A Little Bit Haunted

by Melody Summers

  I glanced around the corner, struggling to ignore the babe thing, and made myself as small a target as possible. Oh, sweet. It was Hayha, just like I’d thought, waiting to hit us as we came out of the garage to cross the street. That sneaky little…

  Dylan, who was being my bodyguard today, eased back so he could cover me. “Have you got a shot?” he asked.

  I frowned as I studied the layout. Hayha had picked a fantastic position. Anywhere I moved to get a bead on him would leave me exposed to him, which would be very bad.

  “If I try it he’s going to see me, and since he’s already in position odds are he’ll get off a shot before I do.”

  “We’ll just have to give him something else to look at, then,” Quinn said. “Come on, Dylan. Let’s see if we can get his attention without getting ourselves killed for a change.”

  They darted out through a sagging door frame and began moving along the edge of the street, taking advantage of every bit of cover they could find. Hayha would be looking for me, but he couldn’t afford to ignore them when they were moving towards his position. In a stand up fight they’d slaughter him. I gave it a ten count then slid around the corner and lifted my rifle. Hayha was still there, but now his attention was on the others. Biting my lip, I lined up the shot and fired.

  “Boom. Headshot,” I announced. “So long, Hayha.”

  “You got him?” Dylan asked.

  “I got him.”

  Quinn cackled like a maniac. “Valkyrie, you are the bomb.”

  “Let’s go clear the rest of them up.”

  Without Hayha to lead them, his team fell apart. Thirty minutes later it was all over, although only Quinn and Dylan had survived on my team. Quinn was still laughing over the ambush we’d suckered CowboyBob’s team into.

  “Babe, we make such a killer team. Don’t you think we’d be just as hot in real life?”

  “Let’s never find out.”

  Dylan groaned in disgust. “You two either need to get a room or give it up. This constant flirting is making me nauseous.”

  “I am not flirting with him!”

  “You totally are,” Quinn said.

  “Dream on.”

  “You love it and you know it, babe.”

  “All right,” Dylan grumbled. “I’m done. Later, you two.”

  After he disconnected, only Quinn and I were left. My heart gave a little skip as I awaited the inevitable. He pushed a little bit harder every time.

  “Tell me who you really are.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “But I can’t go out with you if you won’t tell me.”

  “Why do you want to go out with me? You don’t even know me.”

  The teasing banter left his voice. “Because you’re smart, you’re sassy, you’re confident, and you can lead a team of high school guys who’d trash any other girl who tried in about ten seconds. That makes you pretty awesome.”

  I sighed as a wave of sadness swept through me. I wasn’t any of those things—not really. It was something I could do when I was safe in my own home playing a game with people I didn’t have to be in the same room with—that was all. It was a role I put on like a Halloween costume. It didn’t mean anything at all outside of that.

  “Maybe I’m hideous. For all you know I’m a troll or something.”

  “Somehow I don’t think so. But it wouldn’t matter. I like you, Val.”

  I wanted what he was offering more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my whole life, but I couldn’t have it. Couldn’t have him. Guys like Quinn weren’t for girls like me. And knowing that made me hurt so bad I could barely breathe.

  “You don’t know me at all,” I told him, and it was only the sad truth. “I need to go. Later.”

  “Bye, babe.”

  My eyes were burning with tears I refused to shed when I killed the session and powered off the game console. As I pulled the headset over my curls a bitter laugh forced its way past my throat. Smart. Sassy. Confident. What would Quinn say if he found out that Valkyrie was really The Ditz, the school’s poster girl for dumb blonde jokes? How fast would he run if he found out she was the girl who barely passed her classes and hardly ever said a word to anyone?

  I could tolerate the blonde jokes. Putting up with a high school full of kids who thought it was a riot to set off the panic attacks that usually left me huddled in a bathroom stall for hours was a different story. That had been the story of my life until I’d moved here at the start of my sophomore year. That was when I came up with The Plan.

  I was going to be ignored. I was going to be invisible.

  If people think you’re not very bright—if you never understand anything that they’re talking about and you never have anything interesting or funny to say—after a while they tend to leave you alone. They stop trying to include you. They stop calling on you in class. And what fun is picking on someone who doesn’t even get the joke? After a while you just sort of fade into the background. I’d spent my entire sophomore year attracting no more attention than the plastic potted plants in the classrooms, which after what I’d gone through in school before had been pure Heaven.

  I couldn’t take a chance on anyone finding out the truth. Word would get out around school and I’d be right back to throwing up in the bathroom every day. Even worse, the other gamers I played with would find out and I’d lose the one real social outlet I had. So Quinn was never going to find out Valkyrie’s real identity. No matter how much I wished I could tell him.

  So I’d play online games with Quinn and admire him from a distance and wish, but that was all it could ever be. At least this way I got to talk to him and spend time with him and know that there was something about me that he liked, even if it was just in cyberspace. That was way more than I’d ever imagined I’d get when I started falling for him a year ago.

  Get Not Exactly Lying and read the rest of Molly’s story.

  About the Author

  I’m a native Texan, and I live in south Texas where I spend as much time as I can at the beach. I’m a recent college grad (journalism with creative writing), and I live with my two rescue kitties in a little apartment just across the street from the beach. When I’m not working or at the beach, I’m usually staying up way too late drinking way too much coffee while scribbling away on my current masterpiece-in-progress.

  Did I mention that I like the beach? :-)

  I’m a firm believer in True Love. I grew up reading romance and fell in love with falling in love. That’s probably why I decided I wanted to write my own stories. I had filled up a big stack of those giant spiral notebooks before I graduated from high school, and worked my way through several more while I was in college. After I got my degree, I decided that if I was going to do all of this writing I really ought to try publishing some of it. Since I’ve got all of the patience of a fruit fly with ADHD, I decided to self publish instead of spending who knows how long trying to find an agent and mailing manuscripts back and forth. We’ll see how it works out.

  You can stalk me on my blog at http://melody-summers.com.