27
JILLIE
Ishouldn’t have asked. I know better. It sure didn’t take long for me to find out.
Ella super glued my locker shut. She wrote “whore” on my locker in black Sharpie. She put gum on my seat—and I was stupid enough not to look the first time. Thankfully, I had an extra uniform. I learned quickly, and from then on, scooped up the gum with putty knife I appropriated from the art room, and threw it at her. I nearly got it in her hair, but she deflected it with her hand.
“Childish pranks,” I mutter as I walk past her to go sit outside for lunch. I can smell the paint before I’m even near the picnic table. I’m glad they didn’t sit—Audrey and Isla.
Elan walks up. “She’s trying.”
“And failing,” I add.
Carlos comes walking up looking all wild-eyed. “Jillie, you need to stop.”
“Huh?” He can’t mean what I think he means.
“You gotta stop fucking with Ellen,” Carlos reiterates.
Yep. It’s exactly what I thought he said. “Why would I do that when she’s the one doing all the—quote, unquote—fucking?”
“Because,” he pauses looking around. When he sees Ellen looking our way he glares, but when he sees Leo, he clams up. “You just gotta stop, all right?”
“No, it’s not all right. If she’s dishing it out, I’m throwing it back,” I tell him.
“But—you don’t know what you’redoing.”
I look at Audrey and Isla, then back to Carlos with disbelief. “I’m pretty sure I do.”
“Dude, youdon’t,” Brent tells me when he steps out from behind Carlos.
“Why don’t you fill me in?” I ask.
“Can’t. Not here anyway,” Brent tells me. He’s looking as shifty as Carlos.
“What the hell is going on?” Isla asks.
“That’s what I’d like to know.” I agree.
Carlos sighs. “Meet me after lunch in the janitor’s closet next to the Health Room.”
I look at Isla then back at Carlos. “Um, you’re with Isla. I’m not doing anything with you…”
“Would you just shut up and listen to me?” Carlos bites out.
“Don’t you talk to her like that,” Audrey defends.
Brent steps up, and soothes Audrey. “Babe, he needs to.”
“Janitor’s closet, you said?” I ask.
He nods.
“After lunch?”
He nods again.
“All right, but I already know something hinky’s going on,” I tell him.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Brent mutters as the two of them walk away.
I look at Audrey, Isla, and then Elan.
“What the hell was that?”
No one has an answer.
