***
"Why are you ignoring me?"
Harrison stood at my bedroom door, brown eyes locked on mine in crushed confusion.
"What are you doing here?" I blandly asked. I closed my laptop with more force than necessary.
Harrison stepped inside my room and closed the door behind him.
"I'm confused," he started. "I've been trying to call and text you all day. Liam said you left school early. I was worried."
"Wereyou?" I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice.
His head jerked back at my tone. "Of course I was."
I had hours to think about how I would handle this. The only way to save face was to omit Jessica's little confession. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had hurt me. Again.
"Look, Harrison. We need to cut contact with each other."
His mouth fell open. "Huh? Why?"
I kept my gaze steadily locked on his to show no sign of weakness. "You've been an asshole to me all my life, and you haven't really apologized for it properly." I held my hand up when he opened his mouth. "And I really don't care to hear it now."
He took a step forward. "Grace, what are you saying?"
Was I imagining his voice shaking? He was a good actor, I'd give him that.
"I'm saying I don't forgive you. I don't want to be friends with you, and I don't want to go to prom with you. Some of us have bigger dreams than staying in this shit-hole town, and I need to focus on the bigger picture."
Harrison's head jerked back as if I had slapped him.
"So I would appreciate it if you could go back to ignoring me or bullying me; I don't really care at this point. Kindly lose my number while you're at it."
I grabbed a random book from my shelf before returning to my desk and feigned reading.
The silence was long and painful. I could feel Harrison's presence lingering in tense stillness behind me. I kept my head down, willing him to leave.
Finally, I heard his heavy footsteps walk out of my room, and my door clicked softly behind him.
Good riddance, asshole.
I didn't know whether Harrison deleted my number. I blocked him as soon as he left my room.
At school, I sat well away from him, refusing to glance at him when I passed him in the halls. He never bullied me, and he never spoke to me again.
When prom came, I heard that he had taken Jessica. As I knew they would, they won prom king and queen.
I kept my prom date with Amelia, and Liam joined us as well. We watchedSixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club,andDie Hardtogether.The latter movie was put on to break up the estrogen-filled night for Liam's sake. I was relieved I had not told Amelia about the weird few weeks of friendship with Harrison.
Well, it was friendship on my part. A sick joke on his.
The senior prank ended up being some porno movie shown at prom. It was stupid and further confirmed my conviction that I was the original prank.
Graduation finally came, and once the dull lights of Ashburton were in my rearview mirror, I permanently put Harrison, Jessica, and all the nastiness behind me.
CHAPTER 14
The Present
