"Eli, look!" Demetri said hurriedly. "That's Sky!"

Eli turned to look instantly and spotted her in the crowd. At the sight of Sky, his heart thumped painfully in his ribcage.

She looked fucking awesome. Her red hair was on big, loose curls that fell to her shoulders and she was wearing this skimpy, little outfit—

"Is that a nurse costume?" Demetri asked.

"I think so," Eli replied, though it was probably some kind of a killer nurse, for all over the costume were splatters of fake blood. But that wasn't what really drew his eyes to her - it was the impossibly short skirt that revealed almost everything. Eli's cheeks blushed as he checked out Sky's bare legs which were slender and curvy in just the right way... And when he looked up, he couldn't help but to check out her chest, her full and perky boobs that were squeezed against the low neckline of her dress–

Eli's mouth went dry, his ears started ringing.

In his life, he hadn't seen anything he had wanted as much as he wanted Sky at that moment, no matter how pathetic, how hopeless, how utterly devastating that idea was.

Demetri took a knowing look at him. "So, a couple of days ago Sky hears that you're going as a surgeon–"

"-- a plastic surgeon." Eli corrected.

"-- and then, just like that, she decides to put on a nurse costume," Demetri stated. "A coincidence? I don't think so, my brother."

Eli swallowed. His throat felt weirdly thick like there was a lump in it. "What are you implying?"

Demetri laughed and nudged at Eli's sleeve to get his full attention.

"Dude, come on! She likes you, for sure. You're gonna have to talk to her tonight."

That made Eli's smile disappear under the face mask. To think that Sky would ever notice someone like him? Absurd. He knew no girl would ever like him, that he was a monster, a freak that was condemned to live his whole fucking life without a girlfriend. But of course, Demetri would never understand, Demetri who wasn't a hideous freak like he was. Demetri, who was a nerd too, sure, but who still actually had some chances of getting laid one day, whereas Eli knew for sure it would never happen for him.

Thank God Miguel chose that moment to join their company and saved Eli from answering Demetri's embarrassing notion of Sky.

"Hey, guys, what's up?" Miguel asked, and Eli let Demetri do the speaking as usual. His attention was only partly on his companions, as he was still looking at Sky from the corner of his eye.

She was standing with Moon, Yasmine, Sam, and some other cool and pretty girls, and Yasmine was filming with her phone, probably an Instagram live or something like that. They all looked amazing, but Sky was the prettiest - or maybe it just felt like that because she'd actually been nice to him unlike the rest of them.

She was the first girl ever to do that. The first girl ever to talk to him like he was a human being and not a freak.

At that moment Sky turned to look at him over her shoulder, and their eyes met. She smiled at him and gave a small wave, and Eli's heart took a leap against his throat, almost making him choke. He finally managed to wave back, after glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Sky was really greeting him, and not someone who was standing behind him, but by that time, Sky had already turned away and he was standing there with his hand raised like an idiot.

"Who's that again?" Miguel asked, tilting his head towards the girls. "The redhead in the nurse costume?"

"That's Sky," Eli said. His voice sounded weird in his ears and he cleared his throat. "She's in my chemistry class."

"Oh," Miguel said. "Right, you told me the other day."

"She's badass," Demetri said. "You should've seen this video she showed us, where she was fighting this other girl, it was taekwondo or something–"

"Capoeira." Eli corrected. "Not taekwondo."

"Whatever, dude. The point is, she knows martial arts. You should recruit her for the dojo if you're still looking for students."

"I don't know how my sensei would feel about taking in girls," Miguel stated. "He's kinda old-fashioned."

"But Sky can kick ass," Eli said. "And she said she might be interested."

"And you?" Miguel asked. "Have you thought about it?"

"Yeah," he said. "It's a solid maybe."

The truth was, Eli had been thinking about it. He was so tired of being bullied, that he thought about any way out of it, every day. The comforting thought about suicide had lately been replaced by a thought of joining a dojo and learning to kick ass so that he could beat the crap out of his bullies.

And maybe, if Sky joined too—

"Well, I'm not joining," said Demetri. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. And I'm not incompetent."

"Asimov didn't know what he was talking about," Eli muttered. "I bet he was never bullied."

That made even Demetri shut up, which didn't happen that often.

Eli glanced back at Sky - just to notice that she had excused herself from the company of her friends, and was walking straight towards them. That sight caused Eli's heart to slam against his sternum in a frantic beat. He would've fled if he could have.

"Hi!" Sky said. "Demetri, I love your necromancer costume, it's so cool! And Miguel - it's Miguel, right? What a badass skeleton! That's awesome!"

And then she turned to look at Eli, and her eyes were huge, her pupils dilated.

"Looks like we got matching costumes." She said, and hadn't Eli known better, he would've thought she was flirting.

"Except for the blood." Eli managed an answer and gestured towards the splatters of fake blood on Sky's outfit. "That didn't happen in my operating room."

"Ha!" Sky laughed. "You're right. Maybe I should've brought the fake blood, to make us really match."

He blushed and was super grateful for his face mask that hid most of it.

"So, no Jabba the Hutt this year?" he asked.

"Christ, I never should've told you that!"

"You didn't actually. I mean, you didn't tell me the whole story."

"It was just a stupid bet that I lost." Sky said and rolled her eyes. "Hey, you want something from the snack table? I was just gonna go and have something to drink–"

Eli glanced at Demetri, who was just about to say something, but Miguel grabbed Demetri's arm and very determinately said. "You guys go ahead, I need to talk to Demetri about something."

It wasn't very subtle, and Eli blushed even more thinking that Sky would notice, and then everything would be super awkward, but apparently, she didn't because she was already walking towards the buffet, clearly expecting him to follow.

"Go!" Miguel hissed. "Go after her, now!"

Eli almost froze on his feet. This would be a fucking first time in his life that he would be talking to a girl alone and not just any girl, but to a hot girl, he really liked.

He glanced at Sky, and then at his friends again - Miguel rolled his eyes, and now even Demetri looked frustrated.

"Don't make me push you," Miguel said.

"Go, my friend. You're our only hope," said Demetri, which brought a small smile to Eli's lips. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and turned to follow Sky.

His heart in his throat, Eli walked to the snack table, picked a paper plate, and began stuffing it with candies, Cheetos, and potato chips, without even noticing what he was doing.

"My friend got to wear princess Leia bikinis." Sky said and grabbed a fistful of candies from a bowl onto her plate. "And I had to be fucking Jabba the Hutt."

Eli couldn't help a laugh. "Seriously?"

"I wish I was kidding, but no." Sky shrugged. "The costume was basically a huge, brown bag with a small electric air pump to keep it fluffed. And then it malfunctioned and fucking ballooned on me, and–"

"Exploded?"

"Uh Huh." Sky nodded.

Eli was grinning under his face mask as he piled more candies on his already overflowing plate. "I really like your costume, by the way."

"You like it?" Sky asked, and made a small turn, to show off her skimpy little skirt - making Eli's throat go dry and tight.

"It's very... pretty."

An understatement of the year. She was the hottest thing he had ever seen in his life, and to think that she was here, talking to him like they were actually friends–

And then he heard someone laughing behind his back, and he knew that laughter all too well. His stomach went tight with anxiety, as he turned to glance over his shoulder, his smile disappearing.

Yasmine and her friends were standing some distance from them, and Yasmine was clearly making fun of him again. She had a phone in her hands, and Eli had a horrible feeling that some cruel meme about him, or a mean message calling him names had just been sent to circulate on social media.

"Maybe you shouldn't be talking to me," he said silently to Sky. "Looks like your friends are making fun of me again."

"Well, yeah," Sky muttered, her smile now gone too. "The more time I spend with my friends, the more I begin to think that they're jerks."

Eli raised a brow.

"What... do you mean?"

"Let me tell you something about my old school." Sky said and looked him in the eye over the table. She was paying no attention whatsoever to the bullies that were still snickering behind Eli. She peeled the wrapper off the candy and stuffed the piece of toffee into her mouth, taking her time chewing it, before finally speaking up again.

"In my old school I didn't really have friends she said. "I wasn't exactly bullied, but I was never a popular kid either. I had one friend, my best friend Kat - you know, from the video."

"Okay," Eli said, not really knowing what to think about it.

It felt hard to believe. Sky was cool, she was pretty and she dressed the same way Yasmine and Moon did. How come she hadn't been popular?

"But then I started dating this guy, Matt–" Sky went on, and something switched and turned in Eli's chest, like an animal with sharp claws.

"Oh?" he said, clearing his throat.

"He was kinda like Kyler." Sky said. "You know, real popular and all–"

Eli was painfully aware of the fact that he wasn't like Kyler at all. And if that was the type Sky liked, well then...

He looked down and hid his bitter disappointment, by pretending to be very interested in the candies on his plate. The candies he wasn't even gonna eat, because that would mean that he'd have to remove his face mask - and this was the one day of the whole year he had a perfectly good excuse for covering his scar.

"Back then, I didn't know he was a fucking psycho asshole, though." Sky said then, and Eli's eyes snapped up to meet hers.

"What do you mean?"

Sky hesitated. "Something bad happened."

"What did he do?"

"It doesn't matter." Sky shrugged. "The point is, that I went from being the girlfriend of the popular kid to being the total loser that everyone bullied."

Eli arched his brows.

"Is that why you moved here?" he asked.

"Yeah." Sky nodded. "To get a fresh start. And even if I was only bullied for like a couple of months... I decided I'd never let that happen again."

"Ah." Eli gave a nod.

He totally understood. If he'd had the choice to leave everything behind and just start over somewhere with a new face and a new identity, he would do that too. And he'd do everything in his power to never be bullied again.

"So it's not that I particularly enjoy Yasmine and Kyler's company." Sky said. "It's just that I know what the alternative is... And I'm just so fucking pussy that I'd rather be with them than to be alone."

Her eyes met Eli's and something thumped in his chest.

"You wouldn't be alone, though," he said, his voice raspy in his throat. "You could hang out with Miguel, and Demetri... and me."

Something softened in Sky's eyes, and a small smile appeared on her painted lips. That smile was enough to make Eli's pulse quicken, his fucking hormones going over the roof.

Why did she have to be so fucking pretty?

It would've been so much easier to talk to her if she wasn't.

"Sky, come on already!" someone cried, and Eli turned to look. It was Yasmine, of course, with her stupid phone and her stupid smug grin. "We're gonna go live again!"

Sky stuffed her candies into a pocket of her costume and gave Eli an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Eli. Gotta go."

Eli gave a nod, even if it felt like a small death.

There was really nothing he could do, even if he wanted to ask her not to go. She walked past him, and as she did her arm brushed slightly his, her scent of vanilla and spices filled his nostrils.

Eli made a sharp gasp. Her scent went straight into his head, in the way he imagined a drug would go, and he felt the warmth of her skin so close to his own, energy like an electric current between them in the air.

Sky looked up as she passed him, and their eyes met. She was almost a full head shorter than he was, even if he wasn't that tall. She was just so small and slender, and it called to him in a primitive way, he wanted to grab her, to touch her, to lay his hands on her skin, to kiss her–

"I like your costume." Sky said. "You look really good tonight, Eli. Though I'd like it even more without the face mask."

He couldn't form an answer. The way she was looking at him, he was pretty sure she knew every desperate thought that went through his mind. But if she did, she didn't say anything about it, just gave him a small smile, and then she was walking away and Eli couldn't help it, he was staring after her like a moron, still holding the overflowing plate of snacks in his slightly trembling hands.

"What took you so long?" Yasmine was saying, as she arranged her blond locks around her face. "Why were you talking to that loser?"

"Sorry." Sky replied. "Just getting a snack, that's all."

"That freak trying to hit on you?" Yasmine laughed.

Sky didn't answer, but she didn't look at Eli again, and she laughed with her friends, and something in Eli's chest shattered into sharp little pieces that cut into the muscle of his heart.

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