The Richardson List

A pimple. It sat on Carter’s forehead, penetrating her pale skin and almost shouting about its own existence with its incredible redness. She stared at it with horror, wondering how it could appear in one night’s time and be that large. She attempted to pop it, maybe bring down the swelling but she had no luck.

There was no getting rid of this thing.

And even though her bangs thankfully fell over the putrid pimple, she couldn’t get her mind off of it. As she ate breakfast, her usual Rice Krispies cereal with precisely two teaspoon of sugar thrown in, it was as if she could feel it growing on her forehead. And as she fumbled around trying to put her shoes on, hopping on one foot while trying to slip her converse onto her feet all she could think about was the red bump making its residence on her face. As she climbed onto the bus with Cole in tow, she self consciously lowered her head, her gaze resting on her feet as she made her way to the grab a seat.

Cole hadn’t noticed until she lifted her bangs and pointed the blemish out, only to laugh at her paranoia afterward. Carter rolled her eyes at his reaction, remembering that he of course had no idea what she was going through. Audrey would understand though, she wondered how she could live without her best friend. But for the remaining time in the bus she let herself relax and make easy conversation with Cole.

Once she stepped into the school doors though, she instantly felt the paranoia engulf her being once again, and even though she cursed herself for caring so much about a mere spot she couldn’t shake off the feeling that everyone was staring at her.

It was like the all knew.

She was snapped out of her worries when Cole clasped a hand over her shoulder, turning her to face him once again. She smiled when their gazes met before her eyes trailed down to the pens in his hand.

“You only get three today, got it?” Cole checked, handing over the three pens to Carter who quickly took her chance to snatch them from his grasp.

Rolling his eyes he sighed at her actions, yet still was evidently amused by the small smile on his face.

She looked them over and attempted a frown, something she could never get the hang of without looking quite admittedly stupid. “Can I have just one more blue one?” she asked hopefully, stretching her lips into a somewhat smile.

Carter had, well you could call it a small habit. A habit of losing many things. The smaller the object, the more likely it would be misplaced. Pens were what most people would call a smaller object, hence the reason she was always running out of her supply.

Cole on the other hand had millions for both his parents worked in offices and he would always find stray pens lying around his household. Knowing about her incapability to actually not lose pens and pencils, he would always bring a few for her each day. By the end of the day she would hand back any she still had left for the next day.

She didn’t know why, but each day she would always get one red, one blue, and one black pen. Every so often if she was lucky a pencil would be handed to her, but usually it was those three colored pens. Every morning they had almost a ritual before they parted their ways when he would hand over her daily pen supply.

It was like a routine, almost.

He shook his head at her plea.

“Three’s enough, it’ll do you the day. See you later!” His stern voice left no room for argument or any more of Carter’s whining, much to her dismay. With that he walked away, leaving Carter with only three pens in hand.

After she got her books she entered the class with an uneasy stomach, the thought of facing Skye disrupting the contents in her tummy once more. Her gaze fell on Audrey first, an eager smile intruding on her face. When Audrey looked up and saw Carter, she beckoned her enthusiastically, undoubtedly to tell her something that was exciting her.

Audrey never came to class early, always taking her sweet time in the halls for no reason whatsoever. Even though Carter wondered why should would be there at all, another problem easily overtook this one when she stole the seat beside her.

“Audrey, I’ve got a problem.”

Even though the blonde was obviously awaiting Carter so she could share her own exciting news, she quickly pushed that off her mind and gave her friend a concerned look, allowing Carter to spill her zit dilemma.

The second she explained about her early morning discovery Audrey was rummaging through her bags frantically, producing an acne spot treatment in a matter of seconds.

“It’s under your bangs right?” she asked and Carter nodded, staring at the cream in Audrey’s hand.

She quickly lifted Carter’s hair and squeezed the substance on the intruder, snapping the cap back on and stuffing it back into her bag before Carter could even register what had just happened.

“That’ll just make it less noticeable. Thank god it’s under you bangs. Imagine if someone had seen it!” A look a relief crossed her face as let out an airy laugh, applying a shimmering lip gloss onto her lips, smacking them together and making a popping sound.

What terrified Carter the most was the truth behind her words. As she looked around every girl was fixing their hair or applying that last bit of vital make-up, hollowing their cheeks and puckering their lips. Audrey had braided a small bit of her hair today, letting the rest fall down her back and was now touching it thoughtfully, wondering if she had made a good hairstyle choice that morning.

The girl sharing the two-seater desk with Audrey entered the room and Carter took this as her cue to return to her seat, picking up her books and smiling as a goodbye. Audrey absently waved, her eyes distantly staring out at the front. Shaking her head, Carter smiled at her friend’s behavior and dropped her books on her desk, fully aware of Skye texting on his phone inconspicuously beside her.

When the hard cover books made contact with the desk he instantly looked up, snapping his phone closed and sliding it into his pocket with a smile.

“Carter, hey,” he greeted her warm-heartedly as she slid into the plastic chair.

For a moment she wondered if through her bangs, if her pimple was exposed. It worried her for a moment with Skye’s gaze on her, but as she caught her reflection in one of the many mirrors held in a freshly manicured hand, she found that it was covered and her bangs were fine.

For a moment she hesitated, eyeing him skeptically before replying.

“Hi…” She didn’t look him in the eye, flipping open her text and staring down at the pages.

“Thank god it’s finally Friday, right?” he asked, blatantly trying to make some sort of conversation with Carter.

She looked up from her books to see him leaning back in his seat, one hand resting on the nape of his neck. How odd, she thought to herself, that he would be talking to her.

With a blank face she nodded, afterward smiling slightly, relishing that tomorrow she would finally be able to escape from the wretched school. But at the back of her mind she wondered why he was talking to her, being friendly. Her assumptions were right before, he was a people-person, but not to her.

But he seemed to look past this fact and continued the dying conversation, useless small talk that Carter wondered why he would even persist with such lost causes.

“Yeah, so what are you doing this weekend?” he asked, acting as if he was genuinely interested, but at this point she didn’t know whether he was true or just a very good actor.

Her reply was a lackluster shrug, seeing as she honestly had no idea what her plans for the day after would be. Usually she left the arranging to Audrey, afterward finding out what she would be doing. Sometimes she found herself participating in events that she would rather not even hear about, but that was her life.

He cocked his head and let his arm drop. “You aren’t going to Matt’s party tomorrow? Everyone’s going, you know,” he told her.

She did in fact already know this. Matt was known for having crazy, full-out parties, but Carter hardly ever showed up at any. This time looked no different. She didn’t really have a scene, but she knew she’d incredibly out of place.

“Should I be?” she asked, pulling out a blue pen from her pocket and placing it on the desk, praying that it wouldn’t magically disappear as it always did the second her eyes left the thing.

A small smirk found its way onto his face as he looked over at Carter. “Why not? Parties are always fun,” he pointed out with a shrug.

Carter was about to disagree, as for many parties were not fun, but the teacher walked in and all conversation hushed.

“Well, sure,” she whispered, looking over to see if he had heard, which he did. But of course, parties were only fun if you were someone like Skye.

He leaned in closer, his eyes still staying fixed up at the front, looking like he was actually semi-focusing on the words that were slipping from the teacher’s lips.

“Well, why don’t you come then?”

As the words were whispered gently in Carter’s ear, she wondered why it slightly sounded like he actually wanted her to come to this party.

Then she realized that the idea was delusional and stupid and completely unconceivable. And she felt dumb for even thinking it for a second.

“Um, I think that uh, Audrey, yeah, she already has something planned,” she made up on the spot, thankful that it sounded somewhat believable.

He raised an eyebrow and grabbed the pen from her desk, pulling out a sheet of paper from his backpack after. Carter watched intently, wanting to grab her pen back for the obvious reason that she needed it, and that she wasn’t very keen on sharing her precious items.

But, being genuinely interesting on what he was about to do, she kept her mouth shut and watched as he wrote something on a sheet of paper. Unfortunately, she couldn’t read the words because in a matter of seconds he had folded it and was throwing it around her. The teacher had his back turned to them so Skye wasn’t caught as it flew through the air and dropped on Audrey’s desk.

Audrey casted her eyes over to Carter who gave the girl a shrug, her eyes resting once again on the mysterious piece of paper. The blonde fumbled with the sheet in her hand, unfolding it and quickly reading the messy print inside. A small smile slipped onto her glossy lips as she quickly replied to the note, pressing her pen down onto the pen with such force for the words wouldn’t write themselves fast enough.

Once she had she folded the paper back up and handed it to Carter, who was very tempted to open it and read it herself but passed it on to Skye in the end without ever so much as a peek. When Skye opened it she tried to discreetly glance at it but once he read the contents, he smirked and rolled it up into a ball.

They were too quick.

“Well,” he began with the smirk still present on his face, “seems you’re free, and your friend is going to the party, so I guess you are too.”

Looking over, Carter saw Audrey with a smile on her face, deep in thought about something. A hint of betrayal was in Carter’s eyes as she stared back down at her desk.

“Well, this is going to go swimmingly,” she said, her words laced with sarcasm, a sigh escaping her lips afterward.

“Did you just say swimmingly?” Skye asked with in amusement, a signature smirk on his lips.

Carter felt her skin burn with embarrassment as she turned her head to see a delighted spark in his eyes.

“That’s beside the point,” she mumbled and heard a chuckle ring through her ears.