Page 4 of The Run Home
I scrunched my eyes shut and berated myself for being caught staring. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know if it was because of the tight dress cutting me off as I crouched, or the humiliation of Boon seeing me.
My eyes stayed shut, my breath held in my lungs, until I heard our front door open. Boon’s voice carried as he spoke with my dad from the porch.
“Jason told me he couldn’t make it tonight. He got sick, I guess. Can you tell Shae?”
I didn’t have to see him to know that was a crock of horseshit. A lie. A pile of bullshit so thick I could smell it from here. Jason wasn’t sick. I saw him yesterday and he was fine. He’d stood me up, and Boon delivered the blow.
A whimper of distress threatened to leak out of my mouth, but I held it in like my life depended on it. I heard the click of the door closing and then the whispers of my parents. Humiliation,the kind that coats you in something so sticky you know you’ll never be able to get it off, washed over me.
Mom got down on the floor to sit next to me, our backs to the cabinets, and put her arm around me.
We both cried that night.
As I finally drifted off to sleep, my fancy dress crumpled in the back of the closet, my eyes swollen from crying, and the hurt in my chest like an actual knife wound, I decided two things.
One, I’d never try to fit in with the cool kids ever again. I’d fly my freak flag proudly and fuck everyone else who dared to make fun of me.
And two, IhatedBoon Wolfe. Viscerally, passionately, forever.
Present Day
The last ofthe teens funneled out of my classroom, their shouts in the echoing hallways of Blueball High School louder on a Friday than any other day of the week. I could relate. I was shouting “freedom” in my head like Mel Gibson in that one movie Dad used to love.
I huffed a breath of air up into my face. I’d worn a light sweater to work today, thinking yesterday’s fall temps wouldhold, but no such luck. We dipped our toes back into the summer temps, and I was officially overheated. The sweater had to stay on, however, because I spilled coffee on my white button-up shirt during lunch. That’s all these double-D boobs were good for, collecting errant food and beverage that didn’t make it into my mouth.
My classroom door clicked open and Lydia, my best friend, popped her head inside. “Still on for HAGS R Us?”
My glasses took a ride down my nose, aided by my unattractive sweating. I shoved them back up and nodded, gathering my tote bag of tests to grade, laptop, and e-reader.
“Heck yes. It’s what got me through the last two days.”
Lydia’s pale eyes got round. “Tell me about it. Jayden tried to take the dissected frog legs home with him. I found two sets in his pocket.”
I grimaced. Lydia taught three anatomy and physiology classes, along with some basic chemistry classes. She frequently had hilarious stories, which she delivered in her typical deadpan way.
“What is wrong with this generation?” I mused, the two of us exiting my classroom and heading for hers.
Lydia shrugged. We both caught sight of this year’s football quarterback grabbing the ass of the head cheerleader at the end of the hallway. At least some things hadn’t changed.
“Hands off the gluteus maximus, Ryder!” Lydia barked. The two kids jumped and ran out the door, laughing their gluteus maximuses off.
“Seriously?” I giggled.
Lydia stared at me straight-faced. “Well, I can’t say a-s-s, Ms. Fletcher.” She ran inside her classroom and grabbed her things, meeting me back in the hallway. She carried on with the topic. “At least I don’t say oh, Cheez Whiz like someone I know.”
I stuck my tongue out at her. “That was so high school. I have way more creative curses now.”
Lydia and I met when we both took teaching jobs in Blueball the same year. I was thirty-nine to her twenty-nine now, but we were inseparable despite the age difference. Neither of us were married or had kids, which meant we had all the time in the world to create HAGS R Us, carefully vetting every prospect before allowing her into the sanctity of our group.
There were five of us now that met loosely every other Friday, meeting at each other’s houses on a rotational basis. Tonight was my night. I already had a charcuterie board set up in my fridge that would keep us full all night. Lydia would probably bring the alcohol. Rosemary would bring dessert, Hattie would bring the entertainment, and Fifi would show up with clothes from the company she worked for that they didn’t want and therefore were up for grabs.
We’d made an art form out of rotting. If you showed up in anything but sweats, makeup-free, and hair in a messy bun on top of your head, you were asked to leave. No joke. You had to come as you were on your worst day. That was the whole point. We’d created a friendship that would support each other through the worst life had to offer. We aired grievances, cried through heartaches, and toasted to taking down the patriarchy one tiny brick at a time.
We called ourselves the HAGS because we certainly looked like unmarried hags when we showed up, but more because all the kids wrote HAGS in the back of their yearbooks every year. They meanthave a good summer, but our acronym evolved into something far spicier:hoes after good sex.
Because we might all be single and own more sweats than lacy underwear, but we weren’t opposed to some good ol’-fashioned dicking down to keep one feeling young and spry.
I waved to Lydia and we each climbed into our cars. She’d follow me home, even though she probably knew the way blindfolded. She’d help me get the food ready and change into our HAGS attire.
