Prose : Secret Admirer

Secret Admirer

Valentine’s Day wasn’t really a big deal. It was to everyone who has boyfriends and girlfriends, but I didn’t care. I knew I’d never have a valentine but it didn’t bother me. I have better things to waste my time on.
In my school they really deck out the hallways and classrooms with all sorts of decorations, no matter what the holiday was. Red streamers were clinging to ceiling tiles and lockers and doorways, but I did my best to act like there was nothing there. Nothing at all.
I’m too plain. It’s the only reason why no one likes me. That and I’m boring. And stupid. Well I’ve learned to get along with myself over the years. It’s hard to make friends but I manage in my own way, which isn’t really saying much.
I carry everything with me while I’m there. The teachers say that you can leave things in their classrooms if you’d like instead of dragging everything around all day, but I chose to take it with me. I hate not having everything, in case I’d need something that I may have left elsewhere. I avoid that by taking it all. Since I have everything with me I never use my locker. I don’t even really know where my locker is, somewhere on the second floor of the school building I guess, but I never looked. I’m not even really sure what the number is but it’s ok. I don’t need it for anything.
Valentine’s Day is this Saturday and I have plans. Plans to stay in my room and sleep all day.
* * *
There’s a weird guy in my school that stares at everyone. Especially me. He watches them come in the doors in the morning, stand around their lockers between classes and leave in the afternoon. He’s on yearbook so he takes a lot of strange pictures too. It’s like when you least expect it he jumps out of some inconspicuous hiding spot, snaps a picture, and runs. All the worst ones get included in the immortalizing pages of our annual, so you can remember that huge zit on your forehead, or how you forgot to brush your hair that morning: the things that our high school years are made of.
He kind of blends in with everything around him, like he’s in camouflage or he’s some kind of weird chameleon. I try to ignore him mostly, but sometimes it’s hard to. It’s like he’s something out of an old photograph—it’s strange how grey looking his skin is and everything he wears is white or grey or black. He’s something from another dimension, I think. It’s just strange how he’s always looming nearby, like he has some kind of honing system for wherever I am. I try not to let him bother me though.
Well a couple days ago he actually came up to talk to me. I was going to my next class and he stepped out in front of me to keep me from walking off. He eyes were as grey as everything else about him but there was something unsettling about the way they bore into you like a sharp blade of a crude knife into a thin sheet of paper. I couldn’t leave, like there was some kind of force-field holding me there.
“Where’s your locker?” He asked in that tinny, inhuman voice that rarely ever said a word.
“Somewhere around here.” I answered and my eyes looked frantically for an escape. Students, classmates, peers were keeping me there, rushing around us like water in a river around stones. There was no way out.
“Do you not know the number?” He questioned softly, his normally monotone voice barely changing to make this a question.
“619 I think.” I answered. I wasn’t even really sure if that was right, I just wanted to leave. He stepped out of my way and I rushed past him, uncomfortable as I always was whenever he was around. I was just glad to be away.
* * *
It was Friday and I’d forgotten about my encounter with him. Not completely, because something like that isn’t easily forgotten, but I was trying to force it out of my mind. I was close enough to it when I was in the same hall as my locker and it all came back. I had a strange urge to check it out, to see if there was something wrong with it now that he knew where it was. I nonchalantly walked by, coolly casting my gaze over in its direction.
Nothing out of the ordinary, but the strange feeling never left.
Later that day I’d dismissed all paranoid feelings about what may have been done to my locker, which I never used anyway.
* * *
My weekend was boring. Two days of no calls, no visits, and no concern from another human being whatsoever. I didn’t care though. I wouldn’t let myself be bothered.
I was worn out on Monday, for some reason though even though I’d spent my spare time sleeping.
I past my locker once and smelled something. It smelled weird but I couldn’t quite place what it was. No one else seemed to notice so I didn’t think anything else of it, and shelved it as my imagination. It burned my nose a little, and got stronger towards the middle of the hall. I thought maybe someone hadn’t taken a shower or something, but it was no big deal. I’d smelt worse.
* * *
Tuesday the smell was worse. I needed to find out what it was; it was killing me. It was like someone had locked all of us in an airtight dome around the school and the school lunch was finally beginning to decompose. It got ten times stronger in the middle of the hall and people were covering their mouths and noses, asking incessantly what the smell could be, and some were gagging. One guy puked, but that was later on.
* * *
Wednesday was unbearable. They brought in people to find out what the smell was, and they even brought in some dogs. The smell was most definitely coming from the lockers and then I finally realized—it could be mine. I got nervous because I didn’t know what the weird guy had done to it last week and honestly I didn’t want to know. But curiosity got the best of me and I pushed my way through the crowd. The smell was emanating from my locker and I was so embarrassed. Not because I had something to do with it, but because there was no way to prove I didn’t and since it was my locker I’d suffer the consequences. And I knew whatever was in there would definitely get me in trouble. It smelled like it was past rigormortis, and on its way into the final stages of decomposition.
With a shaky hand I grasped the cold metal latch that would open the door, revealing the source of the horrible smell. I closed my eyes and plugged my nose with my free hand, then swung the door open to get it all over with.
A cloud of stench wafted out at me and I covered my face with my hands. People behind me had been peering over my shoulders to see what was in my locker but now they were recoiling, shrinking back into a tight crowd of coughs and groans. The smell was making my eyes tear up and my throat was involuntarily closing and I began coughing violently. When I finally got a hold of myself and found enough courage to open my eyes, all there was was a cardboard box sitting peacefully in the floor of my locker.
‘This is great.’ I thought to myself. ‘It took enough strength to open the door as it is, but now I’ve got to open a box that stinks to high heaven.’ If it smelled this bad outside the box, I’d hate to have to smell inside of it.
I carefully lifted the box up and brought it out, setting it on the aged carpet of the hall. Fellow classmates crowded around but not too closely, because of the smell and not knowing what was inside the stinky, mysterious package.
With unsteady hands I lifted one flap and they all open and the hideous truth revealed itself. There was a kitten inside, its big eyes open and glossed over, leaning against the wall of the fragile, moist cardboard. Its mouth was open in an eternal cry for help, and I felt sick. Not only from the grotesque smell but because the strange kid could do such a thing. A tag was wrapped around its neck, and I found its cause of death: that ribbon had choked it. I lifted the tag and read the carefully etched words:

Eternally.
Be my valentine.

I looked up pitifully. Everyone had thought I was responsible and they were hurling insults and complaints about how much of a monster I was to be able to do such a thing and live with myself. My hands were shaking on the sides of the box as I frantically thought of what I could do with it. My eyes wandered in search of answers and I saw his grey face above everyone else’s, like he was waiting for this to happen. Waiting for the moment when I would be the alienated one.
He smirked and turned and walked away as the crowd tormented me, closing in. I was left helpless.
I’ve always hated Valentines Day.