Chapter 27

“Mom bought me a bunch of new bedding,” Cathy lamented at lunch. “The walls are a little fucked up, so Jamie said he would paint it for me. I tried to tell him not to, but he flipped me off and said I needed to let him be nice.”

I suppressed a groan. “I am so, so—”

“Zip your lip,” Cathy demanded, putting a finger to my mouth. “I swear to god…”

Poe handed me his pudding cup as a distraction. “Really, you need to stop blaming yourself. You weren’t the one who finger painted in blood.”

“I might as well been,” I said.

Cathy growled at me. Like, really growled. “No, that is not the case, so shush before I bite your face off.”

I stayed silent, as to save my face meat.

We’d heard nothing from the police in the whole day it had been, surprising me not at all. No one told me how long this kind of thing took, so that meant I got to come to school every day, with the girl trying to hurt me. It didn’t help that I never saw her in the building anymore. Once in a while, I saw her outside with the cheerleaders. She didn’t pop up in the locker room or come looking for me after school. Tammy didn’t want to be seen, and that was all the proof I needed to know that she had a game going.

The paranoia didn’t mix well with me. It made me jump at sounds I didn’t like, and search around corners before I moved. Poe made sure to stay at my side so that I wouldn’t go completely insane, but that only did so much. I felt like I put a target on the people I loved. If I mentioned that, I got glared at. I took that to mean that they loved me and didn’t want me hurting.

“I think my mom’ll give them three days,” I said. “Before she blows up and goes down to the station. She was on the phone for two hours last night.”

Poe confirmed for Cathy. “She didn’t find out anything more, but it was funny hearing her yelling at cops, like that wasn’t a crazy thing to do.”

“The kids liked it,” I mentioned. “They thought it was a game.” Better than them knowing their big sister had gotten herself into some major trouble.

“You see Tammy today?” Cathy asked. “I went looking for her and couldn’t find a hint she’s here. It’s annoying. Make yourself an easier target, bitch.”

“What? You were stalking her?” I asked.

Cathy rolled her eyes, opening her carton of milk. “It’s not stalking when you don’t find them, first of all. Second, she’s doing a lot worse.”

“Not the point,” I said. “It’s dangerous. What would you have done if you found her anyway? Were you going to hurt her?”

“Of course not. I have more control than that. But maybe I would have pulled the fabric of her shirt over her head, letting nature hurt her as she tripped down the stairs and broke her face open, then get rushed to the hospital, only to die on the way.”

I blinked. “Well at least you didn’t put too much thought into it.”

She winked at me.

“I don’t like sitting on my hands,” I admitted. “We’re supposed to cross our fingers and hope that Tammy doesn’t do anything else to us. Shouldn’t the cops have put some kind of detail on us?”

“I don’t know,” Poe said. “But as long as we always stay with someone, then we should be okay.”

“My room wasn’t okay,” Cathy said. “We must take action!” she declared, slamming her milk down dramatically. It sprayed up and splashed on the table.

“No,” I said harshly. “We’ll do as the police say, because they know more about dealing with this stuff than we do. If we make Tammy madder, then who knows what she’ll do.”

“Die,” Cathy said through a cough, making Poe laugh.

My boyfriend leaned closer to me, pulling my chair in his direction. If he could have gotten away with sitting me on his lap, I imagined he would have. We had too many people around us to not get called out by a teacher. Of course, that only went for us. If this were a player on the team, then it would have been fine. No one punished them for a thing.

“I should destress you,” Poe offered. “I would be a bad boyfriend if I didn’t try and make you feel better.”

“I’m past feeling better.”

“Then I’ll have to work harder.” Poe smiled, and then tilted my chin up. He kissed me, clearly not caring if a teacher walked by. I didn’t really care either, so at least we were on the same page. He put his hand on my thigh, and I wished we could’ve been back at his house, under the covers.

“Don’t mind me,” Cathy said in the background. “I’ll just be here, eating a burger, and not thinking about how I don’t have a pretty lady to make out with in the middle of the school. I don’t mind. Really. Food is my lover. Is…is my ambiance doing anything for you?”

Poe and I stopped when we couldn’t contain our laugher. I wasn’t mad at my friend for interrupting the kiss, because we’d tortured the poor girl enough already. She’d been a trooper for the most part.

“Uh oh,” Poe said, scratching the back of his head as he looked down suddenly. “Someone isn’t happy.”

I turned my head to see what he’d noticed, and I should have guessed it already. Peter watched us but looked away the moment I caught him. I knew that expression well, with his jaw clenched and his fingers curled in tightly at his sides while he stood across the room. He got the same look when something happened with his father, and he didn’t know how to get the icky feelings out.

“Oops,” I said. “Guess he shouldn’t have been watching us make out if it upset him.” Though it still made no sense to me, how it could have bothered him. He had Kelly there even now, with pink cheeks as she tapped her foot on the floor and stared into oblivion.

“His fault,” Cathy agreed. “What kind of a weirdo would watch his ex like that anyway? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve seen him staring at you? It’s messed up.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s over and done with, and I have more important things to worry about than his feelings. Like not getting murdered while I’m in high school and passing finals.”

“You’ll do fine,” Poe said. “I can help you study.”

I laughed. “Because I believe that a study session wouldn’t just end with a nap or something equally unhelpful to learning the ins and outs of the Civil War.”

“End,” he repeated. “We can do the studying first, then the other things.”

That wouldn’t work out well, but that made me no less willing to try.

Lunch ended, and we had to split up. I got out of being guarded by saying that while in the middle of the halls, I would have been fine. We all had about five minutes to get to class, so there hadn’t been time for a fight about it.

I hurried down the hall, not wanting to be late for class. That would have gotten a bunch of eyes on me as I walked in, in the middle of our teacher talking. A panic attack about that at the moment, didn’t sound ideal.

I got to the home stretch before something grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the hallway. That something pulled me into the girls’ bathroom and closed the door behind us.

Kelly stood there, and then began to back me into a corner. I saw no one else in the bathroom with us, so I didn’t have potential help for whatever was about to happen to me. I’d have to shatter a mirror and steal protection from that, if it came down to it.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, keeping my voice a little less than irritated/scared.

Kelly did nothing to sound calm or forgiving. “You told the cops that me and Peter broke into Catherine’s house?”

It threw me, so that I couldn’t respond quick enough. No one ever mentioned Kelly when they decided that Tammy didn’t do this. I still didn’t understand why no one took my word for it, but that was a problem for another day.

“I didn’t do that,” I said, loud and clear.

“Really?” Kelly hissed. “Because the cops came to my house this morning to question me. My parents flipped their shit, and I’m grounded for the rest of the school year because you lied.”

I repeated my point. “I didn’t do that. Your name never even came up.” I doubted Kelly knew everything about the situation, and I wasn’t keen on filling her in, so I kept my mouth shut.

“I doubt you gave up a chance to get me in trouble. You think I stole your boyfriend, and you’re clearly a coldhearted bitch. So why would I believe you?”

Her hostility suddenly made me decide to be done. Why did I have to be civil with this person? We weren’t friends, and she hated me anyway. Nothing I said would have ever changed that, and I didn’t care to.

“You don’t have to believe me,” I said. “I don’t give a damn either way.”

“Well, aren’t you an angel. I can see why Peter is so freaking obsessed with you. Or he was before you went full blown Satan on him.”

My eyebrows rose, wondering how Peter spun the tale so that he didn’t look like a complete dick in it. Shortly before this day, a version of me existed, that would have thought I could have been the monster there. I’d hurt him too in the end, and I had done it on purpose. Peter stabbed me, and I stabbed him right back. I would normally have felt guilty, and even apologized to him. Now, that place in my heart had gone numb, and I didn’t care to fix that.

Keeping calm, I said, “I don’t know what happened with you, but I had nothing to do with it.”

Kelly cocked her hip after she put her hand there. “The cops said that someone broke into your friend’s house and put blood everywhere. Then they said that it was about you, and that Peter and I had motive. They said several people corroborated that, so I assume it was you and your friends.”

That several people made up my parents, and the officer that blamed Peter in the first place. No matter what I said, Kelly wouldn’t have bought it. Putting it on my mom and dad wouldn’t have helped either, so I didn’t bother.

“I told the officers who I thought did it, and I didn’t mention you or Peter. I don’t think you did it.”

“Good,” she hissed. “Because we didn’t. But because of you, me and Peter have to deal with all this shit with the cops. Whatever you said, or didn’t say, you did this to us. Clearly you have some major issues with me, and me being with Peter. Every chance you get, you screw with us.”

“Actually, I don’t. Your boyfriend won’t leave me the hell alone, even though I’ve asked him a hundred times. I’ve moved on. I have new friends, a new boyfriend, and I want nothing to do with yours. How many times must I state that?”

The girl stepped forward again, making me move back. I might have been a couple feet from the wall, and I didn’t want to be caged in like an animal.

“I don’t think you’re over a thing,” Kelly said slowly. “You stare at him, you talk to him, and you clearly picked the first person desperate enough to date you so you could make Peter jealous. You think that would make him run back to you?”

I laughed. “He can run all he wants, but not a damn thing in this world would make me take him back. Oh, and if you call my boyfriend desperate one more time, I’m going to knee you in your junk.”

“Don’t threaten me.”

“Don’t make me need to. How about you go ahead and accept that you’re paranoid, and don’t have any good reason to think I’m going to steal Peter. That’s more your thing, don’t you think?”

She chuckled then. “Ah, so I was right. It comes down to you being bitter about me taking him back. You think you got wronged. Well guess what. If you were a better girlfriend, then maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to get away from you so damn badly.”

That should have upset me. It should have had my eyes prickling with tears, and my hands shaking. My brain should have been telling me she was right, and that I’d done everything wrong. I wouldn’t have blamed Peter, even with the facts in my head. Everyone had always told me I was the problem, but it didn’t feel true anymore. Knowing Kelly only said this to hurt me, made it impossible to do so.

“Move out of my way,” I said. “I’m not doing this with you. You already made me late for class.”

I brushed past Kelly, bumping her arm on my way. I got all the way to the door before she grabbed me again, yanking me by the shirt. It would have fulfilled all kinds of daydreams if I could have reeled back and socked her good and proper in the jaw. I didn’t do that, because one, it would have hurt my hand, and two, the cops had become too big a part of my life now for me to assault someone. The last thing I needed was for my credibility to drop.

“We’re not done,” Kelly said, letting go of me. “You need to stop messing with my life now and stop messing with Peter’s. He told me everything you said to him, and it was fucking evil.”

“You clearly didn’t get told the whole story, because if you did, then you would be pissed off at him.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to make me paranoid, and it won’t work.”

She was already paranoid, so it didn’t matter either way. “Peter wanted to upset me, so he used your relationship. He let me know that four days after we broke up, you guys slept together. So you can say I’m evil but at least I didn’t use Poe to make Peter feel bad. How does it make you feel knowing that Peter used you?”

I watched her face as she let it sink in. I saw pain, and anger come in flashes. She sent that all at me, and I thought for a moment, this would turn into a real fight. One where we pulled each other’s hair, or I bashed her head into the sink. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. She just went into denial.

“Don’t pretend that your little show with that Poe guy wasn’t to upset Peter.”

I laughed again, harder this time. “I didn’t even know Peter was there. And shouldn’t you read more into the fact that Peter had been watching me? That seems creepy, just FYI.”

“He wasn’t watching you! God, you’re so self-absorbed.”

“Sure I am. Tell yourself whatever you need to, but I think the person you have to talk with is Peter. It seems like all your problems come from him. Let me guess, when you start fighting, he puts it on me, right? He makes it seem like somehow, I’m the one who caused it?”

Kelly blinked, and held her head up high. “Don’t turn this around on me. The problems all started with you, so of course your name comes up.”

I cleared my throat. “Hey, how about you stop and think about what kind of relationship you want. Personally, it would bug me if every problem I had with my boyfriend, was his ex. Especially, if he couldn’t stop talking about her. Have you ever thought that maybe, Peter is the problem here, and not me? He’s not all that stable.”

“How dare you.” Her lip curled into a snarl, like an angry animal that wanted to eat my face. Funny, because I felt more like the one about to attack.

I inhaled, thinking happy things so that I didn’t hit this bitch. I got cornered in the bathroom, and she managed to make me into the dick.

“Have a nice day, Kelly,” I said. “Good luck with your boyfriend. I sure hope this is all worth it to you, because it would be a bummer otherwise. Maybe next time you go poking around a relationship already in progress, you’ll think twice. Enjoy my leftovers.”

Kelly didn’t have anything to say to me, so that left the door wide open to go through. She stood in the middle of the bathroom, staring at the wall like it pissed her off. She didn’t try and stop me when I got the hell out of there.