I Like You

The metal bleachers of the football field were so cold, it made Regan shiver as it creeped in through her jeans. It was Friday night, and the stadium lights cast long shadows of the goalposts across the turf. She was sitting on the highest row, her fingers digging into the straps of her backpack. Inside the bag was a heavy glass jar of paint. The weight was the only thing that was bringing Regan any kind of comfort.

For years, Benji, Scarlett, and Travis had treated her like someone who had a plague. They had tripped her in public, ruined her clothes, posted embarrassing pictures of her on Instagram, and slapped her schoolbooks from her hands on more than one occasion. Tonight, she was going to get them back. They had invited her here in the name of "peace". They claimed they just wanted to hang out and apologize before the town's garlic festival started up.

Regan wasn't stupid. She knew this was just another lame attempt to embarrass her and she wasn't going to let that happen again. Her plan was a simple one, the moment they tried to humiliate her, she would shatter the jar of paint at their feet. It would ruin their designer shoes for life. Their parents would just buy them more, but for that moment, they would understand she was done being pushed around. She smiled to herself as the butterflies fluttered in her nervous stomach.

Footsteps on the metal stairs made her heart kick against her ribs. She saw Billy climbing up first. God, he was so handsome. His dark hair framed his face perfectly and made his blue eyes even more piercing. She bit her lip as he approached. He looked different without the rest of his gang. He sat down with his hands in his pockets a foot away from her, his breath creating fog in the cold air.

"You actually came," Billy said. His voice lacked the usual attitude.

"You invited me," Regan replied, shyly, her hand tightening a bit on her bag.

"I didn't think you'd trust us." Billy looked out at the empty field. "Why did you?"

Regan frowned and then she shrugged without answering.

"Look, Regan." Billy sighed. "I really am sorry about everything. Benji and the others... they can be a lot. I just go along with it because it's easier to be on the inside than on the outside."

"So," she narrowed her eyes, "You'd rather be the one hurting innocent people who never did a thing to you?" She scoffed. "How charming."

"I like you." Billy blurted out. "I've liked you since we were little."

Regan felt the ice in her chest crack. This was something she hadn't prepared for. She searched for a sign of betrayal... a smirk, any glint of a setup, but his eyes were soft in the dim light. He reached out and took her hand, scooting in closer. His skin was warm, which felt good compared to the freezing metal beneath them.

"I mean it," he whispered, leaning in a bit closer. "Let's get out of here. Just us. We could go catch a movie or maybe go grab a bite at that diner across town."

Regan's heart was hammering in her chest. How many times had she fantasized about this exact moment? She had been crushing on Billy for so long. She'd scribbled his name all over her diary and had put a heart around his picture in the yearbook.

He leaned in for a kiss and their lips connected, igniting a spark that turned the freezing night air into a blur of heat. A collision of unspoken longing mixed with tentative softness that quickly gave way to a raw, undeniable hunger. Billy moaned into Regan's open mouth, his hand sliding from her cheek to the nape of her neck. Regan gasped, her fingers tangling deep into that dark hair she loved so much. Their hearts were racing.

As the kiss deepened, Billy's movements lost all caution, his hands were quickly becoming restless and possessive. He gripped her waist firmly and slid his hand beneath the hem of her shirt. His touch was searing hot against her flesh. He moved up, tracing the curves under her bra and Regan's entire body erupted in goosebumps. She moaned and arched into his touch, her own hands clutching at his shoulders, demanding more.

The heavy weight of the paint jar in her bag felt like a burden she no longer needed to carry. She drifted into the safety of this moment, believing that the cruelty of high school had finally reached its expiration date.

Billy's mouth had made his way down to her exposed neck and he was biting and sucking on the delicate flesh there when the bright light made Regan's eyes snap open.

There was Benji, standing three rows down with his phone held up. The flash was cutting through the dark like a blade. Behind him, Scarlett and Travis had doubled over in laughter, their faces were contorted with a cruel sort of joy.

"Woo! Look at her face!" Benji whistled. "That's the look of pure, pathetic hope. We got it, Billy! Every single second of that desperate skank putting out for you, pretty boy!" He whooped and hollered. "This is going to be legendary!"

Billy jumped back as if Regan's skin had turned to fire. He glanced at Benji, a forced, panicked grin spreading across his face. "Yeah," he said, his voice cracking. "She actually believed it. Told you I could get her to buy it." He chuckled.

The betrayal crushed the air out of Regan's lungs. She couldn't even think straight. She swung her backpack with everything she had left in her, aiming from Benji's head.

"Whoa!" Benji ducked, and the bag sailed over his shoulder, the glass jar inside clinking ominously.

Travis scurried like a mouse up the stairs and grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms. "Watch the equipment you freak."

"Give me the phone!" Regan screamed. Tears had started to fill her eyes as she struggled against Travis's grip. "Delete it, you fucker. Delete it now!"

"Not a chance," Scarlett sneered, stepping closer and flicking her nose. "This is gonna be the most viewed video in the history of the school. The Cootie Queen and her king. Gold."

Regan kicked her foot hard and nailed Scarlett in the shin. Travis lost his balance on the narrow metal row. He let her go, but as he fell back, he pushed her forward with a desperate shove to regain his own footing. Regan's foot caught on the edge of the riser.

She fell too quickly to even scream. Her head collided with the sharp corner of the steel bench below with a sickening crash.

The laughter stopped instantly.

Regan lay crumpled in the gap between the rows. Her eyes were open, fixed on the stars, but the light in them was gone. A pool of ruby liquid began to pool on the silver metal, dripping down to the row beneath. The jar in her bag had shattered with the impact and the smell of paint was dancing in the air.

"Regan?" Billy's voice was a whimper. He dropped to his knees. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but his hand stopped an inch away. "Get up, Regan! The joke's over."

"She's not breathing," Scarlett whispered pushing her hands against the sides of her head. "Benji, she's not breathing! Look at her chest!"

Travis pulled his phone from his pocket. "We have to call someone now!" His voice rising, "We have to call 911 right now!"

"No!" Benji hissed, slapping the phone away. He looked down at his own phone, which was still recording. It had captured all of the carnage. He hit the stop button with nervous hands. "If we call anyone, we're going to jail. Do you understand that?"

He held up the phone and pressed play on the recording. "It looks like you pushed her, Travis! Billy baited her and you held her down and then you pushed her. Now we're all in this together. There is no version where we won't all be painted as the villains."

"It was an accident!" Billy's eyes were starting to cloud over with a storm of tears.

"Try telling that to the cops with this video on the cloud," Benji said. He looked at the body, then towards the woods that bordered the field. "We gotta move her. We hide her in the ravine near the old creek. Then we go to the festival. We pretend none of this ever happened. We never saw her. She never showed up."

They moved with frantic desperation. They carried her down the back of the bleachers, avoiding the patches of light from the streetlamps. They tossed her in the brush and covered her with dead leaves. They threw her bag into the deep water of the creek and watched it sink until it disappeared.

The weekend crawled by. Billy stayed in his room, staring at his ceiling fan. He could still feel the sensation of her hands on his skin. It felt like a burn that wouldn't heal. Benji had tried to delete the video from the cloud storage, but every time he clicked it, his phone glitched and the screen froze on a frame of Regan's dead eyes.

Monday morning arrived and the whole school felt like a hive of curious bees. Regan's disappearance was the only topic of conversation. Missing posters were already taped to the glass doors of the entrance, her smiling school photo staring at the students who had spent years mocking and bullying her.

The group met up at their usual lunch table in the center of the cafeteria, but no one ate. They sat in a tight circle catching each other's eyes as the school gossiped about the missing girl.

At 12:15, every phone in the room vibrated and buzzed. It sounded like a synchronized growl. Hundreds of hands reached into bags and pockets and pulled out lit up rectangles.

Benji's phone screen lit up on the table, but he didn't touch it. His jaw dropped as the video began to play on its own. He looked around as he realized it wasn't only his phone it was playing on. A mass-distribution link had been triggered.

The cafeteria went as quiet as a funeral.

The video was crystal clear. It showed Billy's face, tender and lying. It captured the kiss and then the camera swinging around to show the mocking faces of the others. The struggle was loud but the sound of Regan's skull crushing against the bleachers was even louder.

The camera never cut away. It showed the pooling blood and Benji's face as he suggested the cover up. Somehow, it even showed footage of them dragging away her body like trash and tossing her into the woods like she didn't even matter.

"What the fuck?" Screamed Travis. "That wasn't there before!"

Billy looked up. His face was as pale as white bread and drained of all life. He looked at the girl at the next table, who was staring at her screen with an expression of pure horror. She looked back at him.

One by one, five hundred students turned their heads to stare. Five hundred pairs of eyes settled on the four people at the center table. The video looped and Billy's voice echoed through the room. "I like you..."

He looked around, realizing there was no wall high enough to hide behind and no way to erase the ghost of the girl they'd abandoned in the dirt.

The video played over and over again, burning itself into the minds of everyone who had seen it. There was no apology or phone call that could save them from the weight of what they had done and no way to turn the screens off.