HIGH SCHOOL NEVER DIES

MISSCONFUSED (Vol. 1)

Chapter 4: High School Never Dies

---

There's a particular kind of dread that comes with running into people from your past. Not the good people—the ones you actually liked, the ones whose absence from your life is more circumstance than intention. No, I'm talking about the other kind. The kind who saw you at your worst and never let you forget it. The kind who turned your trauma into entertainment and your pain into punchlines.

The kind who are currently standing in line at your favorite coffee shop on a Saturday morning.

I saw her before she saw me. Vanessa Park—former cheerleading captain, former queen bee, former ringleader of the "Asenath is pathetic" fan club. She looked almost the same as she had in high school: perfectly styled hair, designer clothes, an expression of vague superiority that suggested she found everything around her slightly beneath her.

My first instinct was to run. Just turn around, walk out the door, find another coffee shop—preferably in another city. Maybe another country.

But I was already at the counter, my order half-spoken, and the barista was looking at me expectantly. So I did what any mature, well-adjusted adult would do: I finished my order, paid for my drink, and prayed to every deity I could think of that Vanessa wouldn't notice me.

The universe, as usual, had other plans.

"Oh my God. Asenath Mensah?"

I closed my eyes for exactly two seconds, composing my face into something resembling polite neutrality, before turning around.

"Vanessa. Hi."

"I thought that was you! Wow, you look..." She did that thing where her eyes traveled over me, cataloging and judging. "...great. Really great."

"Thanks. You too."

We stood there in the awkward no-man's-land of forced small talk, neither of us sure how to proceed. In high school, Vanessa had never spoken to me directly—she'd preferred to communicate through giggles, whispers, and pointed glances that made it clear I was the butt of whatever joke she was telling.

"So what are you doing now?" she asked, with the tone of someone who expected the answer to be disappointing. "Are you still in the city?"

"I work at a marketing firm. Downtown."

"Oh, fun! I'm in real estate now. Commercial properties, mostly. It's incredibly lucrative." She said this with the casual arrogance of someone who mentioned their salary unprompted. "Are you here with anyone?"

The question felt loaded, but I wasn't sure why. "Just getting coffee."

"Alone? On a Saturday morning?" Her smile had an edge to it. "I figured you'd be... you know. With someone."

There it was. The subtext I'd been dreading.

"I'm meeting someone later," I said, which was technically true. Beryl and I had plans for brunch.

"Oh, good. That's good." She tilted her head, studying me. "You know, I always felt bad about how things went down in high school. The whole Kiyan thing."

My stomach dropped.

"That was a long time ago."

"I know, I know. But still." She leaned in conspiratorially, like we were old friends sharing secrets. "Between us, I never believed what he said. The whole 'throwing yourself at him' story? Please. You were never that desperate."

I didn't know what to say. Was this supposed to be an apology? It felt more like a knife disguised as an olive branch.

"Anyway, I should grab my coffee. But we should totally catch up sometime!" She pulled out her phone. "What's your number? I'll text you."

I gave her my number because I couldn't think of a polite way to refuse. She air-kissed in my general direction and flounced off to claim her order, leaving me standing there with a latte I no longer wanted and a sick feeling in my stomach.

High school never dies. No matter how far you run, no matter how much you grow, it's always there—lurking in coffee shops and grocery stores and random street corners, waiting to remind you of who you used to be.

---

Beryl found me on a bench outside the coffee shop, staring into my untouched latte like it held the answers to existential questions.

"Hey, I thought we were meeting at the restaurant?" She sat down beside me, her expression shifting from curious to concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I ran into Vanessa Park."

"Vanessa—" Her face darkened. "The cheerleader? The one who—"

"Yeah. That one."

"Jesus." She moved closer, her hand finding mine. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know. I thought I was over it. All of it. The high school stuff, the rumors, the way people looked at me." I shook my head. "But seeing her, having her bring it up like it was just casual gossip... it all came flooding back."

"What did she say?"

"That she felt 'bad' about how things went down. That she never believed Kiyan's story." I laughed bitterly. "Like that makes it better. Like her not believing it privately makes up for all the public humiliation."

Beryl's grip on my hand tightened. "She's a terrible person. Always was, always will be. Her opinion doesn't matter."

"I know. Logically, I know that." I finally took a sip of my coffee—it was lukewarm now, which felt appropriate. "But there's this part of me that's still seventeen. That still remembers what it felt like to walk down the hallway and hear people whispering. To have no one believe me when I said I didn't do what he claimed."

"I believed you."

"I know. You were the only one."

We sat in silence for a moment, the morning noise of the city flowing around us like water around a stone. People walking dogs, parents with strollers, joggers in expensive athleisure—all of them living their lives, oblivious to the minor crisis happening on this particular bench.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Beryl asked quietly. "What really happened? We've never really discussed the details."

I considered the question. In all these years, I'd never told anyone the full story—not even Beryl. She knew the broad strokes: Kiyan and I had some kind of interaction, he'd told everyone I'd thrown myself at him, my social life had imploded. But the specifics? The actual events of that night, the conversation we'd had, the hope I'd felt before everything went wrong?

I'd kept those locked away, too painful to examine.

Maybe it was time to unlock them.

"It was the winter formal," I said slowly. "Junior year."

"I remember. I was sick that night—couldn't go."

"Right. And I almost didn't go either, but my mom convinced me. Said I'd regret it if I missed out on 'the high school experience.'" I laughed without humor. "She wasn't wrong, technically. I've definitely never forgotten it."

"What happened?"

I closed my eyes, letting the memories surface.

---

*The gym was decorated with fairy lights and silver streamers, transformed into something almost magical. I was wearing a deep purple dress that my mom said made me look "sophisticated," my hair pinned up in a style that had taken two hours and approximately three hundred bobby pins.*

*I felt beautiful. For maybe the first time in my life, I felt like the person people seemed to think I was—pretty, confident, someone worth looking at.*

*Kiyan found me by the punch table.*

*He was wearing a dark suit, his hair styled in that artfully messy way that boys thought looked effortless but definitely wasn't. He'd been watching me all night—I'd noticed, had felt his eyes on me across the crowded room. Every time I looked up, he was there, his gaze intense and unwavering.*

*"Hey," he said, sidling up beside me.*

*"Hey yourself."*

*"You look amazing." He said it simply, sincerely, in a way that made my cheeks flush. "Really, truly amazing."*

*"Thanks. You clean up pretty well too."*

*He laughed—that easy, confident laugh that made everyone want to be around him. "Want to get some air? It's kind of stuffy in here."*

*I should have said no. In retrospect, I can see all the warning signs—the isolation, the privacy, the carefully constructed intimacy. But I was seventeen and flattered and he was the most popular boy in school, and when he looked at me like that, like I was the only person in the world, I couldn't think straight.*

*"Sure," I said. "Lead the way."*

*He took me behind the bleachers—classic, cliché, the setting of a thousand teen movie scenes. The music from the gym was muffled here, the lights distant and dreamlike. We were alone.*

*"I've been wanting to talk to you," he said. "For a while now."*

*"About what?"*

*"About... this. Us." He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne, could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. "I like you, Asenath. I've liked you for a long time."*

*My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it. "I like you too."*

*"Yeah?"*

*"Yeah."*

*He smiled—that devastating smile that had launched a thousand crushes—and leaned in. And I let him. I let him kiss me, there behind the bleachers, with the winter formal happening just yards away. I let him wrap his arms around me and pull me close and whisper that he wanted to be with me, that he'd been waiting for this moment, that I was special.*

*And I believed him.*

*I believed every word.*

---

"The next day, everything changed," I continued, my voice flat. "I woke up thinking I had a boyfriend—or at least something close to it. I kept checking my phone, waiting for him to text. He didn't."

Beryl was silent, her hand a steady anchor on mine.

"I saw him at school that Monday. He was with his friends—Vanessa's crowd, the popular kids. I walked up to say hi, expecting... I don't know. Acknowledgment. Some sign that the night before had actually happened."

"What did he do?"

"He laughed." Even now, years later, the memory burned. "He looked at me like I was a stranger—no, worse than a stranger. Like I was a pest. An annoyance. And when I asked if we could talk, he said—"

I stopped, the words catching in my throat.

"He said, 'Why would I talk to you? Just because you threw yourself at me doesn't mean we're friends.'"

"That son of a—"

"His friends all laughed. Vanessa was there—she laughed the loudest. And by the end of the day, the whole school knew. Asenath Mensah, the desperate girl who couldn't take a hint. The joke who actually thought Kiyan Sharma would want her."

Beryl's jaw was tight, her eyes blazing. "I remember the aftermath. The way people treated you. But I never knew—I never knew it happened like that."

"I couldn't talk about it. Every time I tried, I just... shut down." I wiped at my eyes, surprised to find them wet. "And the worst part was that I kept second-guessing myself. Wondering if maybe I had misread things. Maybe he never actually said those things behind the bleachers. Maybe I imagined the whole relationship."

"You didn't imagine it."

"I know that now. Especially after he told me the truth—that it was all real, that he panicked when his friends found out." I took a shaky breath. "But for years, I didn't know. I thought I was crazy. I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with me, something that made me misread every social situation."

Beryl pulled me into a hug, fierce and protective. I let myself be held, let myself be small for a moment, let the tears fall onto her shoulder.

"You're not crazy," she said into my hair. "You were never crazy. He was just a coward who couldn't handle the consequences of his own feelings."

"I know. I know that now."

"And Vanessa Park is going to rue the day she ran into you. I don't know how yet, but I'm going to make sure of it."

I laughed despite myself, pulling back to look at her. "Please don't commit any crimes on my behalf."

"I make no promises."

We sat there for a while longer, wrapped up in each other, letting the weight of old pain slowly dissipate. It didn't disappear entirely—I wasn't sure it ever would—but it felt lighter now that someone else was carrying it with me.

"Thank you," I said finally. "For listening. For not judging. For being... you."

"Always." She kissed my forehead, a gesture so tender it made my chest ache. "Now come on. Let's go get brunch and talk about literally anything else."

"Deal."

---

Brunch was at a little café that specialized in Belgian waffles and mimosas—two things that were scientifically proven to improve any situation. We claimed a table by the window and ordered enough food for four people, because emotional processing burns calories and we'd earned the indulgence.

"Okay," Beryl said, once we'd each had a mimosa and a few bites of waffle. "New topic. Distraction mode activated."

"What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking... we should go on a real date."

I blinked. "We've gone on dates. We went on a date yesterday."

"That was a maybe-date. And the day before was a lunch-date, which is basically just eating with intent." She grinned. "I mean a real date. Like, evening. Dressing up. Going somewhere fancy. The whole thing."

"Beryl Okonkwo, are you asking me out?"

"I am. Officially." She leaned across the table, her eyes sparkling. "Asenath Mensah, will you go on a real, actual, no-maybes-about-it date with me?"

The question was playful, but I could see the vulnerability underneath. She was putting herself out there, again, offering me a chance to take another step forward.

"Yes," I said. "Obviously yes."

Her smile could have powered a small city. "Really?"

"Really. But I get to pick the restaurant."

"Deal. When?"

"How about next Friday? Gives us time to plan properly."

"Friday it is." She raised her mimosa glass. "To real dates."

I clinked my glass against hers. "To real dates. And to you, for somehow making this the best morning despite it starting with Vanessa Park."

"Speaking of which—" Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at it. "She already texted you?"

"What?" I pulled out my own phone. Sure enough, there was a message from an unknown number.

**Unknown:** *So great running into you!! We should def hang out. There's a reunion coming up—would love to see you there! 💕*

"A reunion?" I stared at the screen. "What reunion?"

"Must be the five-year high school thing. I saw something about it on Facebook." Beryl's expression was skeptical. "Are you actually going to respond to her?"

"Absolutely not."

"Good call."

I deleted the message and blocked the number, feeling a petty satisfaction in the action. Maybe it was immature. Maybe the adult thing would be to engage, to let the past be the past. But I didn't owe Vanessa Park anything—least of all my time and emotional energy.

"There is something I've been thinking about, though," I said slowly.

"What's that?"

"The reunion thing. Not going to whatever Vanessa's organizing—that's definitely not happening. But maybe... going back there. To the school. Confronting it."

Beryl frowned. "Why would you want to do that?"

"I don't know. Closure, maybe? There's all this stuff I've been carrying around for five years, and talking about it today made me realize that I've never really dealt with it. I just... buried it. Ran away from it."

"There's nothing wrong with running away from trauma."

"No, but there's also something to be said for facing it." I stared out the window, watching the Saturday crowds drift past. "Every time I see someone from high school, I freeze up. Every time something reminds me of that time, I spiral. Maybe if I went back—saw the actual places where it happened—I could finally put it to rest."

Beryl was quiet for a moment, considering. "If you want to do that, I'll go with you."

"You would?"

"Of course. I'm not letting you face that alone." She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "We can make it a thing. Go back, exorcise some demons, then get dinner somewhere nice."

"You're making everything into a date opportunity."

"I'm a multitasker."

I laughed, some of the heaviness lifting from my chest. "Okay. Let's do it. Not today—I need to mentally prepare. But soon."

"Whenever you're ready."

We finished our brunch, talking about lighter things—work gossip, a movie Beryl wanted to see, the ongoing saga of her neighbor's loud dog. It felt normal. Easy. Like we were just two people enjoying each other's company, with no trauma or complicated feelings or unresolved history.

But underneath it all, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd decided. Going back to the school. Facing the ghosts I'd been running from for five years.

It sounded terrifying.

But it also sounded necessary.

---

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of ordinary activities. I did laundry. I caught up on emails. I called my mom and had a thirty-minute conversation that was 80% her asking when I was going to "settle down" and 20% actual updates about her life.

On Sunday evening, just as I was settling in for a Netflix marathon, my phone buzzed with a text.

From Kiyan.

**Kiyan:** *Hey. Can we talk?*

I stared at the message for a long moment. We'd agreed to try being colleagues, maybe friends. But that was in the context of work. This was personal—a Sunday evening text, the kind that implied something beyond professional courtesy.

**Me:** *About what?*

**Kiyan:** *I heard you ran into Vanessa.*

My stomach dropped. How did he know that?

**Me:** *How did you hear about that?*

**Kiyan:** *She posted about it on Instagram. Something about "reconnecting with old classmates." You were tagged.*

Fucking Vanessa. I opened Instagram and, sure enough, there it was—a photo of the coffee shop with a caption about "blast from the past!" and several hashtags including #reunionszn. She'd tagged me, linking my dormant account to a moment I desperately wanted to forget.

**Me:** *Great. Wonderful. This is exactly what I needed.*

**Kiyan:** *I'm sorry. I just wanted to check if you were okay.*

**Me:** *I'm fine. It wasn't pleasant but I survived.*

**Kiyan:** *Good. I know Vanessa can be... a lot.*

That was an understatement. But I wasn't in the mood to discuss Vanessa Park's various flaws with Kiyan Sharma, of all people.

**Me:** *Was there something else?*

A long pause. The three dots appeared and disappeared several times.

**Kiyan:** *I've been thinking about what you said. About closure. And I was wondering if maybe we could talk. Really talk. About everything that happened.*

**Me:** *I thought we already did that.*

**Kiyan:** *We talked about the what. But not the why. And I think you deserve to know the whole story.*

I didn't know what to make of that. The whole story? What else was there to know? He'd liked me, kissed me, panicked, and thrown me under the bus. That seemed pretty comprehensive.

But his words from the coffee shop echoed in my mind: *I've spent five years hating myself for what I did.*

Maybe there was more. Maybe understanding it would help me finally move on.

**Me:** *Fine. But not now. I need time.*

**Kiyan:** *Whenever you're ready. I'm not going anywhere.*

I put my phone down and stared at the ceiling, the Netflix autoplay droning in the background.

Everyone kept saying that. *Whenever you're ready. I'm not going anywhere.* Beryl, Kiyan, even my mom in her own way. Everyone waiting for me to figure out what I wanted, to make decisions, to choose a path forward.

The problem was, I didn't know what I wanted. I was attracted to Beryl—genuinely, surprisingly attracted to her in a way I'd never let myself consider before. But I also felt something when I talked to Kiyan—a pull, a connection, something unfinished that refused to stay buried.

And underneath both of those, there was the real question: What did I want for *myself*? Not in relation to anyone else, not as part of a couple, but as a person. Who was Asenath Mensah when she wasn't defined by other people's feelings about her?

I didn't know.

But maybe it was time to find out.

---

Monday morning came with all the enthusiasm of a dental appointment. I dragged myself through my routine, met Beryl for coffee (our new tradition, apparently), and arrived at the office only ten minutes late—a personal best.

The day started normally enough. Emails, meetings, the general chaos of agency life. But around 3 PM, Priya appeared at my desk with an expression that suggested trouble.

"We need to talk," she said. "Conference room. Now."

I followed her, my stomach churning with possibilities. Had I messed something up? Was I getting fired? Was—

"There's been a development with the Nexus account," she said once we were behind closed doors. "Kiyan pushed back on the launch timeline. He wants to accelerate everything by two weeks."

"Two weeks? That's insane. We already agreed on the schedule."

"I know. But apparently their CEO is putting pressure on him, and he's passing it down to us." She rubbed her temples. "I need you to take point on this. You're the only one who can make the revised timeline work."

"Me? Why me?"

"Because you're the best project manager on the team, and because—" She hesitated. "Because Kiyan specifically requested you."

Of course he did.

"This is a conflict of interest," I said. "You know about our history."

"I know. And normally I'd never ask this of you. But we're stretched thin, the account is worth a lot to the firm, and frankly, we don't have other options." She looked at me with something like apology in her eyes. "Can you do it?"

Could I? Could I work closely with Kiyan, probably for weeks, while simultaneously trying to sort out my feelings about him and Beryl and everything else?

The professional answer was yes. The personal answer was absolutely not.

"I can do it," I heard myself say.

"Thank you. Meeting with the client tomorrow at 10. I'll send you the details." She paused at the door. "For what it's worth—I trust you to handle this. Whatever your history with him, you're good at your job. Don't let anyone make you forget that."

She left, and I sat alone in the conference room, wondering what I'd just agreed to.

---

I told Beryl about it at the end of the day, expecting her to be upset. Instead, she just nodded thoughtfully.

"Makes sense."

"It makes sense? I just signed up to spend weeks working closely with my ex-whatever, and you think it makes sense?"

"I mean, it's not ideal. But you're good at your job, and he requested you because he knows that." She shrugged. "Besides, maybe it'll be good for you."

"How could this possibly be good for me?"

"Forced exposure therapy. You've been avoiding dealing with Kiyan directly—dancing around the issue, having conversations that never quite get to the point. Maybe working together will force you to actually confront things."

I hated when she was reasonable. It was one of her most annoying qualities.

"You're not jealous?"

"Of course I'm jealous." She said it matter-of-factly, like she was stating a simple truth. "But I'm also realistic. You have unfinished business with him, and pretending otherwise isn't going to make it go away. Better to deal with it head-on."

"And if dealing with it head-on means I develop feelings for him again?"

She met my eyes, her expression calm. "Then I'll deal with that too. But I'm not going to try to keep you from figuring out what you want. That's not how this works."

"How does this work, then?"

"You figure out your feelings. You make a choice. And whatever that choice is, I'll respect it." She smiled, a little sadly. "I told you I've waited seven years. A few more weeks won't kill me."

I didn't know what to say. Beryl's capacity for patience, for grace, for putting my needs ahead of her own—it was simultaneously humbling and guilt-inducing.

"I don't deserve you," I said quietly.

"Probably not. But you're stuck with me anyway."

She kissed my cheek—soft, quick, almost chaste—and headed for the elevator, leaving me with the lingering warmth of her lips and the growing certainty that whatever choice I made, someone was going to get hurt.

Maybe me most of all.

---

That night, I dreamed of high school.

I was back in the gym, wearing the purple dress, fairy lights twinkling overhead. But something was wrong. The music was distorted, the faces around me blurred, and when I looked for Kiyan, he wasn't there.

Instead, I saw Beryl.

She was standing by the punch table, exactly where Kiyan had been, watching me with those warm, steady eyes. She was wearing a suit instead of a dress, her locs pulled back elegantly, and when she smiled, it was like the sun coming out.

"Want to get some air?" she asked.

And I said yes.

Behind the bleachers, she told me she loved me—not for the first time, but differently. In this dream, she'd always loved me, and I'd always known, and there was no confusion, no uncertainty, no years of missed opportunities.

"I've been waiting for you," she said.

"I'm sorry it took so long."

"Don't be sorry. You're here now."

And then she kissed me, and the world exploded into light.

I woke up gasping, my heart pounding, the phantom sensation of her lips still burning on mine. The room was dark, my sheets tangled, the clock blinking 3:47 AM in accusatory red.

*Just a dream*, I told myself. *It doesn't mean anything.*

But as I lay there, staring at the ceiling, I couldn't shake the feeling that it meant everything.

---

**End of Chapter 4**

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***