Page 84 of Bad Intentions

“Pardon me?”

There was silence. I held my breath. I was a bundle of nerves, but I kept my mouth shut. It was a power play. When confronted, you didn’t apologize, didn’t ask questions, didn’t blabber nonsense that made you look pathetic. I should know. I’d done that my entire life.

With Derek, I needed to play smart. He didn’t know me, didn’t know my pathetic family, or my reputation. He hadn’t seen me around Al and Vic long enough to see them humiliate or jab me with their stupid jokes.

So I waited for his answer, whatever it was. That he needed that damn ride after all. That he wanted to see me again. That he liked last night.

All I got was his soft breathing that finally broke my patience.

“Did you need something?” I asked.

“No.” He hung up.

Wrong answer.

I don’t know if that was the desperation of the last summer with my high school friends, or the fact that most of them would move on, go elsewhere, travel, go to college, while I was stuck in this goddamn town. Or the fact that Al and Vic were already hung up on him, which made me want him even more. Or because he called me “Mal,” so personal, and kept using my name and not the nickname usually spat out by others with dismissal like I was less than them.

Don’t know. But what I do know is that I’d had enough of everyone’s bullshit. And I wasn’t going to take it from him either.

I heard a car door slam outside, the doorbell ring.

My brother, Jake, banged on my bedroom door, opened without asking, his smug face all hostile. “Those sluts are here for you.”

Then they were in my room, Al and Vic. They’d never set foot in my house before. Driving past the junkyard just to get to the front porch had always been below them.

Yet here they were, looking around my room with their upper lips curled like they were about to contract a disease.

Vic perched herself on my study desk. Al crossed her arms across her chest, her chin jutting at me, her foot impatiently tapping the floor.

“What happened last night? Did you go deaf?” she asked.

“Forgot to charge my phone,” I explained apologetically.

“Oh, yeah? I called you when your phone still worked.”

“Well, it died right after I left Derek’s house.”

I had to make an effort not to smile. That could cost me.

Al puckered her lips. That was her tell—she was irritated. “What were you doing at Derek’s house?” she asked, her stare drilling into me.

I stiffened, looked down, studying my hands. I hated moments like this. When I was scolded. These two always had a reason to bitch about something.

“We had a thing,” I said barely audibly.

“A thing? What thing, Birdie?” Al spat out words like bullets. “A drink? A talk? What?”

She didn’t give me enough options, because she didn’t think I had any.

“We had sex,” I said quietly and raised my eyes.

Al exchanged an is-she-fucking-serious look with Vic. A snort escaped her. She turned her eyes, like saucers, at me.

But then, Vic said, “You are joking, right?”

And they exploded in laughter.

Al relaxed and shook her head. “Wow, Birdie, this time you really upped your bullshit.”