I Yearn for You, My Alexandria

EPISODE 4

CHAPTER 7

The words were a soft, slurred mumble, barely audible over the Camaro's now-subdued engine. Chris glanced over. Alexandria was curled against the window again, her eyes closed, but her brow was furrowed in a childlike anxiety.

"My parents don't know I'm outside..." she repeated, a little louder, the confession tumbling out in her drunken state.

Chris's grip tightened on the steering wheel. Of course they didn't. Little Miss Perfect, Student Body President, had snuck out to a party. The hypocrisy should have been satisfying. It should have been a weapon he could store away for later. But all he felt was a fresh wave of irritation. More complications.

He didn't answer her. What was he supposed to say? Tough luck, Princess?

He drove on autopilot, the streets of Castle Rock dark and empty. He knew where she lived, of course. Everyone knew where the Harmons lived—the big, white colonial with the perfectly manicured lawn on Maple Drive. A house that screamed order and rules, everything his own home wasn't.

He pulled up to the curb a few houses down, killing the engine and the headlights. The house was dark, save for a single porch light. It looked asleep. Peaceful.

He looked at her. She was barely conscious, her head lolling. There was no way she was walking in there on her own two feet without waking the whole damn street.

"Hey," he said, his voice rough. She didn't stir. He reached over and shook her shoulder, not gently. "Harmon. Wake up."

Her eyes fluttered open, glazed and confused. "Wha...?"

"Your house. We're here." He jerked his thumb towards the pristine lawn. "How were you planning on getting back in?"

She blinked slowly, trying to process the question. "The... the spare key," she mumbled. "Under the... the frog. The ceramic frog." She pointed a wobbly finger towards a decorative planter near the front steps, where a garishly painted frog statue sat grinning in the moonlight.

Chris stared at her. She was trusting him with this. Drunk, vulnerable, and handing him the keys to her castle. The power of it was immense, and for a second, the old, vengeful Chris savored it. He could take that key. He could wake her parents. He could ruin her in a way egg and ink never could.

He looked from her pale, sickly face back to the dark, silent house. He thought of his own father, of the shouting that would erupt if he were caught like this. The punishment.

"Stay here," he commanded, his voice low. "And don't you puke in my car."

He got out, closing the door with a soft click. The night air was cool. He moved quickly and silently across the dewy grass, his boots making no sound. He found the frog, lifted it, and felt the cold metal of a key beneath it. Simple. Trusting. It made him feel strangely dirty.

He unlocked the front door, pushing it open just a crack. The house inside was still and quiet. He turned and went back to the car. She was asleep again. With a grunt of effort, he hauled her out of the passenger seat, one of his arms around her back, the other under her knees. She was dead weight, her head falling against his chest.

He carried her across the lawn, his own heart hammering with a tension that had nothing to do with her weight. It was the silence, the fear of a light flicking on, of an angry father's voice shattering the night. He stepped inside, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He froze, listening. Nothing.

He found the staircase and took the steps two at a time, moving as fast as he dared. He found a bedroom at the end of the hall—it had to be hers. It was neat, organized, smelling faintly of that apple shampoo. He laid her on the bed, not bothering to take off her shoes or get her under the covers. She immediately curled into a ball.

He stood there for a moment in the dark, looking down at his enemy, passed out on her floral bedspread. Then he turned and left, retracing his steps, locking the front door behind him and replacing the key under the frog.

When he slid back into the driver's seat of the Camaro, the smell of her perfume and faint vomit still lingered in the air. He started the engine and drove away, leaving the perfect house on Maple Drive behind, the night's secret buried, for now, in the oppressive silence between them. The war wasn't over. But it had just become infinitely more complicated.

CHAPTER 8

The metallic clang of his locker door swinging open was the first familiar sound of Chris Hunter's Monday morning. He was braced for anything—a stink bomb, a cascade of glitter, maybe his gym clothes tied into impossible knots. The war with Harmon had predictable rhythms.

What he wasn't braced for was the small, clear Tupperware container.

It sat neatly on the top shelf, right in the center, as if on display. Inside were three muffins, their tops craggy and dusted with sugar, fat, juicy blueberries bursting through the golden-brown surface.

For a full ten seconds, Chris just stared. This was a new kind of weapon. There was no note. No "Sorry I puked on your roadside" or "Thanks for not letting me get assaulted." Just… muffins.

His first instinct was pure, cynical suspicion. They were poisoned. Laxatived. Filled with hot sauce. He picked up the container, turning it over in his hands. They looked… homemade. Normal. He could smell the faint, sweet scent of blueberries through the plastic lid.

He scanned the hallway. A few lockers down, Alexandria Harmon was fiddling with her combination lock, her back to him. She was the picture of composure—blazer, pleated skirt, head held high. But he saw the way her shoulders were slightly tense, the way she was deliberately not looking in his direction.

It wasn't an apology. An apology would be a surrender, a white flag in their war. And it wasn't a thank you. A thank you would create a debt, an acknowledgment of a vulnerability she would never admit to.

This was something else. A truce baked in batter. A silent, edible acknowledgment of the bizarre, unspoken pact they’d entered into at that party. I see the line that was crossed. I see that you, for whatever f****d-up reason, stepped over it to stand on my side. This doesn't mean I like you. It means the battlefield has shifted.

A slow, grudging smirk tugged at Chris's mouth. He popped the lid off the Tupperware. The smell intensified. He didn't hesitate. He took one of the muffins, broke it in half. It was still slightly warm, impossibly soft.

He took a bite.

It was, without a doubt, the best goddamn muffin he had ever tasted.

He leaned against his locker, eating the muffin with deliberate slowness, watching her. She finally chanced a glance over her shoulder, her eyes flicking from his face to the muffin in his hand and back again. Her cheeks flushed a faint, tell-tale pink before she quickly turned away, slamming her locker shut and walking off down the hall without a word.

Chris finished the first muffin and started on the second. The war wasn't over. He'd still park too close to her bike. She'd still find creative ways to mess with his detentions. But now, there was a new, strange flavor to their conflict. It tasted like blueberries.