Smooth Criminal

As I sat in the plastic, hard-as-a-rock chair, waiting for the bell to release me from second period physics, my stomach let out a groan that sounded as if someone had found the lochness monster monster and set her loose in the school building.
Every pair of eyeballs in the room fell upon me. My cheeks turned a dark, crimson red in rebuttal.
The bell finally rang, freeing me of the icy stares of my peers. I grabbed my belongings and made a beeline for the door.
“Stells!”
I whipped my head around my shoulder on my way to my locker, my feet not even bothering to slow down in the slightest. Amanda struggled her way through the sea of students lingering in her way, not even caring that she had just interrupted at least six different conversations.
“Stella Lucille Underwood, I am speaking to you,” my best friend huffed as she finally caught up to me. I gave her a nervous glance and finally came to a halt by my locker.
“What’s up?” I asked her, not even bothering to look at her as I spoke.
“Where were you yesterday?”
I shoved my physics book into the metal space and collected the two books I’d be needing for the next two classes of the day.
“Stella?”
I blinked rapidly, jogging my memory as I attempted to recollect yesterday’s events. I had no idea what she was even talking about but judging by her tone, it was apparently important.
“I was asleep. I went home and did my after school chores, did, like, two math assignments and passed the fuck out around five,” I finally remembered.
Amanda rolled her eyes at me and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Dude,” she started with a cold sigh. “You missed the guys’ band practice for the fourth time in two weeks. What is going on with you?”
It was my turn to roll my eyes at her.
“The guys have band practice four times a week and play shows every other weekend. Missing a few practices isn’t going to kill anyone.”
I hoisted my books securely in my grasp, hiding my still growling stomach behind them. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast yesterday and it was quickly suddenly dawning on me how hungry I truly was.
“Can we stop by the vending machine on the way to bio?” I asked, putting a stop to whatever it was that Amanda was ranting on about now. “I’m fucking starving, man.”
Amanda gave me an odd side glance but obliged to my request, taking the next left down the hallway that leaded us to the vending machine. Rian and Alex were standing not too far away from the machine, leaning against their lockers while talking to a small group of friends. I darted towards to food while Amanda stopped to converse with the guys and whoever else.
“Oh my god, you guys. It’s going to be so much fun.”
My hand froze mid-action as the voice rang in my ears like a haunted tune.
There is no way, I calmly thought to myself. Not after Texas.
But as the voice yapped endlessly throughout the one-sided conversation, it dawned on me that Lisa Rusco was, in fact, within a ten feet radius of my boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend. Casually carrying on a conversation as if the two were best of friends and didn’t have a novel of a history and a whole song written about her involved in their past.
My blood began to boil as I shakily shoved the dollar bill into the vending machine, aggressively punching in whatever numbers I could manage to see through my rage. I grabbed the Cheese-Itz from the machine and stormed down the hallway before anyone would notice me, but I was too late.
“Babe!” Alex called after me.
I urged myself to keep walking and pretend like I never heard him, but after missing practice last night, I guess I felt I owed it to him. I tried to calm my breathing as his lanky legs carried him quickly down the hallway. The bell rang, signaling that we had sixty seconds to make it to our next destination, but I ignored it. I could afford to be tardy for once.
“Hello, beautiful,” Alex chirped at me with a lopsided grin that made my heart melt on just about every occasion. Except for this one. Not today.
“Hi,” I mumbled to him, opening my bag of Cheese-Itz. My response did not go unnoticed and was met with a confused, raised eyebrow.
“Everything good?”
I shoved a Cheese-Itz in my mouth and immediately regretted everything about the decision.
“Holy shit,” I coughed, spitting the food out into the palm of my hand. “These things are fucking awful.”
Alex chuckled at me, thinking I was joking around. But telling from the look on my face and the arch in my back formed from my sudden dry heaving, Alex quickly realized something was wrong. If I had any food in my stomach, it would all have been displayed on the floor in front of me.
Alex gently took the snack from my grasp, tossing it into a nearby trashcan, as he ushered me outside.
“Alex, I have to get to class,” I groaned as he lead me to the tree where we always had lunch. But that was as much as I had to offer as far as protests went, seeing as how I had sat down when Alex tenderly sat me down on the bench. I stared intently at the ground, willing my stomach to stop spazzing out.
“I’m going to run to a gas station and get you some water,” Alex said from beside me. I was mentally counting all of the cigarette butts left behind from Amanda and lost track after getting all the way up to forty-six.
“Okay,” I mumbled, placing my head in my hands.
“You can hang out here and wait for me to get back or you can come with,” Alex offered, not quite sure how I’d respond to ditching class.
All I could do was weakly nod my head. My whole body was exhausted from the events leading to now.
“I don’t know what that means, baby,” Alex chuckled softly. I shrugged my shoulders, finally looking up at him with sad, pathetic eyes.
“Okay, you’re coming with me. Come on.”
Alex hoisted me off the bench and placed his arm sweetly around my torso, carrying the majority of my dead weight.
“You’ve lost weight?” Alex pointed out, confused. I arched an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing,” I responded, my thick and hoarse. I could have given Amy Winehouse a run for her money.
“You weigh, like, fifty pounds soaking wet, babe. When was the last time you ate?”
I knew Alex was just trying to be a loving, caring boyfriend, but something about this conversation made me irritated and uncomfortable.
“You literally just saw me eat, Alex,” I snapped, pushing myself away from him. I continued walking but stumbled a bit as my converse snagged a stray twig sitting on the sidewalk.
“Stella, you had one Cheese-It and then spit it out. You have, like, no color to your face and I can see your collar bones through your shirt.” Alex didn’t have to try very hard to catch up to me. His legs just about doubled mine in size.
“Where were you at practice yesterday?”
I rolled my eyes and readjusted my books in my grasp.
“I was sleeping. I was tired. I didn’t have the energy to do anything after scrubbing my whole house clean of the germs and grime that don’t exist.” I huffed, my breath clouding around me in the nippy March weather.
“Stella… Your body shuts down after not having enough nutrients to feed off of. Not eating can seriously damage yo-“
“I am not having this conversation. We are not having this conversation. I’m fine.” I cut Alex off, refusing to hear what he had to say about what he thought was going on.
“I really don’t think you are, babe…” Alex trailed off, refusing to look me in the eyes.
I didn’t have the courage to tell him the truth. I didn’t have the guts to admit that every time I ate something, it immediately and involuntarily came right back up. I don’t know why, but having Alex believe that I had an eating disorder was a lot easier than telling him the truth about something I didn’t even know the full facts about.
So I took a deep breath and took a small step towards the lanky teenager in front of me. I grabbed his hand and gently caressed the top of it with my thumb, bringing it up to my own face.
“Alexander, I swear to you that I am fine,” I whispered sweetly. Alex tucked his lip between his teeth, gnawing nervously as his eyes searched mine frantically for any signs of dishonesty. I stared back at him with wide, innocent eyes, silently urging him that he needed to believe me.
After standing there for a few moments, Alex finally let out a sigh and pulled me up to him for a kiss. I happily obliged, my frigid body relaxing in his warm embrace.
“You’re shaking,” he observed. “Let’s get to the car and we can go somewhere to get food. There’s no point in going back at this point.”
I checked the time and noticed that it was almost lunch time. I sent a text to Amanda, letting her know that Alex and I wouldn’t be there for the remainder of the day and to not expect us at lunch. I slipped my phone into the pocket of my jeans and grabbed Alex’s hand.
“You know what sounds really good right now?” I thought aloud. Alex looked down at me with amusement dancing in his eyes, probably excited that I was even speaking about food.
“What’s that, baby?”
“Wendy’s,” I said, humming in appreciation of the thought.
“Stella, you hate Wendy’s,” Alex laughed, pulling me into his body as we finished our trek through the parking lot of Dulaney High and reached our destination to the car.
“Okay, but their nuggets sound so fucking good right now.”
Alex laughed loudly as we filed into the seats, cranking the heat as high as it would possibly allow.
“Whatever you want, babe. I got you.”
I smiled over at Alex, showing off all of my teeth.
“I love you,” I beamed. Alex took my hand in his own and squeezed gently.
“I love you more, Stella Lucille.”

Notes