David pushed forward. As he cut through the crowd, he could feel eyes turning and sticking to him. His presence in the school had been announced over the PA. He was expected by the crowd. He was the next big twist in the psycho soap opera that was playing out in front of them. He could hear their whispers. It was all so familiar. Like the last seven months hadn’t passed at all. They stepped out of his way, made a path. Some cheered him on and laughed at the sheer craziness of it all.
David stepped into the circle. Ten feet ahead was Hilary. She danced completely off beat from the music, like there was a different song in her head. She smiled at the crowd like they were smiling back. They weren’t. Even the Varsity and Pretty One couples stared at her as if she was bonkers. David kept his eye on the gleaming gun. So did everyone else.
He walked toward her. She was beautiful, even more beautiful than normal. She had a special radiance to her, because she was happy. He could barely remember her brimming with this much life, this lost in the moment. It was a lie, he told himself. She split your eyeball like a soft-boiled egg. She’d mutilated him. Every time he looked in a mirror, he had to think of her. He’d never be rid of her.
Hilary saw him approach. Her face lit up and she squealed.
David felt a familiar feeling inside, one he wished he could have suppressed. A yearning for Hilary. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt it, against his better judgment. When he had seen her in the halls as the leader of the Pretty Ones and he had been a Scrap, he’d been filled with anger that she had slept with Sam and dumped him. But later, he would fantasize about her. In the fantasies, it was always in his bedroom in his family’s house, like they used to do before the quarantine. She was a touchstone to the life he’d had before. Eventually she’d cheated on him, dumped him, stabbed his eye out and all the rest, but before all that, life had been good. They’d been a popular couple. He’d been killing it on the football field; and his mother had been alive. The future had been promising. That was a time he would never get back. Except sometimes, the sight of Hilary’s face would bring him flashes of that old feeling, the safety of his old life, of his mother, and the trust he had in the world then. He wished it wouldn’t.
“Take forever!” Hilary said. She waved him forward in a cartoonish manner. “Oh my God, how are you?” she asked.
David didn’t know what game this was.
“Uh, I’m good, Hil. Considering …,” he said as he walked toward her.
“You look really cute,” she said and then giggled and looked away. She usually wasn’t the eyelash-fluttering type. At least, she hadn’t been, not for a long time. Usually she looked at you straight with eyes like slits of ice. She had to be messing with him somehow, but he wasn’t getting the joke.
“Got your message,” David said as he reached her.
“How do I look?” she said, and pointed the gun at his head.
“Gorgeous,” he managed to say, watching the barrel of the gun.
A giggle escaped her lips. Tears clustered in the corners of her eyes. They didn’t seem like fake tears.
“I know,” she squeaked.
She pulled him in close to slow dance. She put one hand around the back of his neck and pressed the gun against his temple with the other. David’s insides were quaking. He felt the potential of the gun’s blast on his temple. She was staring up at him with affection, a knowing smile on her face. He put his hands on her waist and she cooed. They rocked back and forth slowly, out of tempo with the fast song. The colored light seemed to swirl around them as they turned. She twisted her body and craned her neck around like she was savoring a delicious sensation in her body.
The longer they danced, the more uncomfortable he felt. He couldn’t tell what she was really after here, but he had to find Will.
“About Will. I—”
“Do you remember the time you brought me to the creek?” Hilary said. She traced her finger down David’s arm.
David nodded. It had been their first date.
“You always flirted with me in physics. And you were so cute. But you made me wait for two months before you asked me out. You jerk.”
She playfully tapped the gun against his mask for emphasis.
“I guess you came off as intimidating,” David said.
Hilary giggled again.
“That creek was so pretty. But it was so dorky that you brought a picnic. That was so … you.”
She was flirting with him.
“But you made out with me anyway,” David said. He added a cocky grin, and she grinned back.
“I almost didn’t,” she said. “You’re lucky the date I had that night was a bomb, otherwise you never would have gotten a second chance.”
“You went on a date with somebody after you went to the creek with me?”
“Caleb Miser, a senior. Turned out he was a loser too. Let’s just say, once he got excited, he didn’t know how to calm down.”
David tensed. He didn’t like this at all. To his horror, he was feeling jealous of Caleb Miser. It was just a little, but he was definitely feeling it. Like Hilary was still his girlfriend. He wanted to stomp out these feelings.
“Why are you telling me this?” he said.
She covered her mouth. “Oh my God, isn’t it beautiful here? Wouldn’t this be the perfect place to get married?”
David’s stomach did a back flip. “What?” he said.
“Married,” she said. “Let’s just do it. The two of us. Wouldn’t it be wild? I used to think about it a lot back when we were together.”
“Hilary, I …”
“Maybe you should get down on one knee.”
David looked around at the crowd, watching them. Shuffling their feet. Their gaunt faces lit by tan and green light. Part of him was tempted to get down and propose, just to play along, and keep her talking until he could make a grab for the gun, but his pride wouldn’t let him. Her brow furrowed when he stayed upright.
“I’ll say yes, silly, you don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “I’ll marry you, David Thorpe!” she shouted to the room. Her smile was ecstatic. “Right here on the beach, under the sun.”
He studied her face. Her eyes darted around like everything was catching her attention at once. He looked closer at the dark crust inside her right nostril. Dried blood. She was in the final stages of transitioning. David remembered the chaos of being in that state, where memories, fantasies, and nightmares ebbed and flowed over the shores of reality.