Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

That was why he now found himself barreling down the middle of Main Street after midnight, on his way to meet up with Rex and Alicia to film one of the last remaining scenes of PolterDog .

However, of the two restrictions they’d been given by their parents, not hanging out with Alicia was far more concerning to Leif than not finishing their movie. And this wasn’t just because he was worried about the demise of their tight friend group. No. Lately he’d been thinking about Alicia in a very different way.

It had started during their first day of shooting PolterDog. Alicia and Tucker were cavorting in a field for an early scene meant to establish Jessica and Mr. Bones’s easy, playful rapport before Mr. Bones bit it. Alicia wasn’t an animal lover, but she was a great actor. As Leif watched her dote on Tucker for the first time in her life, burying her face in his shaggy neck on the same soccer field where Leif had made minor contributions to at least two rec league victories, a strange half-formed image sprang into his head: grown-up versions of him and Alicia sitting by a fireplace, Tucker sprawled in Alicia’s lap as Leif worked on a crossword puzzle, mug of coffee by his side.

“Are the kids asleep?” Leif had imagined himself asking.

“I think so,” grown-up Alicia had responded.

“But you’re not entirely sure?” grown-up Leif had asked.

“No, no, I’m mostly sure.”

This strange daydream about grown-up Alicia’s uncertainty regarding their unborn children’s consciousness was interrupted by real Rex asking real Leif if he thought that last take had enough face-licking.

“Uh, yeah. That’s plenty,” Leif had said with a false confidence.

He had tried to put these thoughts about Alicia out of his head, but that only seemed to intensify them. His distant-future visions had been replaced with present-day fantasies: the two of them tandem-biking through the woods, feeding each other popcorn at the Twin Plaza, eating a fancy dinner at TGI Friday’s. And making out. A lot. Complete with serious, mouth-exploratory tongue action.

After a week of this, Leif had admitted to himself (and to his diary that he called a journal): I, Leif Nelson, have a crush on Alicia Boykins. Though it felt good to acknowledge, he knew he wasn’t going to do anything about it. Yes, she was smart and funny and fearless and trustworthy and so pretty that he had no idea why he hadn’t fully registered it before, but she was also part of his best-friend triangle, or, as Alicia had coined them, the Triumvirate. He instinctively knew no good could come of it, so he’d made a vow to himself (and to his diary) that he would tell absolutely no one. Not even Rex.

As an unspoken corollary of this vow, Leif had made sure nothing in his behavior gave even the slightest hint of his crush. At times, he’d swung too far in the other direction, harping endlessly on Alicia’s minimal flaws (such as her inability to be punctual), seeming like he actually despised her. But he preferred that to revealing the truth, which would surely alter their trio’s dynamic forever. Besides, the odds seemed good that Alicia didn’t feel the same way, so what was the point of baring his soul for no reason?

Or, at least, that had been Leif’s philosophy.

Until he’d been forbidden to see her.

Before the incident with Whitewood had screwed everything up, he’d convinced himself that he could carry his hidden crush around with him while still enjoying her presence, savoring the moments when she playfully put him in a full nelson, her hair brushing up against the back of his neck. He could live with that. But the thought of only being able to see her in secret as they filmed the last few scenes of PolterDog filled him with an electric desperation, like he had to communicate his feelings now.

Adding to the sense of urgency, Alicia had not only agreed to finish the movie, but insisted they shoot tonight. Maybe she felt the same connection between the two of them after all.

“Really?” Rex and Leif had said simultaneously, their heads pressed together to the earpiece of the phone at Rex’s house earlier that evening, while both the McClendons and the Boykinses attended a back-to-school PTA meeting at Bleak Creek High.

“Yeah, really,” Alicia had said. “We’ve got three weeks. Just a few more scenes and then the edit. We’re cutting it close either way.”

“We don’t want to get you in even more trouble,” Leif said.

“You don’t get me in trouble, Leif,” Alicia responded, grinning through the phone. “I get myself in trouble. And anyway, my parents and I had a talk, and they actually seem pretty okay about what happened. They know I didn’t run into Mr. Whitewood on purpose. Plus, the idea of having some kind of secret friendship sounds pretty sweet. Like we’re a secret society or something.”

Leif couldn’t help but smile. “Okay,” he said.

“Yeah,” Rex agreed. “Let’s finish this thing. Meet you at your place at quarter past midnight.”

“Word,” Alicia said. “See ya.”

In just a few short hours, Leif might be embarking on a clandestine romance with the girl of his dreams. A real Romeo and Juliet situation. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t care about the outcome, though of course he was hoping Alicia might want to be his girlfriend and that Rex would be supportive. Crazier things had happened.

—

LEIF BROUGHT HIS bike to a stop a couple houses down from Alicia’s (the appointed meeting spot with Rex, a dark patch in between streetlights) and waited. As he scanned the house in front of him—which belonged to a new family that had recently moved to town from Nebraska, a place that seemed so foreign as to be exotic—Leif flinched at the sight of a pair of eyes staring at him from only a few feet away. Is that Rex waiting to do one of his classic jump scares? he thought. Or are these Nebraskans actually insomniacs who walk the streets at night? But as his eyes adjusted, he saw it: a raccoon perched atop the Nebraskans’ trash can. Leif let out a loud hiss, and the raccoon, seeming to understand it as the universal sound for “Get the hell out of here,” darted away into the night.

Leif pressed the light on his calculator watch: 12:09. He was glad to be early—more time to rev himself up to make this happen. He figured the most appropriate moment would be after they’d picked Alicia up and made it to the woods. The woods, after all, were very romantic. While Rex scoped out the shots, Leif would open his heart to Alicia.

“Hey, dude,” Rex said, gliding up on his foot-powered scooter.

“You’re still riding that thing?” Leif asked. It was too dark to make out all the features of Rex’s face, which, after his encounter with the raccoon, freaked him out a little.

“Uh, yeah,” Rex said, “and I’m gonna be riding it for a while. They’re predicting that by 1998, bikes will be practically extinct. No offense.”

“Who is they ? And objects can’t go extinct.”

“You know what I mean. Obsolete.”

“Isn’t a bike actually faster and more efficient than a scooter?”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Rex said, caressing the scooter’s handlebars. “This puppy has serious speed. You’re just not using it right.”

“I’ve never ridden a scooter.”

“Exactly. You just proved my point. Now let’s go get Alicia.”

Leif was not a fan of Rex’s tendency to declare things cool no matter what counterevidence was presented, or the way he took it upon himself to prematurely end arguments to preserve the illusion that he was right. But it didn’t matter, because Rex had already sped ahead with a series of rapid Flintstones-style pushes off the pavement. Leif hopped on his bike and, even with the late start, easily caught up to him.