February 21st, 2017: An incident took place at Central Talket High School during a morning English class, taught by Mr. Miguel Mortinez, in which a young man shot another young man, effectively injuring him as well as a few others. The young man responsible was arrested immediately during an attempt to vacate the premises. I, Emma Lenford, verify this information to be true, as I was one of the few 'others' that were left with both a slight physical and mental injury after the incident.
March 11th, 2017: Many heads were turned as both Emma Lenford and... as odd as it would seem to most, Stella Anderson entered the house known to be home to Fiona Pindell and her family. A family whom, on this day, conveniently happened to be out of town and on their way to their 'pre-spring break vacation' in Miami, Florida while Fiona also conveniently happened to be 'sick with a relentless stomach bug'.
And also...
Fiona Pindell: A Central Talket Senior who had been captain of the volleyball team... until her coach discovered she had ten sandwich bags of cigarettes hidden in the bottom of her duffel bag after practice one fine day. Or, at least, Fiona had insisted that they were cigarettes...
"Oh my god... Emma and Stella!" Fiona shrieked, now running up to the side of the doorway in front of us. "You actually came!"
Yes, you just heard the names of both Emma and Stella said together in the same sentence by someone other than myself and without any negative connotations.
But, when your right-hand best friend has recently been incarcerated for extreme misconduct and threatening violence displayed during school hours and your left-hand BFF just temporarily moved back to Jamaica, again, then you find yourself with just your feet and nothing to do and nowhere to go and no one to see for a few too many weekends, and then you just get so bored that you actually cave to the pleas of 'emotional recovery time' slash 'let's see if anyone else knows absolutely anything remotely related to the "dickbook" page time' with Stella Anderson.
Oh, and if you're wondering, the left-hand bestie is actually Ashlee Neysmith, and she's actually been my closest female friend since sixth grade, when she moved to Wisconsin with her aunt from Jamaica; I remember her walking into class the first day that year with her cocoa curls, flawless hazelnut skin tone, and perplexing heavy, slurry accent... I stared at her from across our shared cluster of seats all afternoon until she confronted me at the bus stop after school, telling me to 'quit ya' lookin' at me before I sock ya' eye sockets, skinny lil’ swine.'
I immediately blubbered out my apologies; she then laughed, said that she was sorry, and that she just loved to watch other people writhe in discomfort when confronted by such a strong individual as herself. I was captivated by her overly-sassy personality, and then, soon enough into the school year, a beautiful best-friendship blossomed between the two of us.
Every single summer, though, she travels back to her hometown to visit with the rest of her family, including her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and even one great-great-grandmother, and she goes back more often throughout the school year if there's been a sudden illness bestowed on any one of her family members. And she has a super big family, and she has some super old relatives. So, it came as an unsurprising inconvenience when her great uncle came down with pneumonia the very day after the incident of the 21st, and has, apparently, neither recovered nor passed on to another realm as of yet.
But she's not here right now, and Stella is.
"Oh, yeah, well, we..." I began to respond to Fiona, but let my voice trail off, into oblivion, soon enough. At the same time, though, I scanned the large group of individuals conversing underneath the semi-pounding rap music in the hallway behind her back.
"I'm glad you guys could make it," she thanked as both Stella and I stepped through the doorframe and turned toward her. "You know, after what happened..." She paused while she closed the front door behind us. "I didn't think you'd be in the partying mood, you know?"
"Oh, I know," I shot back to her. Overlapping with the 'w' on my last word, though, I heard Stella pipe up beside me.
"We wanted to come see you!" she yelled, well over the level of voice projection required to overcome the music and other surrounding sounds.
"Awe, really?" Fiona asked, placing both her hands overtop her heart. "You two are too sweet."
She threw her hands back down and turned to step into the hallway on our left.
"Come on, I'll get you some drinks!" she said as she began to push past the group I had observed earlier, one consisting of approximately ten or eleven people. I took a step in her trail, then, but, before I could really even think about taking another, I felt a hand grab my right shoulder.
"Emma," I felt Stella lean in and whisper to me. "I don't know if we should be here... It's making me nervous."
I forced back my urge to roll my eyes and twisted to look at her instead.
"Stella," I started, my voice cool and collected. "We were invited to this party, remember? And... coming here was your idea, actually, so—"
"But that was before we actually came here," she protested, effectively cutting me short.
I stared at her for a short moment. And then I rolled my eyes.
"Come on," I muttered, turning back around and continuing to follow after Fiona.
"But, Emma!" I heard her shout.
Ignoring her, I pushed on and walked by the cluster of guys and girls against the hallway wall. I swept my eyes over each face as I passed it and flashed a subtle smile at the entire same time, even though only about forty percent of the group actually glanced back.
So, here we go.
The first one: Alan Pebble, minor football player/ benchwarmer. Second: Kate Harris, show choir performer and off/on again girlfriend to Alan. Third and Fourth: Blake Fuller and Jenna Vandereem, both also apart of the school's show choir and classic choir programs. Fifth: Lexi Johnsteen... who isn't really involved with anything or anyone else. She had the straightest hair and teeth around, though, so why she never has, I'm not entirely sure. Sixth and seventh: Brad and Frankie Miller, slightly above average baseball and softball player, respectively, as well as twin brother and sister to one another. Eighth: Crystal Skaggs, a talented clarinet musician (from what I've been told), and absolute best-friend-for-life to Frankie. Sandwiched between nine and eleven: Miss Miranda Lively, a young woman who's managed to poke at my nerves a tad more than even Stella Anderson over the past month, with her full-of-herself attitude that I've witnessed at the table beside mine in the cafeteria during the past ten lunchtimes in a row and make-out sessions with Andrew Kremiesky in front of the locker directly to the right of mine after the final school bell every single afternoon for the past five schooldays. Number nine, then, is, unsurprisingly, Andrew Kremiesky, a new student since January from Ohio, and number eleven is Turner Gerning, a boy with brown hair so spiky that it looks like it needs to be mowed.
By the time I had reached the end of the line, my smile had faded, and I had returned my head back to a forward-looking position. Immediately after that, then, I swerved to the right and passed through an empty wide doorframe, promptly entering a vast kitchen area, one that I would personally deem much too large for a family of four... but, either way, I stepped into it and made my way up to the island counter where Fiona stood, ladling a scoop of red liquid from a glass punch bowl into a red solo cup.
"Here," she directed, offering the cup into my direction.
"Oh, thanks," I pushed out. As soon as I took the beverage from her hand, I saw Stella step up to my side from the corner of my eye.
"So, um..." she went on to create tiny small talk while my eyes wandered the dark windows behind her head, where I could see a group of guys on the dimly-lit deck outside. And, as hard as I tried, I couldn't seem to make out the faces of any one of them. "Grayson, huh?"
I trickled my inattentive eyes back to her face and raised my eyebrows as she handed a separate cup to Stella beside me.
"Yeah?" I questioned.
"Didn't see that one coming," Fiona continued to comment, her long, dirty blonde ponytail whipping back and forth slightly as she shook her head.
"Oh," I began to shoot back. "Yeah, um, no, me neither..."
I glanced down at the slushy red liquid in the cup I held in front of myself and paused for a moment, just staring at it.
"Well, I always kind of had a feeling about him," Stella suddenly piped in.
I brought my head back to center and twisted it a tad to look right at her.
"Oh, really?" I asked her.
Before she could even respond, though, Fiona voiced her own opinion.
"Yeah, me, too," she said, temporarily stopping just long enough for me to gaze back at her. "He's kind of weird, you know?"
I opened my mouth to say something in return, but I guess I was too slow for Fiona's pace.
"I mean, I know you were kind of friends with him, Emma," she picked back up. "But, you can't deny that he was kind of odd, can you?"
"Well..." I started to reply, my eyes wandering to the windowsill once more. "Um..." I paused for a quick moment, and then abruptly stepped to the side. "Oh my god... is that Tommy Sanchez?"
I waited for Fiona to turn around and follow my gaze outside, where it was still clearly impossible to see the faces of any individual out there.
"Who?" she asked, stepping up to the counter to have a closer look.
"Oh, you know," I answered. "That kid that does magic tricks."
"Huh?" she reiterated as I conjured up another response to her.
"Oh, yeah, he does magic stuff all the time; he's really good..." I waited for her to turn back to me before finishing. "I think I'll go see him and... you know, see what he's got up his sleeve..."
I studied her slightly puzzled expression for a few seconds, and then nodded at her, mumbled a little 'yeah', and turned back to the kitchen doorway.
"Wait, Emma," I heard Stella urge out.
Ignoring her, though, of course, I continued on my trek back to the hallway and turned to the right, which was an empty path that led directly to the backdoor. And, although I was certain that there was no Tommy Sanchez outside, and uncertain if one even existed, I was relieved enough to get away from my previous two companions. I paced until I almost reached the door but slowed to a halt when my eyes caught glimpse of a very intriguing piece of artwork.
I turned toward it, just a few feet away from the closed doorway, and studied the painting which clearly depicted two elderly individuals, one vividly male and one vividly female, both engaging each other in a sort of embrace, nude.
"Well, well," I muttered, raising one eyebrow as I spoke to myself.
And, just then, some type of manly voice shouted my name from a short distance away.
"Emma!"
I craned my neck back to the opposite end of the hallway, where a crowd of partiers were still huddled by the front door from which I first entered, and spotted the figure of an unrecognizable young individual jogging into my direction. I completely turned toward him, then, as he approached my side, took a puff of a breath, and raised his hands to his hips.
"Emma Lenford," he declared, looking me over.
I gave him a once-over myself, taking note of his deeply tanned features, light caramel hair, and casual apparel of khaki shorts and a black V-neck tee shirt. Casual for summer, I mean, not so much for a late winter night in the depths of great Wisconsin.
"Um, hi?" I questioned, tilting my head slightly to the side.
"Oh, come on," he said. "You know who I am, Emma."
No, I didn’t. Surprisingly.
"I..." I started to mumble, though he (luckily) cut me off before I could progress my words any further.
"Skyler," he said, gently nudging my shoulder with his fist at the same time that he spoke.
I opened my mouth a little and stared at his face for a moment longer before it suddenly and thankfully hit me.
Skyler Hemming: a boy who I went to school with for merely seven months during 3rd grade, had a minor crush on for about six of those seven (because it wasn't until after he offered to let me and a few of my friends play with his pet rock during recess time on a windy October day that I realized my attraction toward him... and his cute little rock with its plastic googley eyes and painted red bowtie), and, in the short time that I had known him, had a reputation for being the most enthusiastic boy scout in town (and quite probably the only boy scout in town...).
"Oh, yeah," I partially blurted out. "Skyler, yeah, I remember you." I nodded and paused for a second. "Wow, you've... changed a lot, haven't you?"
"Nah, not really," he responded. "It hasn't been that long since we saw each other last."
I forced a slight smile.
"Right, yeah..." I said.
He nodded, and then glanced at the partially pornographic painting beside me.
"Wow," he began, widening his eyes at the sight. "That's... really something, isn't it?"
"Oh, yeah," I spat out, now turning myself back to the artwork. "I was just about to give Fiona my bid on it."
Skyler suddenly let out a chuckle a bit so loud and shaky it was a tad concerning. I turned back to him and squinted my eyes while he bent over a bit and shook his head, his eyes closed, his cheeks pulled up into a smile so tightly they looked as if they'd been apart of a botox treatment gone horribly wrong.
"Oh, Emma, you always crack me up," he eventually calmed his laughter and stood straight once more.
"Um," I uttered back to him. "Thanks?"
"Hey, you gotta come meet some of my buds," he claimed, already turning around and taking off down to the other end of the hall.
I continued to stare, just a little confused, as he walked away, and then, after he had stepped a good yard or two away, I relaxed my eyebrows and began to follow his footsteps, my untouched drink still in-hand. I passed by (mostly) the same faces that I had crossed paths with when I had first entered the party, although I avoided eye contact with them this time around, since I'm pretty sure I knew more information about each one of their lives than the total of them knew about me, and walked a few steps behind Skyler until he turned and entered a large, empty living room area.
I stopped by a pristinely white sofa adorned with gaudy oversized orange pillows and watched Skyler's backside as he stopped to stare at the other vacant couches in the room for an uncomfortably long moment. And, even though I knew it was going to backfire on me, I couldn't help but give an attempt at lightening the suffocating silence.
"Some friends, huh?" I commented.
And, just I had predicted, Skyler turned to face me and erupted into a frightening fit of giggles.
"Oh, no, Emma," he chuckled out. "They're not in here; they're..." He fell back to a stable state once more. "They're... um..." He paused and gave a good long stare to the wall behind me before concluding. "Upstairs, probably..."
He returned his eyes to me for another lengthy amount of time, making me feel obliged to formulate some sort of response to him.
"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow and managed out.
He flashed a broad smile and I braced myself for another manic laughing fit but, actually, he stopped himself before he could reach it. Shortly thereafter, he turned around and stepped toward the next room.
"Come on," he mumbled as he made his way to it.
Again, I hesitated shortly before following him, but wound up chasing after him in the end for some reason.
We both stepped around the corner of the living area and turned to the right to see a long carpeted stairway, and I soon trekked up the steps close behind Skyler, the drink in my hand coming close to spilling onto my white and blue striped long sleeve top a number of times but somehow miraculously never cursing me the way I anticipated it would with the luck I have. Once at the top of the stairway, though, I paused to look around at the long hallway that extended both to the left and right as Skyler peeked into the closest open doorway.
I stepped up to his backside, quietly pushed myself up to my tiptoes to peer over his shoulder, and then saw the room was both pitch black and silent, a small stain of the light from the hallway we stood in shining on large wooden dresser inside of it.
"Not in there..." Skyler muttered, now moving to glance into the next room of the thin hallway.
I studied the chestnut colored dresser for a moment longer, and then slowly twisted back toward Skyler as he continued to mumble and hover in another doorway a few feet away from me.
"They're... uh..." he began, pausing to look back at me for a second. "Not here, I guess..." He stopped again to rock a little on his heels, throw his hands out to his sides, and force out a slightly uncomfortable laugh.
I raised one eyebrow, then one corner of my mouth, then my drink up to the side of my shoulder. After that, I proceeded to push my way up to his side and gradually gazed into the room he stood in front of, soon noting that it was a small bedroom with the overhead lightbulb within it turned on, illuminating light over the bright cyan-colored walls, crowded white desk in one corner, similarly designed dresser against another, and vacant queen bed in the center of it all, perfectly clean white sheets adorning it.
"I'm, uh," Skyler piped up once more, snatching my attention back. "Going to go to the bathroom real quick."
I searched his face for a split second before realizing he, apparently, expected a response from me before leaving for the restroom and taking care of his business.
"Yeah, go on ahead," I agreed, afterward adding a tiny forced smile for a comforting effect, since I guess it seems that's what he needed, judging by the sudden appearance of sweat beads on his tan forehead.
"Okay," he muttered. "Be... Be right back..."
I watched him as he fidgeted in place for a moment, and then while he spun around and continued to the unexplored end of the hall. After he stepped a good distance away, though, I turned back to the door beside my side and decided to step into the blue wonderland of a bedroom that laid beyond it. Once inside, I glanced quickly around and noticed that the room was actually a lot messier than I had originally perceived. There were clothes littering the floor, a closet space so full the door to it couldn't even fully close (though I only saw that after I had entered; it was placed directly to the left of the room entrance and couldn't be seen from the doorway), and stacks of books crowding a number of shelves against every inch of the walls that weren't covered with Beyonce or Jay-Z (or Beyonce and Jay-Z) posters.
And, after lowering the probability of the room belonging to either Fiona's parents or five-year-old brother, I figured that it was probably in the ownership of none other than Miss Pindell herself. After this realization, then, I decided to walk up to the frontside of Fiona's dresser and scan the array of picture frames resting atop it. I took note of the photographs there depicting Fiona in her volleyball attire, a few of her riding horseback (a new piece of information regarding her interests for me, might I add), and then stopped my eyes directly on a certain one in particular at the very center of the arrangement.
"Well, well, Miss Fiona..." I whispered, now reaching out to carefully pick up the frame. After bringing it up to my nose, I more closely observed the photograph taken of Fiona in a red bikini, striking a slightly racy pose (feet at shoulder-width, one hand gently tugging the side of her bathing suit bottoms downward, her head tilted back a tad), her messy blonde locks blowing back in the wind, a suggestively playful wink on her face. Most of all, though, my eyes locked onto the unnatural ratio of extremely thin waistline to exaggeratedly wide hips and bust on Fiona's curvature.
"Yeah, photoshop sure can do wonders," I commented, now setting the picture back on Fiona's dresser top, afterward allowing myself to glance down into the untouched red solo cup that I still, for whatever reason, was holding on to. I studied the slushy red liquid floating around in it for a long moment, pursed my lips for a second longer, and then cocked my head to the side a bit.
"Please be something good," I mumbled, now throwing the cup up to my lips and my head back on my neck.
Mid-sip, though, the voice of who I assumed to be Skyler made an appearance from somewhere behind my back.
"Emma..." I heard him begin.
"Hm?" I sounded out through my drink, now bringing the cup back down to my waist as I forced myself to swallow the most tasteless red water I had ever introduced to my own tastebuds. After that, I spun around on my heels and caught glimpse of Skyler Hemming in front of Fiona Pindell's bedroom doorway, kneeling on one knee.
Yes, on one knee.
"Um," I bumbled out as I watched him reach into his khaki shorts' pocket to retrieve a tiny black box.
Yes, a tiny black box.
"Emma..." he went on, now flipping the top of the box upward to reveal a silver ring with a diamond adornment carefully crafted onto the top of it.
Yes, a silver ring with a diamond adornment carefully crafted onto the top of it.
I drastically widened my eyes as I involuntarily listened to him go on.
"I know we've... well, we've had our ups and downs, but we've been going steady for a while now, and—"
And I immediately had to cut him off.
"What?" I spat out, narrowing my eyebrows and twitching my head sideways a little. "I mean..." I paused and squeezed my eyes shut while I finished. "What!"
"Emma Lenford, I have to ask you..." Skyler continued.
"No, no, no," I stopped him, again, and took one step toward him. "What... What do you mean we... 'going steady'! Skyler, we... I..." I started to stumble on my words a bit. "I just met you for the first time in... like, eight years!" I stopped and stared at Skyler as he let out a slight giggle. "You... You're laughing because this is a joke, right?"
"Oh, Emma," he shook his head and looked to the side as he went on. "You've always been so funny..."
I squinted at him and dropped my jaw a bit before actually moving my mouth to reply to him.
"Stop..." I began, pausing after a moment to drastically raise my voice. "Stop saying that!"
I practically froze up as I witnessed him let out another laugh.
"God, I have to get out of here," I muttered out after another second or two, now charging at the door behind where he crouched, the drink in my hand making subtle slushing sounds the whole time I moved.
"Wait, Emma," Skyler urged out, shooting up to a stand and jumping directly in between the hallway and me before I could actually reach it.
"Skyler, move!" I yelled out, his face now inches away from mine.
"Please just listen to me for a minute…"
I stopped to study his suddenly solemn expression for a moment, and then took both a step backward and a deep breath as I loosely crossed my arms.
"Fine. Go on," I said.
He flashed a short-lived smile at me, and then returned himself to one knee.
"Oh, god," I mumbled, glancing away from him for split second before he began to speak to me once more.
"Emma... Like I said, I know it's been a long time coming for us... and I know I probably haven't been around for you as much as I would have liked to... but... every time I come over to see you, you're not home..."
I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Well, that's probably because I moved into a different house about seven years ago.”
"No, no," he swiftly responded. "This is your new house."
I gave him a sideways look for a moment.
"How... did you... get my address?" I asked.
Skyler smiled.
"You're my girlfriend, Emma.”
I widened my eyes, again.
"And I love you..." he continued. "And now I have to ask... Emma Lenford, will you marry me?"
My eyes honestly couldn't have gotten any wider in that moment, so I forced them shut instead.
I took a guided breath, forced back the nauseous feeling deep in my gut, either resulting from whatever bland ingredients laced the punch in my cup or the overwhelming confusion and discomfort I felt from my situation, and thought to myself: WWMCD?, a.k.a. What Would Miss Congeniality Do?
I flickered my eyelids open and brought my gaze down to where Skyler anticipatingly knelt.
"Um..." I began, pausing to think a minute or so longer. "Will you, uh, hold this?"
I reached out my red solo cup to him; he leisurely stood and took the drink, now placing a small amount of space between his backside and the open doorway to freedom.
So, I wasn't entirely sure what Miss Congeniality would have done in my given situation, but I sure as hell know what Miss Emma Lenford would do.
Run.
" 'Kay, thanks," I blurted out, right before I took off past his side and into the hallway.
"Emma?" I heard Skyler questioningly say my name from where he stood as I spun to the left and continued to jog to the beginning of the corridor, where I afterward threw myself around the corner of wall that led to the stairs, and then slowed myself down slightly as I trotted down the steps beyond it.
"Stella!" I shouted out while my feet reached the ground floor. Once there, I halted for a brief second and looked hurriedly in both directions, where, surprisingly enough, nobody else stood.
"Stella!" I repeated, now turning to jog my way to the kitchen where I heard a number of loud, laughing voices come from.
And, after rounding the corner that led into it, I witnessed a crowd of people (all of whom I knew, though, of course) swarming around the kitchen island, where, apparently, Fiona Pindell was grinding her backside all over Corey Hissman, who was another lesser-known football player on the school team, on top of it while Kellie Pickler's "Red High Heels" played (oddly enough, even softer than the laughing crowd) in the background.
Only in Talket County, I guess.
I stared at the sight for a moment, then shook my head a little and stepped forward to search for Stella Anderson in the herd.
"Stella!" I yelled over the voices beginning to turn to chatter and stepped around the left side of the kitchen.
I scanned the backs of those directly in front of me, then, and, miraculously enough, spotted Stella's among them.
"Stella," I reiterated, a little more quietly this time, as I stepped forward and reached a hand out to tap her shoulder. When she didn't immediately turn around, though, I continued to tap her a tad more harshly a few more times.
"Stella, Stella, Stella," I urged out while she sluggishly spun toward me.
"Oh, Emma," she said, the giggly smile on her face fading away as she spoke.
"We have to leave," I spat at her. "Like, um, now."
She scrunched up her face at me.
"Why?"
Before I could even begin to answer her, though, an annoyingly familiar voice screamed out from my right side.
"Emma!"
I bit down on my lower lip and gradually craned my neck to look Skyler's way as he stopped to stand by the doorway of the kitchen, his hands wrapped tightly around the black box he held up to the bottom of his chin, noticing that a trace amount of tears had just formed in the corners of his eyes.
"Because," I mumbled out to Stella, though I didn't take my eyes from Skyler's figure as I did so. "That."
"Emma!" his voice croaked out, again, though this time it was loud enough that it actually stopped the whole room from continuing to laugh and chatter away amongst themselves.
"Great," I whispered, now flickering my eyes to the floor as I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Emma," Skyler went on, bringing my attention back to him. "Don't you... Don't you love me?"
I gradually brought my gaze from his obviously over-emotional face to the rest of the room, now noticing that everyone else was turned into our direction, including Fiona and Corey themselves, every single one of them blank-expressioned and silent. And, ironically enough, the music still played at a moderate volume in the back of the quietness... and, at that very moment, I could hear Kellie Pickler sing out "I just kicked you to curb in my red high heels!"
If the shoe fits… right?