”

Another smirk was directed her way and she found herself hurriedly try and find something to say. Deeming her results useless, as her brain power had come up with nothing, she settled on quietly following Skye.

He led her to the other side of the school where not many people sat; a few stoners had gathered and were leaning against the wide brick wall and others were also hanging around. She was confused on why he would take her here.

Skye seemed to notice this because he smiled at her with reassurance.

“Thought we might like some privacy, you know?” He stole one of the vacant picnic tables and stared at the seat across from him, expecting Carter to sit down.

She did as he wanted and dumped her own being adjacent to him and let her bag fall to the grass beneath them.

“Privacy, yeah,” Carter hummed, inspecting her surroundings.

She never came over to this part of the school, having no classes in this part and never finding any reason to be here.

This part was mostly where the potheads and smokers hung out because there was a smoke pit nearby. It also gave the aforementioned privacy, but that was used so that they wouldn’t get caught dealing. And that was precisely what a few of them were partaking in, well Carter could only assume by the few close huddles of teenagers.

Carter didn’t really know why, but her remark had caused Skye to chuckle lightly. She cast him a questioning stare.

“You look so confused, and scared. No one’s going to jump at you,” he teased her. It seemed that he had noticed her cautious stares.

“Well, you never know,” she mumbled defensively, wrapping her arms tightly around her being. They weren’t rabid, she knew that. Still, the chances were still alive.

“Don’t worry about it, if they try anything I’ll protect you.” The words seemed to roll of his tongue easily, accompanied by a wink.

She hoped that her eyes didn’t grow wide at his comment for inside she certainly felt a little shocked. He placed his palms on the wooden table and pushed himself up, his eyes remaining on Carter.

Before Carter could register anything his lips were on hers once again, and the familiar stomach flip had returned.

“Carter?” A voice rang through Carter’s ears, causing her eyes to crack open in shock. The voice was familiar.

Breaking apart from Skye she snapped her gaze to the owner of said voice, which was a certain blonde. Immediately her heart sped up and guilt flashed over her features.

She had been caught kissing Skye by Audrey.

“Oh, I have to go talk to someone, see you later Carter!” Skye quickly excused himself from the situation, escaping the wrath that Carter knew Audrey was harbouring. Her eyes watched as he quickly sneaked away, wishing that she could do the same. However, she wasn’t the lucky one.

“Hey Audrey,” she greeted her friend timidly, rubbing the back of her neck and sending Audrey a sheepish smile. Slowly she stood up and waved at her friend.

Audrey’s features darkened, a harsh glare fixated on Carter. This was not going to be good.

“Hey Audrey, hey fucking Audrey!? That’s all you got!” she sneered, causing Carter to cringe at her words.

“How’s it going?” she attempted meekly, avoiding Audrey’s gaze.

It seemed that her choice of words weren’t the correct ones, because Audrey’s fists tensed at her sides.

“How’s it going? Well fuck, I don’t know. I just caught my supposed ‘best friend’ sucking face with the guy I’ve been fucking crushing on forever! The guy she knew I liked! So tell me Carter, how the fuck is it going?” Her words were acidic and eyes tearing Carter apart excruciatingly.

Carter was stunned to say the least, unable to think of any retort to her words.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, this being the best she was able to come up with in the limited time.

“I’m sorry?” the blonde echoed, evidently displeased once again with Carter’s answer. “You’re fucking sorry!? What, did you ‘accidentally’ try and suck his face off!?”

“Just let me explain-” Carter began to plead, trying to think of anything to try and calm Audrey down, something that seemed impossible at that point.

“Explain, you want to fucking explain this?” she exploded once again, her voice growing dangerously low at the end, almost forming a growl.

“Could you just calm down for a goddamn moment!” Carter cracked, running her fingers through her bangs. Sometimes, she just wanted her friend to shut up. “I kissed him! That’s right Audrey, I kissed Skye and you didn’t! He chose me! And guess what? I kind of like him too! Why can’t you just be happy for me? Why does everything always have to be Audrey this and Audrey that!?” Carter gained more confidence as with each word that spilled from her lips. Soon she had no control over what she was saying.

Audrey was taken aback from his, astonishment written upon her face. It didn’t take her long to recover.

“You lied to me! You said that you didn’t care about him! You fucking lied while I was going on about how much I liked him! You were just trying to suck his dick!” the blonde continued to rave, jaw clenched afterward.

A moment of silence passed between the two as Carter hesitated, their heavy breathing mingling in the air. Carter opened her mouth, about to lash out once more and release the pent up anger that was infecting her being.

But, she was cut off by another voice, “Hey Audrey, you going to the party this weekend? I’ll roll you a joint!” The boy said before walking away, disappearing with a wink directed towards Audrey.

Carter stole another moment, scrutinizing Audrey’s face, guilt and shock drowning in her eyes. After processing this information, making a few inferences of her own, she narrowed her eyes in a deathly stare towards Audrey.

“Lies. You think you have any right to talk about lying? ROLL A JOINT. So that’s what you did at the “super boring party”! I bet that it was such a DRAG,” Carter rambled, hurt concealed in her eyes.

She was hurt that Audrey had lied, but then again she did the exact same thing. Honestly, she didn’t know what to do.

Audrey glared at her, her blue eyes directing more hate then Carter had ever seen.

“So fucking what!? At least I didn’t go around whoring myself around!”

“Audrey just, just go away.”

“Well, don’t you fucking go crying to me! We’re through!”

Carter didn’t know how to respond, or what else there was to say. So, instead she simply trudged off in the direction back to the school doors, abandoning a fuming Audrey.

Her mind spun as she tried to process what had just happened.

Did she just lose her best friend?