Chapter Text
Steve was the first to go missing.
He had a last name, probably, but Avery didn’t know it. She was just used to seeing his lanky, zitty self, all limp greasy hair and facial piercings and ill-fitting black clothes, reading a comic book with his feet up behind the counter of the Movie Gallery. Or seeing the rusted-out camper van he was rumoured to live in parked in the gravel lot behind the tourist information centre, where he sold shitty weed with about as much enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit as he brought to the video store gig. He was a fixture around town, as much a part of the landscape as the sign on the highway advertising the annual rodeo or the grain elevator by the train tracks. Something you saw so often that you stopped seeing it at all.
Until he wasn’t.
It was the van Avery noticed missing first. It took her a while to register that it was even gone. Steve was in the tourist info lot some days, and wasn’t on others. Avery never really paid attention, unless she wanted shitty weed, which wasn’t often.
So the camper van had been gone for a week or more before it really registered.
Once Avery’d noticed that the van was gone, though, it was impossible to miss. Steve was never at the Movie Gallery anymore, and when Avery asked the manager, Trish made a face and said he’d been a no-show for all his shifts for the last week and a half. “He might at least have had the decency to let me know he quit,” she grumbled, passing Trick or Treat under the scanner and accepting Avery’s handful of change. “Asshole threw off my entire shift schedule. I had to rework the whole thing from scratch.”
“Is that…like him?” Avery asked, and got a shrug and an eyeroll in return.
Even Arlon didn’t know, when Avery cornered him at the library to ask. Arlon Thwaite, who swore blind that his middle name, Wizzard, was an old family name and only by fortunate coincidence a Terry Pratchett reference, was one of maybe three people in the world Avery considered friends. He was also the most insufferable person she knew. But then, Avery was the most insufferable person a lot of people in town knew. Maybe that was part of the reason why they were friends.
“Yeah, he’s flaked on our last two D&D sessions,” Arlon offered casually, in between reshelving Danielle Steel novels. “But he’s always flaking out on us for one reason or another. I didn’t really think anything of it.” He paused to look over at Avery, his eyes growing brighter behind the thick lenses of his aviator-style glasses as he offered, or maybe threatened, “If you wanted a seat at the table -”
“Over your dead body.”
“Don’t you mean, ‘over my dead body’?”
“No, because I’d kill you and desecrate your corpse before I’d play a tabletop game with that crowd of wastoids you call friends.”
A middle-aged woman with a truly impressive feathered bouffant, sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs by the window, looked sharply up from the Agatha Christie she was nose-deep in to frown at Avery. Avery threw the horns in her direction, and snickered when her frown got deeper and more alarmed.
“People in this town,” Avery sighed as she turned back to Arlon, who nodded agreement.
“She can act all innocent and scandalised. But she and her ilk are the biggest borrowers of these bodice-rippers.” He paused, holding up the copy of Fine Things he was tucking back onto the shelf. “And you know I once found pubes stuck in between the pages of one of these? I don’t even want to know what kind of horrors our patrons are committing against these poor, innocent former trees.”
Avery barely managed to stifle a horrified burst of laughter.
Arlon shrugged, and went back to reshelving romance. “Hope Steve didn’t skip town. He’s still got my copy of Neuromancer. And I don’t think he even started to read it.”
…
School started again three days later, and Avery mostly forgot about Steve and his mysterious disappearance. She had other things to worry about. Ms. Cusick, and her one-woman crusade against the horrifying societal scourge of nose rings. The idiot jocks in shop class, and their pointless, performative rivalry with Waynesbridge Comp.
And the new girl in her homeroom.
“Why would any sane person move from L.A. to here?” Avery grumbled to Courtney, over her clingwrapped tuna sandwich. “What could we possibly have to offer that L.A. doesn’t?”
“Manure?” Courtney suggested. “Tornadoes?”
Avery had to stop herself from snorting chocolate milk out her nose.
“Tiffany Bright,” she said, once the coughing had subsided. The words seemed to warp her mouth into a sneer around them. “What kind of a name even is that? Might as well just call yourself Barbie Hollywood.”
Courtney took a sip of her Tab before cautiously offering, “She’s really not so bad. Seems nice. We’ve got tryouts for the cheer squad tonight, and she said she’d be there.”
“My condolences,” Avery said, and Courtney snorted.
…
Avery wasn’t obsessed.
There was just…something off about Tiffany. Something too fake about her perfectly coordinated outfits, her perfectly combed, perfectly curled perky blonde ponytail, her big, perfectly blue eyes with their fan of thick dark lashes, her perfect pearly smile, never too narrow or too wide. Something about how everything she said came out sounding faintly mocking. Something about how she looked at you, like she knew something you didn’t. Like she could see toilet paper stuck to your shoe or something stuck in your teeth, and she’d decided it’d be funnier not to tell you about it.
She got onto the cheer team. Of course.
“I just don’t like that bitch,” Avery grumbled to her beat-up black boots, behind the gym, where she was sneaking a cigarette and Mallory was trying to avoid breathing in her smoke. By the way Mallory was coughing into the pin-studded lapel of her hand-me-down denim jacket, it wasn’t working. Mallory’s dad worked in demolition, and she had seven older brothers and sisters. Avery didn’t think she’d ever owned a brand-new anything. “She’s such a kiss-up, acts like she makes sugar taste sour. But we don’t know anything about her. For all we know, she killed Steve. Shit, I’ll bet you five bucks she did kill Steve.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mallory agreed sarcastically. “For some kind of Satanic ritual, probably. Really seems like her style. Bet she ate him, too. I hear human tastes kind of like chicken.”
“Pork,” Arlon corrected her, and Mallory shot him a glare. “Long pork. Human’s the other other white meat.”
“What is he even doing here,” Mallory demanded of Avery, darting a sidelong glare at Arlon, who’d gone back to ignoring her. “Don’t you have freshmen to try to corrupt to the dark side?”
“I don’t play with freshmen anymore,” Arlon said haughtily, giving his ginger ponytail a dismissive flick back over his shoulder. “After that last little shithead spent three whole sessions constantly yelling ‘I cast fireball!’ and trying to seduce everything with tits, I’ve sworn them off. They can get themselves corrupted by the dark forces behind tabletop gaming without my help. The only person I’m interested in corrupting is this one.” He nudged Avery with one shoulder, and she rolled her eyes.
“You’re never getting me to join one of your stupid games.”
“Maybe not,” Arlon admitted, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Maybe not. But you will listen to Rush.”
“How many times do I have to tell you -”
Mallory thwacked Avery square across the chest with the back of one arm, interrupting her. “Hey. That’s her, isn’t it?”
Avery looked.
It was, indeed, Tiffany fucking Bright making her way across the football field, unmistakeable and unmissable in her bright red nylon shorts and perfectly fitted white tee shirt. The way her perfectly-curled ponytail bounced – in perfect time with her perfectly-proportionate bust – as she jogged up to the brick wall beside the dumpsters where Avery was smoking seemed vaguely unnatural. So did the way the little gold cross she wore on a fine gold chain around her neck winked and flashed with each bouncing step, but never tangled, never twisted, never worked its way around to the back. The scrunchie tying back Tiffany’s ponytail perfectly matched the red of her shorts. And the stripe along the top of the slouchy white socks peeking out above her pristine white sneakers. Her smile was almost as white as the sneakers.
God, Avery hated her.
If Tiffany felt the same, she was hiding it well. “Hey. It’s Avery, right? Avery DiAngelo? You’re in Mr. Athkins’ homeroom?”
“Yeah.” Avery took a long, exaggerated drag on her cigarette, and puffed the smoke out toward Tiffany’s face. Tiffany, unfortunately, did not evaporate in the puff. She also didn’t start to look at all uncomfortable. Only vaguely annoyed. “What do you want.”
Tiffany gave her head a little toss, making her ponytail flick back and forth behind her like its namesake. “I was wondering why you didn’t try out for the cheer team. We’ve got a vacancy, and Courtney said she used to do gymnastics with you. That you were really good.”
On the list of things Avery might have expected Tiffany to say to her, that was at the very bottom. She had no idea what to say.
Thankfully, her friends had her covered.
Mallory took a step forward, putting herself halfway between Tiffany and Avery. Beside Tiffany’s wheat-gold curls, Mallory’s brassy box-dye blonde looked especially loud and cheap and fake, her mousy roots dark in the crisp September sunlight. “Who died and made you head cheerleader?”
The little smile that quirked up the corners of Tiffany’s perfect lipgloss-glistening rosebud mouth was, as usual, too knowing. Like something about what Mallory had said was funny, and not for any reason Mallory knew.
“Nobody,” she said, with that constant mocking edge and a flash of blinding teeth, eyes darting past Mallory to meet Avery’s. “Yet.”
God, Avery hated her.
She also kind of hated Arlon for snorting, like he actually thought Tiffany’s bullshit was funny. Honestly. Boys. Let a perky blonde say two words in front of them, and even the most determined nonconformist completely loses his mind and starts thinking maybe he’s got a chance.
A quick elbow to the ribs seemed to momentarily cure Arlon of that disease, though. He coughed into a fist, before hastily agreeing, “Avery’s not part of your juvenile cult of physical attractiveness. And doesn’t want to be.”
Tiffany smiled, a slow, spreading grin that showed off the blinding white of her teeth. Like she’d also caught that bit about ‘physical attractiveness’.
Avery applied another elbow to Arlon’s ribs.
She took one last, long drag on her cigarette, before giving the butt a flick. It landed on the crumbling asphalt right between Tiffany’s pristine white sneakers. Tiffany looked down at it, and then back up at Avery, with something other than sneering fake-friendliness for the first time since she’d come over.
“What are you still doing here,” Avery suggested, into Tiffany’s laser-blue stare.
Tiffany blinked those blue eyes shut, for a second, giving her hair a toss as she fixed a smile back onto her face. This one was…not quite perfectly even, not like every other smile Avery’d ever seen her wear. Avery couldn’t look away, trying to figure out what it was that the smile was slipping away to reveal. “Avery hasn’t given me an answer yet. Have you, Avery.”
Her eyes bored into Avery’s. “Unless you always make your friends do all your dirty work.”
God, Avery hated her.
“If Courtney told you we used to be in gymnastics together,” she said, after a moment’s consideration, “then she also told you she’s tried a million times to get me to try out for cheer. What makes you think I’d do it for you if I wouldn’t do it for my actual friend?”
Tiffany’s eyes narrowed like a cat who’d just spotted a mouse.
“Nothing in particular,” she said, the bubble back in her voice. Along with that mocking, knowing edge that made Avery want to grind her teeth. “Fine. I’ll let it go. For now.”
She started to turn, ponytail bobbing, but stopped to glance back at Avery. This time, the smile was seamless. “But you’re going to find out. I can be very persuasive.”
The heel of her sneaker crushed Avery’s cigarette butt into the asphalt as she started to jog away.
…
“Hey, did you – stop screaming, it’s me – did you tell that Tiffany girl I was in gymnastics?”
“Avery!” Courtney slammed her bedroom door behind her, her Jack Russell terrier slipping through behind her with a shimmying little wiggle right before the door met the crisp white trim of the frame. The bone-shaped tag on his collar jingled against his pet license. “You have got to stop coming in that window without warning me first. Aw, Grady, how many times! Not on the bed.”
Grady looked up at Courtney from the pile of pillows at the head of her bed with his long, pink tongue lolling out of a wide, guileless doggy smile, and wagged his tail.
Avery reached out and gave Grady a scratch behind the ears, and his eyes sank shut in obvious bliss. Courtney rolled her eyes before she bounced down onto the tattersall-checked comforter, sending a pillow shaped like a stubby pencil crayon tumbling to the floor. “You’re the reason he thinks he can be up here,” she scolded Avery mildly, reaching out to give Grady an absent stroke herself. “You keep rewarding him for doing what I tell him not to.”
“Oh, like I’m the only one scratching his ears right now,” Avery teased back.
“You started it.” Courtney gave Grady one more good pat on the rump, before scooting back on the bed, grabbing the pompom-wielding teddy bear Avery'd given her when she first made the cheer squad and hugging it to her chest. “And it might have come up that we did tumbling together as kids. Why?”
“Because your new best friend sniffed me out during gym class to ask me to fill a vacant spot on the cheer team.” Avery gave one of Grady’s ears a gentle tug. “What do you think, boy? Should I finally toss your mama a bone and join her silly pompom-waving airhead club?”
Grady barked, as if on cue, at the word ‘bone’. Avery stifled a laugh.
When she looked up, though, Courtney wasn’t smiling.
For a second, Avery thought she’d gone too far with the airhead comment. But Courtney didn’t even seem to have noticed. She’d drawn her knees up to her chest, ankles crossed, and she’d gone from hugging the teddy bear to gripping it like a life preserver. “Courtney?”
Courtney gave her head a little shake, her permed chestnut curls bouncing with the movement. The smile she forced looked wan and unconvincing. “Nothing. Just – I’m kind of glad right now that you always say no, whenever I try to get you to join. It’s just so not you. And now that we’re going into senior year…honestly, I don’t even know if I’m going to have time for the team.”
Avery stopped moving with her hand resting between Grady’s shoulderblades, his fur silky-soft and so warm under her fingers. “What? You live and breathe cheerleading.”
Courtney grimaced. She didn’t say anything more.
Avery sat up on the bed, Grady whimpering a little at the loss of her scritches. “Is that bitch making trouble for you? Because you’re still the head cheerleader, you know. Kick her ass out.” When Courtney only hugged her teddy bear a little tighter, burying the bottom half of her face in its fuzz, Avery added, “If you don’t wanna do it, I’d be more than happy to. I’ll take her up on her offer, and then you and I can -”
“Don’t.”
The force behind the single word surprised Avery into silence.
Courtney sighed, and leaned back against the white-painted iron frame that curved up along the long side of her daybed, where it was pushed up against the wall. “I can handle Tiffany, okay? She’s not the first new recruit who came in with a twisted idea of what being part of the cheer squad is all about. I just really don’t want you getting caught up in the middle of it. That wouldn’t be any good for either of us.”
Avery wasn’t sure why that stung the way it did. It wasn’t like she’d wanted to join the cheer team, anyway.
“Okay,” she said, uncrossing her legs and pushing herself up off the bed. “But then actually leave me out of it, okay? No more hot gossip about how I used to be able to touch my toes to the back of my head. I don’t really feel like being a pawn in you and Tiffany’s power play, either.”
Courtney shot her a tight-lipped smile. She didn’t look happy.
But all she said was, “Okay.”
…
A week later, Mallory turned up to school in a brand-new cheer uniform.