Billy Finn Isn't A Ghost

The sighting of the 'huge bird man' got people riled. Little did they know, it was just me. 

Yep.

Skinny, spotty, really not that interesting, me. 

I couldn't take the costume off you see. Best Hallowe'en ever. Never got so much attention. I think it was the piercing red eyes that did it. Girls cooed at my athletic tree climbing. For once I was turning heads and stealing hearts amongst whispers of 'Is it real?'

What's an unpopular kid supposed to do? Lie? 

Well yeah. 

Without a word I fled from the baying crowds to hide in the shadows of the used car lot at the end of the street. 

Belonged to my Uncle Stan. Perfect place to lay low. His business was about as lucrative as the marked-down price tags on his cars. No one went there. 

Until that night. 

They came with their spray cans, flames and smokes chanting 'Mothman, Mothman', like a weird, ritualistic cult. 

This had gone too far.

The moment had come to make a break or die. I grabbed a set of keys and ran, but the creaking door into the back office where I was hiding, stopped me in my tracks. 

'Stop! Please don't hurt me.' I cowered even before I knew their intention, waiting for something hard to be brought down on my head.

'Billy Finn, is that you?' 

I knew that voice. The girl that had walked past me without a glance a hundred million times in the school halls like I was a ghost.

'Yeah', I sighed, exhausted. I pulled the mask off slowly. Red-faced from embarrassment and sweat.

Our eyes met. The stare lingered and all I could do was focus on her smile and the two love life-changing words that left her lips.

'I'm impressed.'

For Microcosms prompt 197: Mothman/Used Car Lot/Romance