Page 18 of I Kissed Shara Wheeler
DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: 39
Sometimes, when Chloe is stressed, she pictures herself in another life.
Not as somebody else. She imagines herself in a universe where she gets to be cool and super hot and everybody appreciates how capable and smart she is, like if she were a vampire hunter in Edwardian England. It’s a coping strategy, okay?
She tries to calm down as she drives to school by imagining herself at a fancy banquet, whipping up silk skirts to reveal a dagger strapped to her thigh before she flicks it across the room, straight into the wall an inch from vampire Shara’s face.
It doesn’t work; she pulls into the student parking lot in what her mama likes to call “an absolutely foul mood.” Ash is late, as usual, but Georgia and Benjy are already there, leaning up against the fender of Benjy’s Mustang. They carpool, since Georgia’s parents can’t afford to get her a car.
“You look like something crawled up your ass,” Benjy tells Chloe when she slams her car door behind her.
“This should help,” Georgia says. She hands over Chloe’s usual Starbucks order: iced matcha latte with two pumps of brown sugar syrup and one pump of vanilla. The closest False Beach will ever get to boba. She takes a long sip, but it does nothing about the five hundred screeching bats inside her brain, all named Shara Wheeler.
When she glances up, Georgia is studying her face, and Chloe forces a smile. She’s not eager to explain what happened after the Taco Bell drive-thru last night, and the angrier she acts, the sooner Georgia is going to ask.
All her friends know how she feels about Shara. Benjy was in honors world history when Chloe and Shara both chose Anne Boleyn for their midterm presentation and Shara scored five points higher by passing out homemade rose marchpane cookies like a Tudor tooth fairy. Ash let Chloe practically squeeze the bones in their hand to dust when Shara got called up in chapel as Junior Class Student of the Year, an award for which Chloe was disqualified due to “personal conduct.” It’s kind of a running joke among the four of them: Chloe and her bitter nemesis, a perfectly nice girl they all like.
If she told the rest of her friends about the kiss—which she won’t, because of her complicated feelings on Shara’s privacy—they’d probably throw her a Kissed the Hottest Girl in School party, which would make her want to die. And if they knew about the clues, they’d flame her in the group chat for letting herself get sucked into Shara’s deranged side quest, which would make her want to kill them. So, keeping things to herself is for everyone’s safety.
“Any news on the roommate front yet?” Chloe asks, knowing it’s a safe bet to change the subject. Benjy and Ash are going to Bama and RISD, respectively. Ash is sharing their dorm room with an internet friend they met in a free Catboy company on their Final Fantasy XIV server, but Benjy is still waiting to hear what type of guy he’s been stuck with.
Benjy takes the bait. “Not yet. My new fear is that he’ll be a hot straight guy. I cannot spend my first year away from home with an unrequited crush on a guy who wears neckties to football games.”
“Maybe he’ll have cute friends,” Chloe suggests.
“I don’t have high hopes for the gays of Tuscaloosa,” Benjy says.
“It’s gonna be great,” Georgia says. “You’ll either meet a guy who owns five seersucker suits or a guy who wants to drive you around on the back of his ATV, and either way, you get to have a whirlwind romance under a dramatic canopy of oak trees.”
“Are you gonna write me a coming-of-age movie or what?” Benjy asks her. “I’m ready to put Timothée Chalamet out of work.”
“Sorry, I don’t do screenplays,” Georgia says, taking a swig from her water bottle.
“Did y’all apply for your cool NYU apartment yet?” Benjy asks them.
Chloe nods. “We don’t get assigned until July though. I’m just glad I don’t have to live with a random.”
“Uh-huh,” Georgia hums.
“I—” Benjy starts, but he cuts himself off. A black Jeep has parked three spots down, and Benjy tries to turn a glare into a polite smile as Ace Torres climbs out. Ace spots them and offers his trademark shit-eating grin.
“Hey, Benjy!” he says with a wave. “Chloe, Jessica.”
He lumbers cheerfully off toward the courtyard where the jocks congregate before school, whistling to himself.
“Three months,” Georgia says, gesturing with her water bottle, which clangs against Benjy’s headlight. “For three entire months, I was stage manager and he was Phantom, and he still can’t bother to learn my name.”
Benjy releases a sigh like the bearer of a centuries-old feud. “What do you think goes on in that head?”
“I always picture a cute little hamster running on a wheel,” Chloe says.
“But it’s wearing an itty-bitty letterman jacket,” Benjy adds.
Georgia asks, “What did the hamster letter in?”
“Javelin,” Benjy says. “I’m surprised he remembers my name. God forbid people think we’re friends.”
“Do you want to be friends with Ace Torres?”
