Chapter Two
At the time, ‘love’ wasn’t the word I would’ve used to describe how I felt about Tyler.
I thought about him a lot. I scrolled through his Instagram every night.
Even though he’s a few years older than me at twenty-one, he was the first crush I ever really admitted to out loud.
At least twice a month, Sam and I went to Breakneck, the record store where Tyler works, so I could watch him practise guitar behind the counter and buy vinyl for a player I didn’t even have, in the hope that maybe just one time I’d have the courage to say something to him other than ‘hi’ and ‘thanks’.
Infatuated? Yes. Maybe even a little stalkerish? Sure.
Love, though? I wasn’t sure I’d loved anyone before, beyond my mom and Sam. But it seemed that, somehow, my crush had turned to love when I wasn’t paying attention.
Because the curse had been pretty clear: anyone you fall in love with will turn into a monster every time you go near them. Ipso facto, Tyler + Me-Just-Trying-to-Enjoy-a-Knock-Off-Robert-Smith = Wolf Man, and therefore, Me = in love with Tyler.
Not to mention, as a result, My Love Life = non-existent. But that was nothing new.
‘What is with your handwriting? Did you do this with your feet?’ Sam’s voice cuts through my thoughts of Tyler the next morning.
She gestures down at my illegible calc homework, which is sitting in the middle of our pushed-together desks.
‘Is this a three or an eight?’ she asks, her pen landing on a particularly messy collection of numbers.
I frown at the page torn from my notebook, its surface crumpled and smeared with dirt. Letting Sam copy my calc homework was the only way to stop her torrent of questions about last night.
‘I had to do it standing up on the bus this morning,’ I say. Because I was too busy obsessing over a mutant werewolf last night. ‘And that’s a two, obviously.’
She copies down the answer, tucking a chunk of long, dark hair behind her ear.
My reflection in the window over her shoulder is faint, but clear enough to see the bags under my eyes, the way my dirty blond hair, chopped bluntly at my chin, hangs limp around my face.
After flaking on the concert last night and ditching Sam, I followed Tyler to the cave in Rock Creek Park where he always shelters when he turns into a monster.
There, the brand-new sleeping bag, a change of clothes for when he turns back, and the camping lantern I bought him a few weeks ago were waiting; I figured if he was going to have to wait out becoming human again, he didn’t have to do it on a cold cave floor and could at least get back to his house not, you know, naked.
It seemed like the least I could do, since my stupid crush is what got him into this situation.
‘I’m honestly not sure what’s harder any more.’ Sam slides my wrinkled homework back to me. ‘Calc, or deciphering your handwriting.’
I press my lips together but say nothing.
No matter how many times I’ve flirted with the idea of telling her about the curse, I still can’t bring myself to do it.
Because I can just imagine that conversation: Oh, hey, Sam, sorry about last night.
Someone close to me got cursed by their shitty ex-boyfriend a long time ago and it accidentally bounced on to me, so now everyone I fall in love with turns into a monster every time I go near them, including Hot Tyler from Breakneck. Want to sleep over at my house tonight?
At the front of the classroom, a woman sits on the edge of her chair, eyes nervously scanning the room, mouth half open as though she’s waiting for an opportunity to jump in between everyone’s loud, jumbled conversations.
But the moment she announced she was our substitute teacher for American lit a half hour ago, everyone shoved their desks together and forgot she existed.
I’d feel bad, but after tiptoeing into my house last night at one in the morning, I’m too tired.
A chime dings above us. The room quiets as an overhead announcement starts.
‘Oh God,’ Sam groans. ‘Prom nominations.’
Sure enough, a chirpy voice spills from the speakers, declaring the arrival of ‘the moment we’ve all been waiting for’.
‘Who is this we they’re talking about?’ I grumble to myself.
Tiny holes lace the edges of my calc homework from where it rubbed against some grit on the bus window.
I swirl my pen around them, drawing petals so each hole becomes a flower.
There are few things in this world I care less about than prom nominations.
The rest of the class has lost interest too, their loud conversations picking up where they left off.
‘Excuse me!’ a voice shouts over the din. A few rows over, Avery Sanderson twists around in her chair so she can take full command of the room, her long blond hair swishing over her shoulders. ‘Could everyone shut the hell up for like, five seconds?’
My hand clenches tightly around my pen. Avery’s prom queen bid has been legendary, complete with two weeks of cupcakes, Snapchat campaigns and flyers plastered on every bathroom mirror in school.
Julian says the ones in the boys’ bathrooms have been drawn on so much, Avery’s selfie is almost unrecognisable under the weight of scribbled penises and casual misogyny.
A scoffing sound inadvertently escapes my throat. ‘Isn’t she enough of a stereotype without adding prom queen to the list?’ I say to Sam, my tone flat.
But just as I speak, the room goes quiet. Everyone slowly turns their attention to me, even the substitute. My eyes instinctively snap to Avery.
‘Some of us actually like having goals, Indigo,’ she says. She’s smiling, her voice viciously sweet. ‘We can’t all stay home after graduation and go to community college.’
Heat floods my cheeks, but I’m quick to tamp it down with a blank, careful look.
Avery is the only person besides my mom that uses my full name.
She has a particular way of saying it that very clearly conveys both how far beneath her she thinks I am, and how cringe it is to have the kind of hippie parents who would name their kid after a colour.
‘You’re going to college in Florida for the tan,’ I say evenly. ‘Calm down.’
Sam sniggers into her fist as Avery rolls her eyes and turns back around.
‘Okay, so about Flirty Friday tonight,’ Sam says to me. She may not be afraid to laugh at Avery in public, but her voice is still noticeably quieter.
‘I vote for The Wedding Singer,’ Julian interjects. He sweeps a hand over his short black hair. ‘But I could also be persuaded to watch Big.’
He and Elliott’s desks are parallel to mine and Sam’s, making us a clump of four, but they’ve been scrolling quietly on Elliott’s phone for the last five minutes, making my task of pretending they’re not here remarkably easy.
‘Big is not a romance movie,’ Elliott says. ‘And neither is The Wedding Singer, actually.’
Julian points a finger in Elliott’s face. ‘Don’t start with me.’
Sam smirks at them and says coyly, ‘Who says you guys are even invited to Flirty Friday?’
The urge to roll my eyes is physically painful to repress.
Flirty Friday is my and Sam’s weekly ritual of watching romance movies.
We started it in middle school, and since then, it’s become a kind of sacred tradition, us drooling over some heinously cheesy relationship in the pathetic hope that one day it would be ours.
But the whole thing kind of isn’t the same with Julian there, since Sam spends so much time staring heart eyes at the back of his head in American lit, she’s started doodling in the exact swirl of his cowlick.
That, and the fact that a love story is kind of out of the question for me.
‘Seconds just got a bunch of vintage PlayStation stuff,’ says Elliott, Julian’s best friend. He turns his phone around, revealing the Instagram page of Sam’s favourite thrift store in Columbia Heights. ‘We were gonna check it out today. You guys could come, and we can watch a movie after?’
‘That’s perfect.’ Sam grips my wrist. ‘We can see if they have any good prom dresses.’
Almost on cue, Avery lets out an ear-splitting shriek as her prom queen nomination is confirmed.
Technically she still has to beat the other four candidates, but even they’ll know it’s a lost cause.
Next to her, Avery’s best friend Cassidy claps with the speed of someone who knows her place in this school’s food chain depends on it.
‘Guess the cupcakes paid off,’ Elliott muses.
I slide my calc homework off the desk and cram it into my backpack, carefully avoiding the unabashedly hopeful look in Sam’s eyes.
I should be happy for her that she’s getting a chance to hang out with Julian, but recently, I can’t stomach the thought of anything even remotely romance-related.
Not since my falling in love with people started literally turning them into snarling, drooling hellhounds.
‘I can’t do anything later, I have plans with my mom,’ I lie. Plus, Tyler only stays a goat-dog for a couple days at a time, and I like visiting him at night to make sure he’s okay.
‘Indie,’ Sam whines. ‘This is like the fortieth Flirty Friday you’ve missed in a row.’
‘I know,’ I say, ignoring the burn of guilt in my throat, ‘but my mom needs help with her sound bath workshop.’ It’s not the worst fake excuse; my mom does often need me to help make sure none of the ladies pass out. ‘You’d think rich women in beige Spandex would know how to properly hydrate.’
‘You can still come to Seconds, though,’ Sam insists. ‘We’ll go straight after school. No rich woman shall go parched.’
‘To look at prom dresses?’ I say. ‘You’re conveniently forgetting I would rather scrub my eyes with razor blades than go to prom.’
Elliott’s eyebrows knit together. ‘You’re not going to prom?’
I snort. Prom. Romance ground zero. Never Been Kissed, 10 Things I Hate About You, High School Musical 3 – they all centre around the same stupid, forgettable, all-encompassing teenage love fest. Or, as I like to call it in my head, the danger zone.
‘Even if I had accepted that you won’t go to prom, which, to be very clear, I haven’t,’ Sam says, ‘it would still be cool if my best friend went dress shopping with me.’
‘It’s not your wedding,’ I say. ‘Although I can see why you might confuse the two. They have similar rituals. You know, spending a stupid amount of money on a dress you’ll never wear again.’
‘Hence getting one from Seconds,’ Sam says.
‘Or,’ I say, lifting a finger, ‘I could just save the twenty bucks and spend it on something I actually care about.’
‘Don’t you have to actually care about something first?’ Julian says.
Sam’s forehead wrinkles with a wince so fleeting I almost miss it.
‘Just come to Seconds,’ she says quickly, then sighs.
‘Look. I’m willing to forgive the fact that you’re ditching Flirty Friday again.
Plus, I missed the new episode of 90 Day Fiancé: Love in Paradise last night because I was busy not-seeing the Qure with you.
So, when you really think about it, you owe me. ’
My lips clamp shut, the scorch of guilt in my throat overriding any excuse I might’ve had.
I let out a long breath, and it’s all the confirmation Sam needs.
She squeals with excitement and starts pretend-arguing with Julian about how we’ll get to Seconds as my eyes wander back to Avery.
Kneeling on the chair, her khaki cargo pants slung low on her hips, she’s deep in conversation with Cassidy about what can only be prom.
A single oversized clip crusted with plastic pearls pins back one side of her hair, glittering under the fluorescent lighting.
She sweeps the other side off her shoulders and tilts her head back, exposing the long pale slope of her neck.
As I watch her, Julian’s words needle their way under my skin.
Obviously, I care about things. My mom. Sam.
Tyler. Climate change. I just care about them quietly, the way humans breathe without thinking.
Sometimes, though, I think it would be nice to care about stuff outwardly, loudly – the way Avery does.
Even about something as vapid and pointless as prom.
It’s just – the last time I did, he grew horns.