why would you even bother telling someone your secrets before killing them

[self_composed]

By the end of Bio, the halls are full of people eager to inform Bella and everyone else within earshot that her friend is a murderer. They have entirely the wrong attitude to have formed the impression because he just now murdered someone, and also her father hasn't come looking for her yet, so this is probably nonsense.

Bella goes to gym.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

"Pretty sure it's bottomless, actually."

[self_composed]

She smiles. "You're very cute when you want to be."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Thanks, but—" he makes a buzzer noise, as of a game show highlighting an incorrect response: ennnh. "Wasn't trying to be cute."

[self_composed]

She shrugs. "Then you are occasionally very cute when you aren't deliberately undermining the impression of same."

[edgeofyourseat]

He laughs. "Okay."

[self_composed]

"What are you generally trying to do? Or are you bouncing around like a pinball, occasionally meeting sharp impacts but never rolling around towards something specific?"

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice blinks.

"...I think that's actually the most accurate description of my life I've ever heard."

[self_composed]

Bella bursts out laughing.

"Well, pinball wizard, bounce off anything interesting today apart from the rumor that you're a murderer?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"The incredibly weird realization that I'm friends with somebody who has other friends?" he says after a moment's thought.

[self_composed]

"Have you historically been friends even with people who didn't? Your mom left me with the impression that you've been altogether a loner, historically."

[edgeofyourseat]

"I've never been, like, hey-come-back-to-my-house friends," he says. "Well, not since I was a little kid. I've hung out with people. Sometimes even the same people for a while. But, y'know, even people who don't wanna avoid me sometimes wanna hang out with people who wanna avoid me."

Which is apparently also the pattern he expected their nascent friendship to follow.

[self_composed]

"I don't understand the idea that one's friends all have to get along with each other," Bella says. "I can go to Angela's to paint our toenails and yours to invent - we never actually named that sport. Hm. Anyway, even if Angela wanted to avoid you that wouldn't mean I'd have to interact with only one of the pair of you."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Are you sure you're a high school student?" he teases. "Because you make way too much sense."

[self_composed]

"Here I am, enrolled in high school," Bella says. "Taking classes. Actually showing up to them, in fact. Teenagers being idiots is optional, but most people will be idiots if you give them an excuse and wedge them into low-stakes environments."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Oh, uh, I'm not allowed to take you into the basement anymore," he adds. "So hanging out at my place might not be the greatest idea."

[self_composed]

"Okay," says Bella quietly.

And, "You're allowed to come to mine if I invite you, right?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yep!"

[self_composed]

"Let me guess. The basement is off-limits because we might fornicate in it, but it didn't occur to anyone that my dad works until late in the evening and I spend many of my waking hours at home completely unsupervised."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Pretty much. Well, actually I think Mom is hoping we'll fornicate at your place."

[self_composed]

"That did seem to be on her wishlist. She was very wistful about the whole thing. What exactly does she imagine you having a girlfriend would do that having a mere friend could not? Even a fraudulent green-card marriage with someone from the Philippines or something could occur with a mere friend. Not me, since I was born here, but you know what I mean."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Get me the fuck out of her life?" he suggests. "Without pissing Dad off too bad? He'd flip his lid if I started seeing somebody he didn't think was 'respectable' enough. But I kinda see Mom's point, actually, I bet he'd be just fine with a shotgun wedding to a girl I met at school."

[self_composed]

"Am I even that respectable?" Bella asks. "Lower-middle-class background, divorced parents, willing to associate with you?" She sticks out her tongue at him.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Police chief's daughter," he counters. "Can't shun you without looking like he has something to hide."

[self_composed]

Bella laughs out loud.

"If you knocked someone up and hastily married her, what would you do then - what do your parents imagine you'd do? You still don't have a job, most high school girls you could inseminate don't either. Where would you live? What would you live on? How would that solve the basic problem, which is that you live in that house with those people? Plus Hilary, goddess of cake, who I apologize for tarring by association."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Maybe they'd kick me out of the house and drop a trust fund on my head," he suggests with a shrug. "Or maybe Mom thinks he would. And I'm telling Hilary you called her a goddess."