Unlike last year … I’m ready for it.
“Give me the word, and I’ll kick his ass,” Zack snarls, reaching up to take off his dangly earrings. It’s pretty funny actually, but I don’t want Creed Cabot to know that I’ve been onto him and his asshole friends all along. I put a hand against Zack’s chest to hold him back.
Creed smiles, this easy, satisfied expression, like a cat who’s just killed a mouse. What he doesn’t know is that the mouse was already poisoned and now he’s infected, too. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.
“Dear Journal,” Creed begins, his beautiful voice dripping ice. The crowd titters already, excited at the thought of bloodshed. Becky, Harper, and Ileana are lounging on tombstones in their short-shorts and miniskirts, grinning and laughing. Tristan and Zayd each sit on a different headstone nearby. “Today was hard. Too hard. When I walked into math class and saw Jalen and Ebony sitting together, it all came back to me.” Creed pauses for a minute, looking up to scan his audience. His gaze comes to rest on me, and I swear, I almost just throw my head back and laugh. When he returns his attention back to the page, I stifle my chuckle with my hand and Zack gives me the strangest look.
“Creed, don’t,” Miranda pleads, stepping forward and pulling off her pink wig. She moves between our little group and the gathered horde of Bluebloods and Plebs. Several of the boys step up to block her, but keep their hands well off of her person. There’s not a person at Burberry Prep who doesn’t know what Creed did to Craig Taittinger. “You’re better than this: prove it to me.”
Her twin pauses for a moment, looking up again. There’s a war going on in his eyes, but the battle’s over before it’s even begun. Tristan turns around and levels him with a deadly stare.
“Keep reading.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” Creed snaps, and this strange bird of hope takes flight inside of me. An Emily Dickinson poem comes to mind: “Hope” is the thing with feathers. If Creed actually defies Tristan, if he puts aside the journal, then …
“So you take orders from your sister then? Or is it Charity that’s got your panties in a wad?” Tristan turns fully to face Creed, and they have a stare down that reminds me of two alley cats I once saw outside the Train Car, locked in a fierce battle of wills. Unfortunately, Creed scowls and breaks the stare, opening the journal back up.
“This should be good,” Harper crows, and I feel this satisfied little twitch in my hand when I think about punching her. I shouldn’t have resorted to violence, but my dad … My daddy … No. I can’t think about that right now. Charlie is having a bunch of tests done this week, and I’ll know more by the time fall break rolls around. This time, I am most definitely not staying at school to play poker with the Idols.
“It all came back to me,” Creed repeats, carrying on without a hitch in his voice, “that night when Tristan triumphantly announced that he was going on a date with Ebony.” Creed pauses for a moment, crinkling up his face. I can see Tristan’s shoulders stiffening from here. Jalen Donner is no longer looking at me and laughing. Neither is Ebony. Instead, she’s gaping at Creed while Jalen turns his attention to Tristan.
“Keep going!” Becky shouts, and the crowd echoes their sentiment. The confusion on Creed’s face quickly shifts to perverse joy.
“I had wondered when he and Ebony had broken up. Unfortunately, it came out that she was still dating Jalen and had no intention of breaking up with him. I guess they’re childhood friends or something? Anyway, it seems Tristan and Ebony had plans to meet up and … have sex? I’m not sure, but since I’ve already caught him in the act with Kiara Xiao and some random fourth-year girl, I doubt he had plans to pick flowers and make daisy chains.”
Creed pauses as Jalen lets out a roar of frustration and launches himself at Tristan. There’s a split-second there where I think he’s actually going to get him, but then Tristan steps nimbly out of the way and Jalen stumbles into the cement side of the mausoleum.
“Jalen, stop!” Ebony is screaming, her little red riding hood costume fluttering as she chases after her boyfriend. “It’s not like that.”
Tristan dances back from the cluster of headstones, putting himself in the center of the gravel path and crouching like he fully expects a fight. He gets one, too, when Jalen comes at him again, throwing a punch that Tristan just narrowly ducks. His top hat flutters off and lands on the ground, crushed in seconds by Jalen’s boot. He’s dressed up like Lara Croft—probably thought it was funny as hell—so when he launches himself forward again, his fake boobs bounce.
