Peyton

(Lydia, 9:05am)

Apparently Mickey Bivanchi is coming to class today.

(Bea, 9:05am)

Bullshit.

(Lydia, 9:05am)

No fr he’s walking down the hall rn. 

(Bea, 9:06am)

There’s no way. Cops wouldn’t let a murderer walk free

(Lydia, 9:06am)

Not enough evidence apparently.

(Bea, 9:08am)

Mickey just entered and ignored everybody??? Just sat at the back??

(Lydia, 9:11am)

You’re in a classroom with a murderer.

(Bea, 9:11am)

He definitely murdered Peyton.

<><><><>

Mickey Bivanchi did not murder Peyton. Not that anybody will believe him. 

He’s always been the weird kid. The one who carries around a sketchbook and a satchel, who dresses in baggy black clothes and has shaggy hair. Friendship has never really been part of his life. In fact, he’s mostly got his nose buried in a book. The only class he thrives in is art, but the rest of the time, he’s average. 

Two months ago, somebody found the body of Peyton Crimblish behind the school. Sources vary, but some say it was the history teacher, and others say it was her best friend Janie. All say she had been stabbed in the neck and murdered brutally. 

The thing is, Mickey liked Peyton. She was the only person who was nice to him, despite being his exact opposite. Her hair was blond and curly, and she wore tight jeans and converse. Even though she was rich, she was aware of her privilege and did her best to help the people who weren’t so lucky. Peyton Crimblish was the kind of person that everybody liked, and Mickey was no different. Is no different. 

He didn’t kill Peyton, but sometimes, he wishes he did just so people would stop lying about him. He wasn’t even at school the day she was murdered. He was sick at home. 

The problem is, his alibi isn’t exactly convincing. Mickey was at home in bed, with his mother at work and his older brother Mark asleep upstairs. He didn’t cry when Peyton died, which adds another reason people think he’s responsible for her death. Mickey has separated himself from all memories of Peyton. It’s easier to forget her than it is to avenge her. 

Two weeks before Peyton’s murder, she sat with him at lunch. Mickey ignored her, but she had talked and talked and talked until Mickey said something back. Their conversation had shifted from subject to subject, and had eventually landed on Pokémon. She had smiled when she said her favourite Pokémon was Squirtle, and Mickey decided she was an okay person to talk to.

In the days leading up to her death, Peyton shifted from her popular friends to Mickey, where they talked about all kinds of things. Eventually, Mickey gathered the courage to ask her why she wanted to sit with him.

“My friends don’t like the kind of things I like,” Peyton said, but she didn’t look sad about this. “Besides, you’ve always looked interesting.”

It was a good enough reason for Mickey, because the conversation shifted to Harry Potter. 

Three days later, Peyton was murdered in cold blood.

Of course, everybody’s first suspect was the weird kid Peyton sat next to every day, who didn’t look sad at all about her death. Police came to the school at one point and took him away, where they grilled him about the kind of person Peyton was. Mickey told them all he knew about her, but admitted they had only been friends for about two weeks. 

Mickey’s mother let him stay home from school for around a month. He kept up with his studies and erased the memory of Peyton from his mind. They weren’t exactly close, anyway. 

But everybody still believed he killed her, and now Mickey is sitting at the back of the classroom.

And everybody is whispering about him.

<><><><>

(Chase, 11:38am)

when you’re done making out with Lydia come meet me at dumpster

(Tyler, 11:39am)

why

(Chase, 11:39am)

bcuz we’ve got a fucking murderer walking around our school after he killed peyton and im gonna beat his ass.

(Tyler, 11:40am)

jfc omw

<><><><>

Mickey aches. 

He’s sitting in the nurse's office, blood rushing out of his nostrils and filling his mouth with a disgusting metallic taste. The nurse, Katie, hands him a box of tissues as she checks his sprained arm. “Who did this?” She asks when Mickey winces at the angle she tilts his arm. 

Chase and Tyler, Mickey thinks bitterly, and shrugs. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Why did they do it?” Katie adds, moving down to his knees to pick gravel out of the scraps. Mickey winces and shrugs again. 

“‘Cause they think I’m a murderer,” he mumbles, not catching her eye when she looks up, concerned. “They think I killed Peyton. I didn’t.”

“I know you didn’t,” Katie says softly. She’s always been nice to him, but this is the first time she’s ever had to actually look after him when he’s hurt. Mickey hasn’t been beaten up before, and he doesn’t like it. 

Katie is a bit like Peyton, as everybody likes her and wants to make her happy. Even though she’s ten years older than every student in this school, almost every boy (and some of the girls) have a crush on her. Mickey doesn’t have a crush on anybody, but if he was to date somebody, he would like it to be Katie. She’s nice. She’s pretty. Mickey is aromantic and asexual, but he can appreciate when somebody is attractive. 

She’s one of the few people that genuinely believes he didn’t kill Peyton. Or one of the few that can hide what she really thinks, anyway. Mickey’s been at school for a few hours now, and has so far noticed that even the teachers think he murdered their star pupil. It’s hard to focus in a place when everybody, everybody, thinks he did something terrible. 

Mickey sighs heavily and presses several tissues to his nose. Bruises are starting to form, and by the time he gets home, he’ll be decorated in blues and purples. All for a crime he didn’t commit. 

He can’t help but wonder what it would be like if Peyton was here. Would she protect him from the bullies, like a true friend, or would she step aside and let it happen? Then again, if it weren't for Peyton’s death, Mickey wouldn’t have been beaten up in the first place.

Katie patches him up as they wait for Mickey’s mother to arrive. She does so after making him wait for an hour, even though she works as a secretary at the dentist’s office barely five minutes down the road, and has plenty of people to fill in for her. She takes one look at Mickey’s bruised and battered body and sighs, as if he did it to himself.

The car ride home is silent, for the most part, but his mother finds it impossible to go more than ten minutes without speaking, and asks a question that makes Mickey tense. “Did they do it because of Peyton?”

“They think I killed her,” Mickey answers, which translates to yes. His mother’s quietness surprises him, and when he glances over at her, she’s staring straight ahead. “Mum?” He says, his voice cracking. “You don’t think I killed Peyton, do you?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then, “Your dad’s in jail for attempted murder.” It’s a fact she likes to remind him and his brother Mark of as often as possible. When Mark used to fight with her, the argument was always shifted from you don’t do enough schoolwork to you and your brother are just like your father! Mickey has always thought that was just something she said in the spur of the moment, but now, his eyes fill with tears. 

“You think I’m a murderer,” He whispers. “I can’t believe you. You think I fucking murdered my only friend!”

“I don’t know what to think!” His mother snaps furiously. “I don’t fucking know you anymore, Mickey! We haven’t spoken in months!”

“Oh my god!” Mickey throws his arms up. “Yeah, because we don’t sit down and talk about the goddamn weather anymore totally means I’ve gone completely insane and murdered the nicest person in the entire school. I thought you were on my side.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you!” His mother shouts, her voice ringing in Mickey’s ears. “You’re your father’s son! You’ve always taken after him!”

“I have not--”

“No. No, you have. You really have, Mickey. Your dad is insane, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were too.”

Mickey falls silent. Tears run down his face, stinging at the scrape on his cheek. His nose throbs painfully. The moment the car stops outside his rundown, broken house, Mickey jumps out and runs towards the front door. He thunders into his bedroom and slams the door, making the entire house shake. Barely a second after he’s collapsed onto his bed, he can hear his older brother and his mother start to argue loudly. 

Mickey has never been close with his family. Has never been close with anybody, really. People are such complicated, fickle creatures, and though Mickey has all the time in the world to figure them out, he can’t be bothered. Instead, he spends his day drawing the world around him, from an outsiders point of view. 

He’s aware that he’s weird. He’s aware that lots of people think he’s a murderer. But he wasn’t aware his own mother thought that way about him. 

Mickey flips through the pages of his sketchbook, and eventually lands on a drawing of a girl with curly hair and a cheeky smile. Peyton stares at him from the paper, her bright blue eyes popping in the darkness of Mickey’s bedroom. It’s the only thing that he coloured -- Peyton liked it better that way. “Eyes are the window to the soul,” Peyton had said when Mickey showed her. “What do you think my eyes are saying here?”

What do you think my eyes are saying here?

Figuring out people is hard. Mickey had shaken his head and closed his sketchbook. “I don’t know,” He had answered. “I think you look scared, but I don’t know if that’s just the way I drew you, or if you really are.”

Peyton had smiled, wrapping her arm around Mickey’s shoulders. “Sometimes, I feel like something bad is going to happen,” She said. “And today, I’ve been feeling like something really bad is going to happen.”

He likes to keep the drawing in his sketchbook, even though he drew it for her. He likes the raw emotion in the picture, and the little scribble she had done next to it, where he had signed his name.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid, the writing said in a pretty cursive. 

The next day, Peyton Crimblish was murdered, and Mickey Bivanchi did not do it. Not that anybody believes him. Not that his own mother believes him. 

Peyton would have.