Panophobia

I remember how simple things were in pre-school. If you hurt someone’s feelings, you were sent to the office, and the next day you would be friends again. We all smiled, and nothing hurt too badly.

But then we all grew up into power-hungry assholes, fighting the weaker students to social climb to the top. What a fucking pity.

For the rest of the period, everyone stared at me, while William went to the nurse and Emily just marched out of the class. My face is about as red as Bone’s lipstick, and twice as noticeable, plus I’m sure my cheeks were so scorching that marshmallows could be roasted on them.

I kept my head down, and when the bell rang, and grabbed my bag and ran out, despite one of the teachers telling us ‘the bell doesn’t dismiss you.’ I ran to the side of the school where the faculty parking lot is, going to the small patch of grass, hiding behind a tree. I yanked my phone out of my pocket, rapidly dialing Georgia-May’s number, calling her.

“Hey,” It sounded like she was eating.

“C-c-can you pick me u-up from school?” I was out of breath, on the verge of a panic attack.

“Where’s Vic?” There was a faint sound of a girl’s voice in the background.

“I don’t know now, can you pick me up?” I more-or-less yelled into the phone.

“Yeah, Tay and I are leaving my house right now. Where will you be?” The sound of a car door slamming followed.

“The left side, in the staff parking.”

“On our way.”

I hung up the phone, slamming it into the grass, not caring if I smushed it into mud or any other shit. My chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself. My temples throbbed, like hammers were pounding into them, back and forth. It was breezy outside, but I felt like I was trapped in a sauna. Nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, nothing was okay, and nothing was okay.

I felt a pair of arms lift me up and drag me into the backseat of GM’s car, another pair pick up my bag and phone and whatever else I dropped. I don’t remember who grabbed what, but it doesn’t even matter. The car moved and moved and moved and moved and moved and moved and moved and moved and moved and moved-

“Mind telling us what happened?” a voice above me asked. I looked up and say Tay stroking my hair, my head on her lap. One time, Vic and I found ourselves in this position while in the tree house. It was nice.

“Vic got in a fight because of me.”

They sighed and just shut up, perfect. We showed up to GM’s house sometime later, I couldn’t even guess how many minutes; I was drowning in my mind.

I think I fell asleep or fainted or something, because the next time I opened my eyes, I was laying on GM’s bed. Her and Tay were in the room with me; Tay was on the phone and GM was folding up clothes, probably Tay’s.

“No, no, Jaime. I need to talk to Vic now, I’m sorry that you have to hide this shit from your girlfriend, but I need that scrawny boy now! Jaime, don’t you care hang up on me! Jaime!” she took her phone from her ear and looked at it in disbelief. “Fuck.”

“Is he with Jessica?” GM asked, folding the sleeves of a sweater delicately.

“Yeah, let me try Tony or Becky,” she looked up at me and smiled, “I’ll go into the hallway.”

She stepped out and GM looked at me with a sympathetic expression. She put the shirt in a stack and sat down on the bed with me.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m exhausted, but relaxed.”

“I’m so sorry about Vic. He got in a fight, right? Over what?”

“This girl always makes fun of me, but today she did it in front of Vic. He broke her phone and her boyfriend’s nose. They deserved it, but now I’m scared for tomorrow. I think he’s suspended and who’s going to be there for me?”

“That’s just Vic’s personality. He’s very protective.”

“This is living hell, Georgia-May.”

“What is?”

“My life! It’s living hell. I go for days without eating, because I think my food will be poisoned. Or I can’t go to a movie theatre, because I can’t see what’s in the dark. I put a damper on mine and Vic’s relationships, because we can’t do a lot of things! I feel like there’s a man, just holding a gun to my head, following me around, and I don’t know if he’s ever going to pull the trigger. It feels like that every damn moment of the fucking day. It’s scary, GM! It’s so fucking scary.”

I think my eye burst into tears without telling my mind, because next thing I knew, the salty taste was on my lips. GM just hugged me close and I snuggled into the warmth.

-

It was an hour before first period, and I was on the front lawn, sitting on the school sign. The flag pole was digging into my back, but I couldn’t care less. I only have thirty minutes of sleep – my head wasn’t in the exact place to care.

“Kellin?” I looked up and saw Vic standing before me, looking as tired as I did. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Well, not really sorry for what I did, but that I’m suspended. Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not mad, but frustrated,” his eyebrows knitted in confusion. “I can take care of myself, Vic. I’m not as fragile as you think.”

He scoffed and climbed on the sign, placing himself next to me. “I had to step in. You weren’t doing anything about it, Kellin. A boyfriend can’t just watch his own boyfriend be verbally vomited on.”

“We’re boyfriends?” I asked, completely shocked.

“Aren’t we?” he smirked.

“Yeah, we are. Yeah,” I’m pretty sure the grin that sprouted onto my face matches the one on his.

Then he leaned forward and cupped my face in a hand, and put the other on my waist. He leaned in, and the knot that has been sitting in my stomach since yesterday had snapped. His lips landed on mine, and I felt like my rips had cracked open and he had stolen the breath out of me. My insides felt like one of those arcade pinball games; like something was frantically rattling. He drew me in closer, his hands never leaving my body; my hands fluttered around his neck, barely tracing it with my fingertips. We stayed in the kiss for a minute, maybe two, and we broke apart once breathing was necessary.

“Wow,” I breathed out, dropping my hands in front of his bent leg, lacing my own fingers together. The lips tingled and so did the rest of me; damn, what this boy does to me.

“Yeah, wow.”

“I, uh, you’re picking me up after school, right?”

“Yeah…” he trailed off, looking to his right, “I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, bye.”

“Bye Kels.”

He got into his car, and gave me a small wave as he drove off. Kisses in movies don’t show the awkward parting, you know? But, I couldn’t have asked for a better kiss from him. Plus, he called me his boyfriend.

I think my day is already better.

-

Vic pulled up to the police station, where they probably wanted to grill us or being in a relationship. I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw us kiss this morning on some secret camera; obviously that makes looking back on it a little odd, but it doesn’t eliminate the romance it held. Vic suggested that we find Officer Beau, the main cop for Kailey’s case. See, for the past week I’ve been nagging to my parents about how annoying it was that her case was put on hold; frozen for lack of evidence. The day after the crime, people were walking in the field; finding stray alcohol bottle isn’t an alarming occurrence. When my frustration reached GM’s and Tay’s ears, they informed Mike, whole told Vic. And, now, here we are hoping to talk to Beau and convince him to work with us.

“Hello,” Vic said as we reached someone sitting behind a desk, typing away on a computer. I held onto Vic’s hand, looking at the cracks in the tile floor. Where do they even come from? “We’d like to speak with Officer Bokan.”

“Me?” Beau said, stepping through the front door. “You came here right on time, I just finished my break.”

He sipped on a coffee, “You’re the Bostwick boy, right?”

“Y-yeah, th-that’s me. I, uh, we wanted to talk about Kailey’s case, if that’s okay.”

He took another sip, raising his eyebrow at Vic, “Both of you?”

“Yes,” Vic said, pulling me even closed to his side.

“Very well, follow me,” he said, flashing his badge at the man behind the desk and leading us through a closed door, taking us to his office. “Valerie, my wife, is here too. She’s the detective on the case.”

We sat on one side of Beau’s work desk, which was partially cluttered with paper. He clicked on a phone and asked for Valerie, smiling when she said she’d be over in a minute.

“So, what’s on your minds, guys?” he said, pacing around.

“We want the case to be reopened, but not with other officers,” Vic said, taking the reins of the conversation.

“What do you imply by that, Mr. Fuentes?”

“We want you and your wife to work with us on the case. By ‘us’ I mean, Kellin, a few of our friends, and I.”

“No, absolutely not. No way, Fuentes, that’s not- Valerie!”

The slender woman opened the door, smoothing out her long white lab coat, ebony hair spilling down her back. She was beautiful, more than that, actually.

“Hi boys!” she said enthusiastically, waving at us. “It’s nice seeing you guys have some interest in talking with the station. What’s going on, Beau?”

“They want to reopen Kellin’s sister’s case-“

“That’s what I’ve been suggesting, Beau,” she said, sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk.

“No, Valerie, you don’t understand. They want-“

“Oh, Beau, I think I do understand. Mr. Quinn, you prefer Quinn right?” I nodded my head. “Mr. Quinn is concerned for his sister’s safety, assuming she’s still out there, which I like to believe she is. You can’t just roll over and say she has died without confirmation, Beau.”

“No, they don’t want other officers on the case. They want us and their friends to investigate.”

She blinked, and looked at him. Blinked, and looked at us. Blinked, and looked to him.

“Well, I don’t see a problem with that. We don’t have to tell anyone.”

“Valerie, are you hearing yourself? We can’t do that!”

“Who says? The law? Oh, dear, the law is corrupted already. That’s why I didn’t choose to enforce it, but I chose to help mend families and broken people who want answers in cases.”

Beau’s mouth screwed into a tight line as Valerie looked back to us with a bright smile.

“Yes, Beau and I are open to help you guys out. We all just have to keep it hush-hush. Don’t go around telling people you’re helping solve a case; not even your parents. How many other people are going to help.”

“Six others, but a few other girls know about our idea for this. We shared it with them first, just to make sure we’re not stepping over boundaries. They are all trustworthy, or we wouldn’t have told them in the first place.”

Of course, we knew this was stepping over boundaries, but we couldn’t care at all.

“What are the names of the six others who want to help investigate?”

“Mike Fuentes, who is my brother, Tony Perry, Jaime Preciado, Georgia-May Cody, Taylor Jardine, and Bones Brink.”

“Okay, okay. It’s better in small groups than just a few people. We can cover a lot of things with a team of ten. And the few others? Are they going to help?”

“They can look around at things online and in cliques, I suppose.”

“Awesome. Well, Vic and Kellin, we have a deal. Right, Beau?”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he said, shaking his head.

“Ignore him, we can do this.”

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Bokan,” I said, overjoyed. I squeezed Vic’s hand and he squeezed back.

“Please, call me Lights. Valeria and Mrs. Bokan are for the work place.”

“Thank you, Valerie.”

Vic and I said our goodbyes and went back to his place, where we shared more than a few victory kisses.

Things are looking up, finally.