The moment Pete steps into that cursed classroom – one he and the other nerds used to escape the dreaded long breaks – he immediately feels the others’ eyes on him. Drilling into his very soul, through the rainproof jacket he’s tugging off, the droplets of the heavy rain outside falling off—
“Isn’t that Steph’s sweater?”
His head whips.
Ruth is sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs like she’s a mafia boss, low and with arms crossed, only lacking a burning cigar in her mouth. As much as she can look like a mafia boss with a baby blue sweater and galaxy print leggings, and something that looks suspiciously similar to Donald Duck and Friends comics laying on her thigh. Richie right next to her, immersed deeply into some flashing colors on his phone, casting rainbow shadows on his face.
“What? It’s not!”
Ruth raises one eyebrow, like an off–brand James Bond, and Pete feels the dread swelling on the back of his neck. She’s better than actual Hatchetfield police detectives when it comes to questioning people. Pete looks down, and realizes that he, indeed, threw on one of Steph’s sweaters he accidentally carried out after hanging out at her house (it’s always freezing in the entire place, something about both her and her dad liking cold more. Maybe they do, but Pete is bound to get hypothermia in these conditions.) It’s dark blue, with a white stripe in the middle, crocheted and high neckline.
But they had been so careful with sneaking around, especially with friends like Ruth and Richie and their amazing ability to turn up in the most embarrassing moments. He took additional care of not being within their general vicinity. Surely, they can’t fall because of something so small and unimportant, right?
“I swear, I saw Steph wearing it the other day. Didn’t she, Richie?” Ruth turns to him, and when he’s still staring at his phone screen like he’s been enchanted, elbows him hard enough to cause him to almost fall off the chair. “Didn’t she?”
“What? Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He turns his head to Pete and suddenly, his eyebrows furrow. “Hey, is that Steph’s sweater?”
“It’s not!” Pete yells desperately, throwing his hands in the air.
“It is!” Ruth claps with delight, bouncing in her seat. Richie, looking half–aware of what is happening around him, is looking between her and Pete with a confused smile, looking for an answer.
“Shut up!” He yells again, hiding his head in hands. He can feel the blush spreading on his face, for goodness’ sake, nothing can be more embarrassing than this. Debatably, even the sixth grade pantsing incident.
“Did you give her your bowtie?” Ruth’s teasing voice comes from somewhere next to him, and Pete almost sobs in despair. The rain is still pattering against the windows, even more viciously than when he jumped out of the town bus.
“Shut the fuck up!”
And then, the door opens, the unmistakable shuffle of Steph’s heavy boots appears, and suddenly sacrificing himself to the Lords in Black wasn’t such a bad idea. He'd rather suffer eternity than go through this.
“I am not going to turn around. I will stay perfectly still, and nothing else will happen. This is just a horrible nightmare I need to wake up from.” He says — to himself, to Ruth, to Stephanie or maybe something, someone else — into his hands as the doors slam closed.
“What the fuck, Spankoffski?”
Ruth has such a wide grin on her face it might as well be splitting it in two, as happy as a sandboy and almost bouncing off the cheap chair, which is creaking suspiciously. Pete is burning with shame as Steph walks closer, closer, and he can feel her behind him, dripping rain water onto that goddamn sweater and his slicked–back hair.
“I’m never talking to any of you again.” He whines, burrowing his head deeper into the fabric of the sweater. Tries to ignore how much it smells like Steph, faint cigarettes and freshly mown grass. He can’t gush about it now.
“Pe—”
“I’m taking the next bus to Chicago. Then I’m flying out to some deserted island with no service so no one can ever reach me again.”
“Bu—”
“Have a fun life knowing you caused the world to lose a brilliant future scientist. It will be all your fault.”
“Steph, did I tell you that our dearest Peter is planni—”
“Shut up!”
Ruth goes quiet for a blissful minute “If Grace ever hears about this, she’ll lose her goddamn mind." She coughs and continues,“'Oh no! Your articles of clothing have now transferred sinful germs of lust. I must exorcize the demons of sexual desire out of both of you now.'" She makes a few weird grunts as her shoes thump against the linoleum, and Pete presumes that she's acting out the exorcism scene from Steph's laughter. Ruth is also surprisingly good at doing Grace’s voice, but he won’t give her that. Definitely not now.
“I’m losing my mind here!”
“There, there.” Steph’s voice comes from somewhere to Pete’s left, “You’re alright. And I wore that hoodie you left at mine a few weeks ago so many times, so you're not the only one.” When he makes a non–committal semi–asking noise, she continues, “the green one. With a, like, football logo on the side?”
“That hoodie was his?!” Ruth goes slack–jawed in a millisecond, gripping onto the edges of her chair like a movie she’s been watching just had the most shocking plot twist before elbowing Richie again, much more brutally this time, Richie yelping as his chair tilts to the side. “I told you Steph would not have such a horrible style!”
“Hey!” Steph exclaims, sort of jokingly, and sort of “I’m not that good at social cues, please enlighten me so I don’t commit a social suicide.”
“Max owes me ten dollars.” Ruth suddenly stops talking, blinks a few times, and goes back to her slack–jawed expression from before. “Continuing, what the fuck. What else do we not know? Do you two have a house bought in Connecticut by the seashore with Lauter’s money?”
Pete raises his head. Steph has a wicked smile on her face, eyelids hung low in a silent question, looking down at him with mischevious look in her eyes.
She knows what he’s thinking. The bad side about being open with each other in a relationship is the amount of blackmail the other person has on you. And now being in tune with his feelings is coming back to bite Pete in the ass.
“No. Never in a million years. Nope.” He pops the “p” in “nope”.
Steph rolls her eyes, but the smile creeping onto her lips reaches her eyes. They always look like sparkling water when she smiles, bright and clear and impossible to not fall in love with. “Alright, partypooper Spankoffski.” She flops heavily next to him, throwing her shoulder bag somewhere near. Slowly and innocently shuffling closer so she can put her chin on his shoulder. Her wet hair tickles his cheek. “What’s the project about?”