Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The smell of burnt hair and flesh lingered long after the fire was extinguished. The night had started out relaxed and everyone just having fun. Jokes were being told and people were catching up with others they hadn’t seen in years. It seemed just like another high school bonfire from back in the day. Only 15 years had passed since they all had graduated; however, in all those years a secret still remained.

The former head Cheerleader was a spiteful woman. She never got over the fact that in the high school yearbook she had been voted best hair instead of best personality. You see best personality went to the lead Basketball Player for she was loved by all and treated everyone equally.

The Cheerleader had been so pissed when she found out back in the day that she had keyed the Basketball Players car. The Basketball Player knew it was the Cheerleader because a guy from the drama department had witnessed it and told her. Now the Basketball Player had two options, confront the Cheerleader and call her out on it so the whole student body would know what she had done, or pretend to be upset about the event. The Basketball Player chose the latter because sometimes it was better for the bully to think they had won. That way things don’t worsen.

So that brings us back to the present moment at the party where they are playing a game of truth or dare. The Basketball Player was getting ready to ask the Cheerleader a truth when some guy from the back shouted “Did you key the Basketball Players car?”

Low and behold the Cheerleader got all offended saying, “Why would you say that? I would never do anything like that.”

Only now the entire party has stopped and was watching this play out. Neither the Cheerleader or Basketball Player was aware that the drama kid had taken a video on his cellphone of the event as it happened. He had sent it to all his buddies and they to all of theirs.

So while the Cheerleader thought she got away with it, the Basketball Player chose to overlook it and everyone else was aware of it. So when the Cheerleader pretended to be offended, every person at that party started saying what they really thought of her. How she was rude, no one actually liked her, and they wish she would leave. Just then she lunged for the Basketball Player and started to push her towards the bonfire. As everyone tried to break up the fight, fists started to be thrown and someone got the bright idea to throw a bottle of vodka on the fire. Within seconds of the bottle exploding, fire leapt outwards and caught the Cheerleaders sweatshirt on fire.

It was with quick reflexes that the Basketball Player ran straight into the Cheerleader knocking her into the water and getting the flames extinguished. As they stumbled out of the water and looked around, you could see multiple people stop, drop, and rolling. Chairs were fully engulfed and screams were heard up and down the beach. The ambulance and fire department arrived a short time later to care for the victims who had been burned.

The Basketball Player was going around checking on everyone, the Cheerleader was standing off to the side just boiling mad. As the Cheerleader was making her way to leave, one of the party members goes “I guess we can take away best hair for you.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Cheerleader.

The guy pointed to her hair, and as the Cheerleader started to run her hands through it, she lets out a blood curdling scream. Apparently, the fire from her sweatshirt had ended up burning about a foot of her hair. It really was a good thing the Basketball Player so quickly knocked her into the water or it may have been worse.

The Cheerleader just nodded to the Basketball Player, and said “Thanks,” while she walked away.

— Nicole Barden 4/29/2021

Originally published in Illumination on Medium