Very Bad Things (Briarcrest Academy) (14 page)

My schedule now showed that my day started with AP English,
then a two hour break, and then Engineering Calculus. That put me leaving
school at noon. Mr. Beasley said I could work in the office for my two hour
break, and as long as I was at school for half a day, then he would give me
credit for attending. That was fine by me. With less time at school, my hope
was to find a job and start making my own money, so I could leave my parents’
house.

By the time I walked in English, class had already started.
I handed Ms. Weinstein my excuse note from Mr. Beasley and searched around for
Sebastian, remembering that this was his first day at a new school. I found him
in the back of the room. He gave me his usual leer, and I laughed.

There was only one seat left, and I took it even though it
was directly in front of Emma. I prayed I could endure the close proximity.
With only thirty minutes left in class, it was possible. But when the teacher
left the room to make extra copies, she started kicking the back of my desk.

Perhaps growing tired of my muteness, she called out in her
snotty voice, “So bee girl, the janitor said he’d go out with you again, if
you’d let him
sting
you!”

Defiance flared. Why had I taken her shit for so long? Why
had I let her put me down and call me names?

I turned around. “Emma, if I’m the bee girl then I’d be the
one stinging
him
.
Maybe you should think about repeating freshman
year science class. But thinking really isn’t your strong point, is it?
Sometimes I wish I had a lower IQ so I could enjoy your company.” I smiled
sweetly at her.

Because she wasn’t a mean girl for nothing, she smirked back
at me, unfazed by my sudden backbone. She brushed an invisible piece of lint
from her sleeve. “Wow, impressive speech,” she sneered. “Too bad it doesn’t get
you a boyfriend. I truly pity you, having to screw old Mr. Bronski in the
cleaning closet at school just to get a date.” She laughed, and I heard her
pseudo-friend April join in.

I stood and walked around to stand beside her, enjoying the
surprise on her face. “Here’s a little tip: the art of insulting someone takes
brains you don’t have. And it takes a bit of creativity to offend me, so the
next time you want to bully me, please come up with something better than ‘bee
girl,’ or ‘nerd,’” I said, making the air quotes motion. “Maybe you should
worry about yourself from now on Emma. After all, your dear friend April there
is fucking your quarterback boyfriend.”

Now, I didn’t know this for certain, but while I’d been
people watching last year, I’d intercepted several secret sultry looks being
passed between Matt Dawson, Emma’s boyfriend, and April Novak. It was a
BA-educated guess.

“I really wanted to save this info for your party, but I
think you need to know.” I glanced over at Matt whose mouth was parted in
shock. “Matt touches April every chance he gets. In last year’s Euro class, in
the hallways, in the lunch line. Maybe he even goes to her house after he
leaves yours.”

She gasped and looked at April whose face had flushed a deep
red. Matt, whose desk was suspiciously close to April’s, bent his head and
covered his guilty eyes with his hand.

Damn that felt good.

TWO HOURS LATER I walked into
Calculus class and picked out a table that didn’t have anyone else sitting
there, which wasn’t hard considering the room was mostly empty. The room
smelled like pine cleaner, and the floors gleamed with the sheen of a new
waxing, reminding me that this first day of class was a fresh start for me.

Neither Sebastian nor Mila were in this class, and I didn’t
know who would be. Engineering Calculus was an upper level class for serious
math people only, only available to students with an SAT of at least 650 in
math or a 29 on the ACT. As I looked over the syllabus, I studied the
coursework: techniques for integration of trigonometry, exponential and
logarithm functions, and polar coordinates applications. All that sounds like
Greek to most people, which is funny because the word
calculus
is
actually derived from Latin. I chuckled at my nerd joke.

There was an empty seat beside me until Drew sat down,
easing his long legs under the table. Surprised, I stared over at him, and the
tension that had lingered between us since New York flared up. We hadn’t really
been alone since the night . . . I counted back in my head . . . eight months
ago.

“What’s up?” he asked casually and set his books down on the
table. He pushed a hand through his wavy brown hair and smiled. I’d always
liked his crooked smile, and when he used it, it used to send tingles down my
spine. It used to get me hot. Now, it just pissed me off.

“I’ve been dreading this class, but now that you’re here,
it’ll be much better.” He paused uncertainly. “Uh, unless you’d rather I didn’t
sit here?”

I yanked opened my notebook. “No, that’s fine.” It wasn’t.

“Okay,” he said, staring down at the syllabus on the table.

Long seconds passed, and, of course, I couldn’t stand the
silence. I gave in and tried to chitchat. I said inanely, “I heard this class
is tough.”

“Nah, we can handle it,” he said, turning his hazel eyes on
me. “We can study together if you start having trouble.”

“Pft. Me, have trouble? Please. Tell you what, if you need
some extra help, I’d be glad to tutor you, Mansfield.”

He laughed. “You always make me smile, Nora.”

My mouth tightened. “Is that so?”

“Hey, remember that time when Mr. Bray fell asleep during
debate practice and his toupee fell off, so we started calling him—”

“Mr. Bray-Toupee,” I interjected rudely, not wanting to
share in his little joke.

In the past I wouldn’t have let him know I was hurt by him,
but now I wanted him to be uncomfortable. How dare he sit here and talk to me
after the way he’d treated me? “So how’s Lori? She’s a junior this year,
right?”

He squirmed. “She moved to Miami in June,” he told me, his
eyes trained on my face, assessing. “Her dad got a job with a new company
there. So, I guess we’re taking a break.”

I nodded my head, thinking of that
other
time he’d
taken a break from Lori. When he and I had been together in New York.

“Can I ask you a question, Nora?” he said, tapping his
pencil against the table, like he was nervous.

“What?”

“Do you ever think about our night in New York?”

I turned red, some of it embarrassment, but most of it
anger.

“I have. I mean, I felt guilty, because I went back to Lori.
And I know I ignored you afterwards,” he said, staring down at his notebook. “I
wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to ever talk to me again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m sorry for being an asshole to you.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, finally letting what I’d wanted
to say for months pour out of my mouth. “Yeah, you were. And what hurt the most
was I thought we were friends. I was just a one-night stand for you,” I snapped
at him. “And I
do
want you to sit somewhere else, please.”

He frowned as he stood. “I still want be your friend, Nora.”

He moved to another table and class started. When Mr.
Foreman started lecturing about the importance of writing multiple paragraphs
and supplying graphs and tables to support our answers, I zoned out, glad to
not think about Drew.

After class, he walked with me to my locker. “Are you seeing
anyone?”

“No,” I said tersely, thinking about Leo and our “date” at
the movies.

“Maybe we can go to that bookstore next to Portia’s you
like?”

“How’d you know I go there?” I asked, cocking my head. It
was always the nice ones who fooled you. Oh wait, he wasn’t nice.

He shrugged. “I saw you a couple of times.”

“You never said hi.”

“I was with Lori,” he said, looking away from me.

“Great, just great,” I said, glaring at him. “You were there
with your
girlfriend
and checking me out at the same time.” I opened my
locker, shoved my books inside and slammed it. “I’m sick to death of being
second choice,” I muttered under my breath.

When would I be first?

Drew never got to reply because Sebastian walked up and put
an arm around me. “Okay, we gotta talk about this hair color, ’cause I like
this look on you, Buttercup.”

“Don’t call me that,” I said, feeling a pang at hearing
Leo’s name for me.

“Wasn’t my name for you anyway,” he reminded me tartly,
poking me on the shoulder with a pencil.

I poked him back. “Maybe you should call me Nora like
everyone else?”

“Um, yeah, I think not. Not my style at all. How about
Rosebud ? Oh, or Flame Brain?”

I shook my head because he really was fun. “My brain is not
on fire.”

“Okay, what about Cherry or Towering Inferno?”

I snorted. “Are you saying I’m an Amazon? Because that’s
been overdone.”

“Okay, okay, I can see you’re hard to please. Wait, I think
I have one since you don’t like my nicknames. How about girlfriend?” he
asked suggestively, making a face at me.

“Now, I know you’re joking.”

“What? I’m serious all the time. Do you have a boyfriend I
don’t know about, ’cause if you do, I’m gonna challenge him to a duel . . . with
pistols at dawn or swords . . . or whatever the fuck they do here in Texas.” He
flicked his eyes at Drew.

“We mostly fight with our fists in Texas, Mr. LA,” I said,
pointing down at his loafers. He and I needed to go shopping. “And wear cowboy
boots while we do it.”

“Easy peasy. I know Kung Fu, you know,” he said, jumping
into a karate stance and chopping his hands around.

I chuckled and my eyes lingered over to Drew who appeared
grim as he watched our banter. I sighed. “Sebastian, this is Drew. He’s super
smart and a basketball player. Drew, this is Sebastian. He’s wicked funny and
plays football. Now bond,” I said, having a gut feeling these two would hit it
off.

They eyed each other warily and must have decided the other
was cool, because they started talking sports. I said my goodbyes and headed
out to my car at twelve fifteen in the afternoon, leaving them to the mercy of
BA.

“Even
after all that has happened to me, I’ve never given up wishing on stars.”

–
Nora
Blakely

SOMETIMES, YOU JUST need a badass
theme song to get you through the day. All the superheroes have them. Even the
Power Rangers have a hardcore guitar anthem. So, I may not be Wonder Woman with
her invisible plane, but I have been called brilliant before. In fact, I have a
collection of theme songs for different days, depending on what was going on in
my life, and tonight my theme song was
“Perfect” by Pink. I blasted it
in my car, listening to her sing about a girl who’d been mistreated and
misunderstood.

It was Saturday night and Emma Eason’s party, but first I
was swinging by Club Vita to pick up Sebastian and Mila. Sebastian and I had
eaten lunch together every day at school this week, and I’d told him all about
my passion for sewing and how I planned to wear one of my creations. Tonight I
was wearing last year’s Dior black prom dress, or at least part of the dress, since
I’d chopped off the long skirt and the sleeves. Now it was strapless and super
short. I’d worn my hair braided and twirled up low in the back with loose curls
hanging down the sides. I’d put on more make-up than usual, too, coating my
eyes in dark liner and smoky eye shadow. On my lips I’d worn the deep red color
that matched my hair. Did I look trashy? I shrugged. Who cared. Tonight’s goal
was to get drunk and get fucked.

“Sweet,” Sebastian said, whistling as he let me in. “Got a
hot date tonight?”

I wiggled my eyebrows like he always did. “I might get
lucky.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, watching me with an interesting
expression. I started to ask him what that look meant . . .

Just then the buzzer rang.

“That’ll be Mila,” I said eagerly. Since I’d been leaving
school early, we hadn’t had a chance to catch up.

She bounced in, and I swear she looked like a teenage Laura
Bush, wearing pearls, a pink velveteen tailored jacket and a pleated chiffon
skirt. She’d flung a pink Coach bag over her arm, and I wanted to hug her she
was so cute.

I introduced them and her eyes widened, taking in
Sebastian’s tall form and blue eyes.

Wait until she met the full-sized version.

“Alrighty then, let’s head up to the loft. Leo’s date
brought appetizers for us to try, and he wants to meet Mila,” he said. I
noticed when he had said
date
, his eyes had locked on mine, like he was
assessing my reaction.

“You didn’t mention how frickin’ hot Sebastian is. I’m
pissed I don’t have any classes with him. By the way, your hair is
sweet
.
So glad you went the Monte Carlo Red and not the blue,” Mila whispered to me as
we followed Sebastian up the stairs.

“It was called Midnight Indigo.”

She scrunched her nose. “Whatever. Blue hair is strange.”

When we walked in the spacious kitchen, Leo was laughing
down at the petite twenty-something-year-old that had been with him at the
park. Up close, I could see she was pretty in polished, confident way, with
lots of make-up and manicured nails. She looked relatively normal, too; I
couldn’t compete with that.

I watched them, remembering how he didn’t want me. Even
though he wasn’t mine, I wanted to pummel her with my fists; I wanted to rip
out all her long dark hair. Which looked like extensions.

I stood there uncomfortably until Sebastian eased up beside
me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I leaned back against him.

Leo saw us, stiffened, and quickly looked away. I wondered
if it was going to be weird between us. It’d been a week since our movie. I’d
seen him a couple of times, once when I’d dropped off Sebastian from eating out
and once when I’d come to deliver some muffins he’d ordered from Aunt Portia’s.
He’d been cordial then, yet detached, his eyes looking everywhere except at me.

He sat down his bottle of Corona. “Guys, this is Tiffany.
She works for the catering company that’s doing the food for the grand
opening,” he said. “Tiffany, this is Nora and her friend . . . Mila?”

Mila nodded, a dazed and goofy expression on her face. I
wasn’t surprised my normally loquacious friend was suddenly struck quiet. Leo
could do that.

“They’re both attending Briarcrest Academy with Sebastian.”

Tiffany smiled at us, showing her super white teeth. She
raked her gaze over me and Mila, and I assumed mentally dismissed us as no
competition. “Oh, really! How charming!” she exclaimed in a true, slow-talking
Texas drawl.

Charming.
Seriously, do people in their twenties use
that word in conversation? I mean, I had a large vocabulary and used words no
one else did, but
charming
just seemed pretentious. I cocked my head and
studied her, trying to see what he saw in her.

She kept talking in her dulcet tones. “By the way, it’s
Tiffani-with-an-i,” she said, giving us a smile that showcased her dimples.
Gag.

As she chatted about her own years in high school, I did the
calculations in my head and figured she was only three or four years older than
me. I glared at Leo. This was the kind of girl he went for: fake with big tits?

He finally glanced at me, his eyes scanning over my skimpy
dress and when he raked both hands through his blond hair furiously, I knew he
was fuming about something. I shrugged and took a page from the stupid girl
book and flicked my hair over my shoulder.

“Leo,” Tiffani-with-an-i purred, running her hand
possessively across his shoulder and down to his bicep, “you’ve got to tell me
what machines you use to get this defined. You feel so hard,” she told him
teasingly and glanced over at me with a smug look. I looked back in confusion,
not understanding her sudden animosity.

She pouted at Leo. “But I only want
you
to show me
how to use them, not one of those mean trainers I’ve seen,” she said,
shuddering theatrically.

“Tiffani here is a big fan of astrology,” Sebastian stated
suddenly, his mouth twitching. “She’s getting an online license to be an
accredited astrological consultant.”

“What like a psychic?” Mila scoffed. “Is that a real thing?”

Tiffani-with-an-i sniffed. “For your information, tarot
cards
are
a science, and I
can
tell the future.”

“All for nineteen ninety-nine per minute,” Sebastian
muttered under his breath, and I covered my laugh with a cough. Mila patted me
on the back.

“Hey, aren’t you Ellen Blakely’s daughter, from
Good
Morning, Dallas
?” she asked, her eyes squinting at me.

I stiffened. “Yes.”

“I knew it! I worked with your mother once when she did a
cooking segment, and I got to make my spinach quiches on her show! She’s
classy, absolutely divine.” She smirked, her eyes flashing over my dress.
“Funny that you look nothing like her.”

“Yes.” Thank God.

“You were there that day,” she said as she shook her finger
at me, “but I almost didn’t recognize you with the red hair. And, wow, you were
a bit of a chunk then, no offense. How much weight did you lose?”

“I just got taller,” I said politely.

“Sorry if that came out all wrong,” she said in a sugary voice.
“I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings?”

I laughed. Fat chance. She’d hurt me enough just by being
with Leo. “No, I did have a big butt. I had buck teeth and braces, too,” I said
as Sebastian started singing Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”
I reached
over and popped him in the arm while he laughed and tried to get away.

When Mila grinned at Tiffani-with-an-i with a sly gleam in
her eye, I knew her fur had been rubbed the wrong way by Tiffani’s comments.
She was going to bite back. “Speaking of being classy, Nora would never tell
you herself, but she won the Miss Texas Rose pageant last fall. I saw the whole
thing. Big honking diamante crown on her head, and a big-ass sash over her
shoulder. It was sweeeet.”

Sebastian’s mouth gaped. “No way. Nora’s no pageant
princess.”

I shrugged, not sure what to say.

Sebastian grinned. “Are you going to be in the Miss America
pageant because that would be kinda cool. You’d be famous. Which reminds me: do
you really glue the bottoms of your swim suit to your ass cheeks? You know, so
it doesn’t move?”

They all turned to stare at me, and Leo had the strangest
expression on his face, and it frightened me because I couldn’t interpret it. I
hated the thought of him thinking I liked pageants. I didn’t want him thinking
I needed people constantly telling me I was pretty. I knew I wasn’t.

My pageant experience didn’t start when I was a child, like
those freaky kids you see on
Toddlers and Tiaras
, who tap dance in
cowboy gear to “I’m Bringing Sexy Back.” No, I was fat then and a total
embarrassment to Mother. Instead, I’d have been a shoo-in for the dreaded title
of Best Personality.

But, when I was sixteen and finally slim, she’d suggested
pageants. I’d done them to please her, reasoning that if other people thought I
was pretty and loved me, then maybe she would, too.

I cleared my throat and looked at Leo and Sebastian. “Before
you judge—little pun there—let me explain that in Texas, big hair and pageants
are part of our heritage. And, I only won because of my piano talent. Those girls
I competed against were beautiful and way out of my league.”

Tiffani-with-an-i shook her head as her eyes ran over me. “I
just can’t see it.”

“I can see it,” Leo said softly.

Tiffani-with-an-i’s face tightened, but she kept talking.
“Your mom talked non-stop about her son in Houston. Does he still live there?
She liked me so well she wanted to set us up on a date, but of course, we don’t
live in the same town,” she said with a little giggle.

“No . . . no, he lives in Houston, but he’s moving back at
Christmas.”

“Oh. Tell your mother hello for me, will you? I’d love to
meet up with her for lunch. Maybe I could get another spot on her show?” she
said, her little piggy fingers rubbing Leo’s arm.

He smiled down at her. “Would you guys like some soda or
water before you go?” he asked, looking back at us, and while Mila and
Sebastian said no, I flicked my eyes at Tiffani-with-an-i’s wine glass.

Alcohol was just a party away.

He followed my eyes. “No alcohol tonight, Nora.”

Anger seared through me. He was
not
my father.

Sebastian chuckled, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “No
problem, bro. These two hot babes are my dates, and I have a rep for taking
care of my ladies.”

Hurt by Leo’s comment, I excused myself and went to the
bathroom, mentally reciting words that helped me the most, repeating the
definition and etymology. When that didn’t seem to work like it usually did, I
opened my purse and stared at the coke I still had there. What would it be like
to take it again? Would it make me feel good inside?

Maybe later tonight.

Leo was waiting for me when I came out of the bathroom. He
grabbed my elbow firmly, steered me back inside, and locked the door.

“This is becoming a habit for you,” I seethed, jerking my
arm away.

“What do you have on?” he seethed back, glaring at my dress.

“You don’t like it? I didn’t think you noticed.”

He rubbed his face with his hands and then stared at dress.
“If there was ever a fucking dress I’ve ever noticed, it’s that one,” he
muttered out. “You’re not wearing it to the party.”

“Are you even listening to yourself?” I snipped.

“Nora. Please. You can’t go out like that without me,” he
demanded more urgently, with less anger, and I dreamed I heard a bit of a plea
in his words.

I chewed on my bottom lip. “You said you had to let me go.
You walked away from me so easily,” I reminded him, feeling all the fight drain
away, leaving only sadness behind. “If that’s true, then why do you care? Why
are you trying to stop me?”