I stepped out into the biting afternoon air, the heavy steel door of the side exit thudding shut behind me. For a second, the cold shocked my lungs. I pulled my coat tighter, shoved my gloved hands deep into my pockets, and started toward the back lot.
The garden beside the parking spaces was half-dead, frozen stalks leaning like drunk soldiers in the snow-muddied soil. Matilda's Lexus was right where it always was—second row, passenger side facing the field, parked like it was too good to sit with the other cars.
I stopped a few feet away. Looked around. No one.
Good.
My hand, almost without thinking, went straight to the keychain tucked away in my pocket.
I bent down, crouching beside the Lexus's rear tire. I flipped the keychain in my hand, watching how the silver caught the dull light, and gently tested its edge with my thumb, feeling the slight keenness.
I turned the keychain in my hand, watching the silver catch the faint light. I ran my thumb over the edge—it felt a little sharper than when I had used it on a pencil.
"Was it because I was about to use it for revenge?" I mumbled
It was also heavier than I expected, solid and cold in my palm.
I tilted it again. Mustering the courage i had at that moment.
I gripped it tighter, my fingers curling around the cool metal. Then I raised my hand and aimed it at the shiny surface of the car.
Matilda Renley, I thought, the name a silent, physical nightmare in my mind. This one's for all my skateboards. For all the times she'd made me feel small, like I was dirty.
Just as I leaned in, ready to make my mark, a sudden gust of wind, cold and playful, swept through the lot. It caught my hair, a tangled mess, and flung it across my face, blinding me for a moment. I instinctively shoved it back with my gloved hand, and in that quick, unexpected movement, the sharp edge of the keychain jabbed into my finger through the thin material.
"Shit—" The word escaped my lips, a soft, sharp curse, more of a startled breath than a sound.
My fingers opened without me even meaning to, and I dropped it. The keychain, my tool of revenge, fell silently into the dark mulch beneath the car.
A small, dark bead of blood bloomed almost instantly at the edge of my glove, a crimson stain spreading slowly, soaking into the fabric.
I knelt down quickly, my gaze fixed on the spot where it had fallen, brushing at the loose bits of mulch with my uninjured hand. It had to be here—I'd seen the quick flash of silver, the—
Then, a sound stopped me cold. My hand froze, suspended over the dirt.
Moaning.
It was slow. Rhythmic. And unmistakably obscene.
My head snapped up. I turned, my eyes wide, searching for the source.
At first, a tiny, hopeful part of me thought it was a joke. A prank. One of those dumb videos people made for social media, pretending to have sex in public just to get views and attention.
But no. This wasn't a joke.
Through the fogged windows of a dark navy-blue Subaru, parked just two spaces away from Matilda's car, bodies were moving. Fast. Tangled together. A fraantic, almost desperate rhythm.
And not just any bodies.
Devon. Matilda's boyfriend. The captain of the football team, the one everyone looked up to.
Stella. Matilda's best friend. Her shadow, her loudest supporter.
Stella's bare leg was pressed up against the cold glass of the window, her heel smudging a hazy, circular mark into the condensation.
I blinked once, twice.
Then I squinted, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, trying to make it compute in my brain.
Then, a whisper, barely audible, escaped my lips. "Are you serious right now?" It was as if I needed to hear the words spoken aloud to truly believe the unbelievable scene unfolding before me.
Their moans were louder now, growing steadily, rising in speed and feeling. Devon's hand was tangled in Stella's hair, gripping the back of her head. Stella arched her body beneath him, her back bowing.
I didn't hesitate. Not for a second.
My phone was out of my pocket in a flash. The camera app was open before I even consciously thought about it.
I zoomed in, the image on my screen growing larger, clearer. I focused on the tangled bodies, on Stella's leg pressed against the glass. Then, a quick, quiet click. Then another. A dozen photos. More.
Then, my thumb pressed the button again. I hit record.
I moved a few steps closer, slow and careful, ducking low behind the dying hedge that lined the edge of the parking lot. The cold bit through my thin tights, making my knees ache, but I didn't move. I stayed perfectly still, watching, recording.
This. Was. Gold.
I was still breathing hard from my hurried walk through the hallway, from the cold, from the initial shock of seeing them. But now, my quick breaths were from something else entirely. Something new.
Satisfaction. A deep, warm wave of it spreading through my chest.
No, it was more than that. It was a sudden, thrilling surge of power.
I thought of all the things I'd heard Matilda say about other girls, nasty comments and cruel jokes. I thought of the things Stella had whispered about me during biology class, cutting remarks that stung more than any punch. The rumors they'd spread, the laughter they'd shared at my expense.
This. This made it worth it. Every single insult, every quiet moment of feeling invisible.
Devon's voice, a low groan, breathed her name. "Stella...fuck…"
And I, Ellie Young, the invisible girl with a bead of blood on her glove and the perfect revenge captured on her camera roll, smiled for the very first time all day. It was a slow, deliberate smile, a feeling of triumph spreading through me.
They were building to it, the two bodies in the car. I could hear it in the rising intensity of their sounds, in the increasing speed of their movements, in the ragged shift of their breathing. I didn't need to see any more. I knew.
This was the part where they both came.
I turned off the camera on my phone, the screen going dark. I shoved it back into my coat pocket, the adrenaline coursing through my limbs like wildfire. My skin tingled.
Time to leave.
I ducked out from behind the hedge, crawling low past the sad, dead garden. I could still hear the muffled sounds from the Subaru, a distant echo of their desperate passion. I didn't look back. I just kept crawling, moving as fast as I could without drawing attention.
I made it past Matilda's Lexus, past the last edge of the bushes.
Only when I reached the far end of the parking lot, where the school buildings were out of sight, did I finally stand up, brushing the clinging mud from my knees and coat.
It wasn't until much later, when I was home, safe in my room, that I realized I'd left the keychain behind.