Enigma.

The next night, I was getting ready to leave my house to go to the football game. I twisted my hair up into a messy bun and pulled on a school sweatshirt and a pair of dark jeans. For the next three hours, I would be selling more hot chocolate and pretzels than I ever wanted to see in my life. Our team this year hadn’t lost a single game, and tonight, they were playing at home field. I didn’t care too much about the game, but I got paid doing this, ten bucks an hour.

As I jogged down the steps from my bedroom, my mother and father lounged on separate couches, watching something off Netflix. My father was laying on the lounge chair, his eyes fixated on the television screen like this was a one-time special airing of the film and he’d never have the opportunity to see it again. Mom was sprawled out on the couch as she typed away on the computer, looking up every couple seconds to see where the movie had progressed to.

Shaking my head, I walked towards the door, pulling my keys out of the dish on the table there, “I’m leaving guys. I’ll see you at ten.”

They both mumbled for me to stay warm and sell hard. It was always a joke to my father, but if it meant that I could make more money than I was currently making (which was nothing) I might as well go ahead and do the dirty job no one wanted. I saluted them and pulled the door shut tight behind me, my hands going into the pockets of my sweatshirt as a gust of cold air hit me. Winter was finally starting to depart and spring was being welcomed, and in a week, there would be the Spring Formal/Sadie Hawkins Dance.

Climbing into my car, I shook my head at the thought of going to another school dance—one that, in all of four years at school, I never attended. Turning the engine over for a moment, I sighed with content as it purred beneath me. The car ride between my house and school was only ten minutes, but it was ten minutes I spent singing loudly along with the radio.

When I arrived at school, parked my car, and skipped the line, I found that more than half the stands had been jam-packed with people all in Warrior apparel. Some of the people even had their face painted, signs resting against their knees and in their laps as I walked around the back of the concession stand and in through the back entrance. Unlocking it, I pulled the aluminum gate up and watched as a line a mile long filed perfectly at the sound of the gate rolling up. I started brewing three hot chocolate machines and all of the other foods as I started taking orders.

In the minutes before the game started, I worked the hardest and filled hot chocolate up to the rims, secured a lid on it, and handed it off, just like I made hot dogs and pretzels. And a couple people back, I could see him, last in line with her. His arm was around her waist like he was staking a claim and his mouth on her cheek, kissing her like she was a delicate flower. He looked up and saw me, his eyes filling with apologies as he whispered against her cheek and she started jogging over to all of their friends. His name was Jeremy Bender. He was tall with light brown hair, cobalt blue eyes, and lips shaped by angels. He took a year of my life and filled it with a petty lie called love. He kissed me on the cheek like I was a delicate little flower and wound his arm around my waist like he wanted everyone to know that I was his, that no one could have me.

He was wearing a red Madison High School Warriors sweatshirt, much the black one I was wearing. He wore dark blue jeans and the shoes I had bought him for his birthday. I noticed them, my gaze staring a burning hole through his feet, and I wished they had gone up in flames, that my stare had burned him. He had taken a year of my life, filling my head with things like going to the same college and getting an apartment together our sophomore year. He’d broken up with me two months into first semester this year and the feelings were still raw and fresh, the wounds still trying to mend themselves closed.

Jeremy had told me that he couldn’t be with me, couldn’t do this anymore because our lives were “heading in different directions”. Two days later, pressed up against his locker, were Jeremy and Rachel Craddick. His mouth covering hers in a passion that he’d told me only I could spark. I didn’t know her. The only thing I did know about her was that she sat two rows to the right and three seats back from me in our Consumer Science class, third hour. I was so glad that class was only a semester long, because I couldn’t watch him walk her there another semester.

When Jeremy stepped up and flattened his hands against the counter, the first thing out of his mouth, spoken with sympathy, was: “I didn’t know you’d be here tonight.”

Curling a piece of my pale blonde hair behind my ear, I felt my throat thicken with sadness, disappointment, anger—all three, I think. “What can I get for you, sir?”

“Will you look at me?” Jeremy begged, his voice going soft and quiet. “You haven’t spoken a word to me in five months, Codi. And the first time you do, you ask what I want to drink?”

Looking around at no one in particular, I said sternly yet feebly, “I’m working Jeremy. What do you want to drink?”

“I want you to look at me!” He said with a plea stuck in his undertone, his voice rising slightly.

My eyes flicked up from the counter and found his dark blue ones staring at my face, the edges of his mouth folded in disappointment. “Okay,” I said as my eyes locked onto his face, taking in his clean-shaven jawline and clear, tanned skin. “I’m looking at you.”

“Well?” he said, his eyes roaming over my face like he was gazing at an angel. It sent a pained shiver into my stomach, churning it painfully.

“Well, what?” I asked, my eyes stinging to fill with tears, but I denied their silent request.
He shrugged once, “Aren’t you going to curse me, say all that you’ve wanted to for the last five months? I’m giving you the opportunity to say all that you want to without me saying one thing back.”

The tears filed in, stinging their way along the edge of my bottom lid, threatening to spill over. I wanted to say so many things to him, curse him, and say all that I wanted to, but I couldn’t find the words. “Your girlfriend is waiting for you.”

“Yeah, but I’m standing here with you. Give it to me, Codi. Give it to me like you hate me. Please, I deserve it.” Jeremy pleaded, his hand reaching up to curl around my cheek.

I jerked my head to the side and took in a steadying breath, the smell of his skin so close to my nostrils. I had missed him, and one gentle caress to the cheek would have been enough to beg him to forget about Rachel. I turned around and grabbed Jeremy’s two hot chocolates. I knew he’d order even if he hadn’t said so yet. “That’ll be three dollars.”

“Dakota,” Jeremy cooed, my name slipping from his lips like a whisper we’d shared when we’d stare at the stars at night from my backyard on my trampoline. I felt a weak tear trying to push down my cheek. “Please,”

“Jeremy,” I pleaded his name, my voice cracking as I held my hand out, “Just give me three dollars and leave me alone. Please, I can’t do this with you here.”

The New York exchange student came strolling up in that same lazy fashion that held grace and elegance. His hands in his pockets as he jerked his head towards Jeremy, “Is this guy giving you trouble?”

My eyes narrowed on the exchange student as if he had been mocking me instead of trying to help. Though, before I could reply to him, Jeremy held his hand up to him and said, “Just fuck off, bro.” his head swiveled back towards me, “Dakota,” he started.

Shoving his way past Jeremy, this mystery exchange student said, “Kid, she told you to get lost. She said she doesn’t want to talk about it here.”

Jeremy turned toward him and gave him that look that I used to receive when we were arguing about something stupid. His voice darkened as he sputtered, “Who do you think you are, butting into this conversation. It’s private matters between me and Codi. You need to back off.”

“I think I’m Oz Hunting and that if you’re going to carry on a private conversation with someone, you shouldn’t do it in a public place.” Oz said with a matter-of-factly tone. I agreed wholeheartedly with him, but I would never voice that opinion.

As much as I agreed with him, I found him to be an even bigger annoyance. I turned toward Oz and stared at him, taking in his thin leather jacket and dark grey V-neck, black jeans, black eyes, black hair, porcelain skin. I drank him all in like these people drank their hot chocolates. “Can I help you?”

He stared at me, his gaze flicking to Jeremy’s as he raised an eyebrow. When I looked over at Jeremy, he was staring back until he scoffed loudly and threw his hands up. “You know what? Whatever. I tried to come here and apologize, but forget it.”

Oz and I both watched Jeremy jerk his hot chocolate from the counter and walk back over to Rachel. Once he was completely back by his girlfriend, we both turned back to each other. Pushing the same strand from earlier behind my ear, I asked again: “Can I help you?”

He shook his head, his eyes going to the hot chocolate dispenser before he said, “No, but you can get me a hot chocolate.”

My brows furrowed and I turned around quickly to go and make him a tall cup of the drink. As my back was turned, Oz sighed and said nonchalantly, “You should go home, you know?”

Looking over my shoulder at him, I felt my voice arch into a question, “Excuse me? Why?”

“It’s just…” his voice faded, his eyes roaming over the game as the players started to line up on the halfway lines. “Really crowded tonight. All kinds of psychos come out on nights like tonight, crisp and dark and cold. I’ve just got a bad vibe about it.”

I pressed the lid to the cup onto it tightly, turning around and setting it down on the counter and leaning against it. “That’ll be a dollar-fifty.”

Right as he was about to hand me two dollars, he paused, my fingers wrapping around the dollar bills and stopping, my eyes going up towards his. They were black as the sky above us, dark and the pale fluorescence of the game lamps cast a pale glow to his skin. “Say you’ll go home.”

“I can’t go home, Oz. I’m working.” I said with a soft smile, though I felt annoyed. I tugged on the money and pulled it from his grip a couple seconds later.

When I went to hand him his change, he wasn’t there anymore. The game had begun and people were situated on the bleachers with their blankets covering their laps and their signs held above their heads. I pulled the stool up and braced my feet against the edge of the counter, watching it.

The next thing that happened was like something pulled straight out of a movie. Just as Andrew, our quarterback, was passed the ball and started to run, the lights cut out, one by one. The lights shut down like they were being pulled from an outlet, one by one, yet simultaneously. Everyone jumped into mass panic and I just sat up. Before everyone started to scream, run, cry, there was a long silence, one that seemed like they’d paused the movie for a moment to use the bathroom or refill their drink. And then just like that, Andrew’s scream was heard from the middle of the field as it went airborne and he slammed into a lamppost, his bones crunching audibly like popcorn between and open mouth in the theatre.

“Andrew!” someone screamed from the audience, like he was faking this, and him and his buddies were pulling a horrible stunt.

Blake, his running back, screamed to the audience, his voice distraught and thick with tears or fear or both, “Oh my… He’s dead! He’s not breathing. Someone help!” still, the silence dragged on for another torturous second as we all watched into the darkness that was almost too thick to see the outlines of the football player’s uniforms. “No, no—no! Please!”

And in the distance as Blake’s screams raged on, everyone fell into mass panic, screaming and shoving their ways through the crowd to find their children or to just head straight for the gate. I jumped to my feet and grabbed the handle of the aluminum gate, pulling it down so hard, that it screamed until it crashed into the countertop. I twisted a lock on it and it clicked securely. I dropped to my knees and scurried backwards, disoriented, until my back pressed flush against the rough, old wood of the concession stand wall.

Outside, people continued to scream and all around me, I could hear bones crunching, snapping as their bodies slammed into the bleacher stands, wrapped around lamp poles and garbage cans. Though, when someone slammed into the sturdy wall of the concession stand, I released a scream of fear, crying out towards the ceiling that felt too far away.

Wrapping my arms around my calves and burying my head into my knees, I began to rock back and forth, whispering, “Please, let this be a dream. Please, let this be a dream. Wake up, Codi. Wake up!”

Outside, I could hear people being stepped on and tears cascaded down my cheeks in an endless flow of rivers. Just a few feet beyond the concession stand, I heard an underclassman’s voice cry out, “Someone help me. Someone, please—no! Please god, n—” before her voice faded away and the too loud sound of a body hitting and wrapping around a bleacher stand echoed back to me.

This chaos ensued for five minutes, ten minutes, twenty. I don’t know how long I sat there and prayed to a God I didn’t think existed, begging him to stop this and let me wake up in my bed to get ready for my day at school. I thought of my parents, safe at home and watching a movie in the living room and completely unaware of the kind of pandemonium that was taking place. I thought of Izzy and Matson, somewhere lost in the crowd out there, still praying to this God that I didn’t believe in to save my best friends.

When I heard the pausing of bodies being hurtled through the air, I opened my eyes. Though, just as quickly, I wanted to close them, screaming until blood vessels in my eyes popped and my ears rang with my screams. Nails started on the aluminum gate, cutting across it and going into the wood. The sound made me cringe repeatedly as I began rocking again, weeping soothing words into my clothes in a vain attempt to calm my nerves. After a couple more seconds, it stopped.

Everything stopped. The screams and cries stopped, the hurtling bodies that made the air whistle stopped, people running in terror stopped—all of it. And in this frightening silence, I heard breathing. Loud exhales pressed against the back of my neck through a hole in the wall, the breaths warm against my skin, riddled with goose bumps. Out of curiosity, fear, or both, I slowly started to turn around and look through the hole. And when I did, I saw an eye staring back at me, its breathing harsh and husky as it blinked its eye.

I felt shocked, frozen like I was a part of a movie scene, unable to release a weep or the scream lodged somewhere deep in my throat. But it had a voice, and it whispered: “Run, Codi.”

Shoving my hands into my hair, I screamed, shrieked, wailed. I scurried my feet against the floor until my body slammed into the wall opposite of where I was sitting. I cried through my shrill scream, my head throwing itself back and my feet still scurrying until my back jaggedly climbed up the wall. Across from me, I could see it poke its finger into the hole, wiggling it around a few times as I threw myself at the door just a couple feet to the right of me.

When I threw the door open, I didn’t look to the left to see if it was trailing after me, I didn’t look behind me as my feet hit the gravel. I didn’t stop running until I reached my car. Crashing into the passenger side door, I ripped on the handle, trying to pull it open but found it useless. I shoved my hand deep into my pocket, my fingers shaking as I screamed at myself. Before my fingers cooperated and hit the unlock button, they pressed against the red panic button. Soon, my car threw lights of red and yellow and white, panicking like I was, screaming at the car to be quiet.

I looked around the perimeter and saw it at the gates to the field behind me, charging toward me. Finally pressing the right button, I threw the door open and climbed to the driver’s side, locking the doors and shoving the key into the ignition where it rumbled to life a second later. A pallid hand slammed against the window, long pointed nails scraping against the glass. I screamed and cried out, shoving my foot into the gas and taking the car out of park as I shot forward.

I didn’t slow my speed until I had made it out of the long winding driveway of the school parking lot. The radio didn’t turn on, and I sat in silence. I couldn’t bring my eyes to look into the rearview mirror, I couldn’t move my hand to turn the radio on, fill the car with noise.

The car ride between the school and my house was only ten minutes, and it was the longest ten minutes of my whole life.