Normalish by Margaret Lesh

call.”
    And we all know how that turned out. Maybe she figured he was fair game. Maybe she was already planning to make her own move. I really don’t know. What I do know, though, is you don’t go after someone that your friend likes, period. Even if there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he’ll ever be interested. That’s just the way it is, and she broke the Girlfriends Code.
    I left the stadium—the cheering, happy people. I walked, and I hated as I walked.
    My boots crunched the little pebbles on the pavement, and I wanted to punch somebody. Somebody like Anthony. Or Summer. Everything was unfair and wrong, and the world became a blur when I started to cry fat, wet tears that rolled right down my face, tears that I didn’t even bother to wipe away. It occurred to me, though, after I’d been crying and walking for a few minutes, as I ran through the emotions of the whole stupid situation, that maybe I wasn’t so much angry at stupid Anthony and stupid Summer; it was everything wrong in my life put together. The way I’d been feeling so wretchedly alone. Summer, Anthony—they were unimportant. The two of them were insignificant specks of lint I could just flick off my sweater. That made me feel about two percent better.
    Cars passed as I walked on the main road. A car full of guys honked at me, and I didn’t even bother to flip them off or curse them out like I usually would.
    I cut through the same residential neighborhood I usually cut through, but during the day it’s not so dark. Not nearly so creepy. Everything was quiet; no other cars were around. It seemed like there were a couple street lights out, and the blackness of the night was intimidating.
    The night air was clearing my head though. Walking is good for that. It can really take the edge off things. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. I stopped crying and noticed how still everything felt. Peaceful.
    I heard the car pull up from behind. It was a car like my grandma’s—a big boat. It stopped, and the man inside motioned for me to come over. (I’m not a complete idiot, I know about staying out of pervert-grabbing range, so I didn’t get too close.) There was something about him. He seemed harmless enough, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
    Pervy Guy rolled the window down.
    “Hello, young lady. Can I give you a ride?”
    He said it so innocently, like it was nothing at all—a perfectly normal thing for me to do, get in the car with some strange man. It’s kind of funny when I think of it, him thinking that I’d just jump into the car with him. For some reason, I focused on his hair, his terrible comb-over that looked like what was left over from a bird’s nest—the part the birds didn’t want.
    “Oh, no thanks,” I said, trying to sound calm.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Thank you, but no. I’m good.”
    “You know, it’s really not a good idea for you to be out by yourself this late. Why don’t you let me give you a ride?” he said firmly.
    “Um, I’m good. Thanks anyway,” I said politely, in case he had an axe and a hammer and a roll of duct tape tucked underneath his seat. For all I knew, he could’ve been the biggest serial rapist/murderer in L.A. I didn’t want to set him off; I didn’t want to make the news.
    I started to walk on, and he shrugged his shoulders like I was making a big mistake. (God, what an ego. Do I look like a hooker or something? Was it the boots? Maybe it was the boots.)
    As I walked away, I went from feeling like a pathetic mess to angry. Angry like I wanted to kick someone. Angry that I couldn’t walk down the street at night without being accosted by some old pervert.
    When the perv’s car drove about half a block down the street and flipped a U-turn, pulling slowly up next to me, I felt the fear gnawing in the pit of my stomach. He was near me now, maybe three feet away, he’d pulled up so close. His eyebrows looked all shaggy and woolly; my stomach tightened. I also