I wrote this piece for an assignment in my fiction class in 2019 where I could write anything I wanted as long as it met the word requirement. This short story was written out of my desire to begin with the premise of an almost cheesy kind of romance story and end it on an unexpected note. I focused a lot on visual details in this piece with the intent of creating a sort of immersive story for my reader.
Aunt Emma says red is an aggressive color.
“What will people think of you if you wear that color,” the woman had said, referring to the bone dry and crumbling matte lipstick I’d purchased from CVS, “That’ll get you the wrong kind of attention.”
I didn’t really know what the wrong kind of attention was. Any attention seemed good to me, especially when that lipstick got Silvia Stacey to talk to me during our lunch period two weeks ago, even if it was just to tell me that some of that red lipstick had ended up on my chin. That gave me an in. After that, Silvia would wave at me in the hallways, and one of her friends parked next to me Tuesday morning and chatted to me about those redneck boys in their pickup trucks who blast loud music and throw a football around every morning. I wore that red lipstick the day Scooter Matthews asked me on a date. How could that be the wrong kind of attention? He never looked at me much before. We talked some, but he had other friends, better friends. No one really talked to me much. I probably knew more about Scooter than he knew about me.
Scooter wasn’t his real name, but that’s what everyone called him after he brought his kick scooter to show and tell in the first grade. It was bright green, and when the sun hit it everything close to it turned green too. He was quick on that thing. When he rode it across the playground, he had all the girls swooning like southern belles watching a cavalry soldier on his horse. Until he fell. He bled so much from his knee that Martha Simmons threw up when she saw him, and then two other kids saw her throw up so they did too. After that he had a great big scar on his knee and a permanent nickname: Scooter.
He asked me out as our seventh period biology class was ending, he and I were lab partners, and then he ran away right after we set up a day and time because he was going to be late to his next class. Silvia came up to me right after that, like she already knew, like securing my first date somehow made me look different. She told me that Scooter was in her English class, that he was sort of stupid but still nice, still popular, and that she was happy for me. She gave me her phone number then and told me I could text her if I was feeling nervous about my date. I took her up on that offer, and she became the first person I had real conversations with outside of school. Friday morning, the day of the date, Silvia gave me a little glass bottle of nail polish. Red to match my lipstick, she told me. The smell of it made my head swim as I put it on, but I liked how grownup it made me feel. That evening, I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans when I walked past Aunt Emma, through our front door and into Scooter’s car.
His car was green, like his scooter had been all those years ago. It was a darker shade, more mature, and it glittered a million different colors in the light of the almost setting sun. He smiled at me as I got in.
Scooter wore sunglasses while he drove, the reflective kind that looked like two little mirrors over his eyes. His were tinted, so every time he looked over at me I was red all over. The worn cloth seats of his car had the smell of old french fries sunk deep into the fabric, a smell that he was evidently trying to cover with the little tree-shaped air freshener dangling from his mirror. It smelled like an idealized version of the outdoors, maybe that’s what it smelled like here before the old paper mill was built.
Scooter pulled into the patch of gravel that served as a parking lot in our local park. He then ran around to my side of the car and opened the door for me like a real gentleman.
“I thought we could take a walk,” he said, “I know you like to watch the sky change colors in the evenings.”
I nodded, I liked to watch just about anything change color: the sky, the leaves in the fall, Scooter’s cheeks when I told him he looked right nice in his pale gray button up. I watched little notes of auburn appear in his hair and grow in strength as the sun burned a deeper orange while it sank into the sea of pine trees surrounding us.
I was not surprised when they came. Silvia told me the plan. When the sun was gone and the gray-blue tint of night took over, they appeared as if from thin air. Girls in red hoods in a circle around us. I knew, they told me they’d be coming, and that I should be okay with it. They were my friends now, Silvia was my friend. I watched them knock Scooter out with Silvia’s brother’s Little League bat and I didn’t say a word.
The ride back to Silvia’s house was quick. It felt like I blinked and suddenly we were in the basement, Scooter tied to a table.
“I get first stab, obvi,” Silvia said, smiling and holding an ornate silver knife in one hand. She’d sent me a picture of it over text, told me about all the power it held, how I could have that power too.
“Catherine gets second,” Silvia continued, causing groans and glares from the other girls in the room. I for one did not like the sound of “second stab” as much as it seems I should have.
“What do we do,” I cleared my throat, starting to feel my hairline dampen with sweat, “Um, what do we do, uh, after?”
“Smear his blood on our faces like those redneck boys do when they kill their first deer,” Ashton Peirson said, she was twirling the end of her ponytail and not even looking at me. I felt my mouth go dry and the color leave my face.
“I thought y’all did some witchy stuff, I didn’t know you’d kill him.”
“Relax,” Silvia said, shrugging at me, “Kim Kardashian does it.”
“Yeah,” Kelly Jacobs chimed in, “Chill, it’s not like we’re gonna eat him or anything.”
“I’ll explain as we go,” Silvia said in a tone that supposed to be reassuring, “It’ll be worth it: the perfect skin, perfect body, popularity. You’ll get it, we’ll show you, but we gotta hurry, my parents are gonna be home soon.”
Silvia took my silence as agreement. She turned back to Scooter, her shoulders held firmly in perfect posture. She had leaned the Little League bat against the table, I inched my fingers towards it as she recited an incantation that I didn’t understand because I took French instead of Latin.
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