I couldn’t believe he was talking to me this way. Before I couldanswer, Ellie hissed, “You can’t talk to her like that.” She was clearly pissed at how they were treating me.
I don’t think Taylor had realized she was there. Now he turned to her and said, “Beat it. I want to talk to my girlfriend one on one.” The message was clearly intended for Thiago, too.
I was surprised at how easily I could read Thiago’s mind as he looked back and forth between us. I saw pain, anger, rage, helplessness—and I saw him wanting to claim me as his. But he couldn’t. I wanted to confront him, I wanted to tell him off, but my heart was split in two. As always, it was impossible to be logical when he was around.
“Kami,” Ellie said, “feel free to leave these two dumbasses and come in with me. You don’t have to explain anything to them. You felt like walking to school. It’s none of their business.”
Taylor turned to her. “What part of the phraseBeat itdid you not understand?”
He was seething, and she was hurt, but she was trying hard to cover it up. My mind quickly put the pieces together.
Ellie liked Taylor.
That was what she hadn’t wanted to tell me…and that was how Julian had blackmailed her.
“What part ofIt’s none of your businessdon’t you understand?” she fired back.
Before he could say something nasty to her again, I cut him off: “Taylor, stop. It was my decision to walk to school, and I’m not going to live my life in fear of some high school freak. If Julian had actually wanted to hurt me, he had a thousand chances to do it, and he didn’t! You guys see him as some kind of danger, but for me, he’s just a pathetic loser who had to lie to me and lie to himself to make friends. He’s a creep, a liar. He’s a pathetic asshole, and he’s going to spend the rest of his life alone. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to class with my best friend.”
Thiago looked like he wanted to drag me away and chew me out. But I didn’t care now. I grabbed Ellie’s hand and started walking off. No sooner had I taken two steps than Taylor stopped me, clutching my arm. “We need to talk,” he demanded, pursing his lips.
Thiago tried to jump in again, but I didn’t want the situation to get any worse. Dealing with two angry brothers was too much, especially when they were vying for my attention. To calm things down, I said, “Taylor, we’ll talk in biology class.” My tone was curt, and I saw on his face that he understood he’d gone too far.
He let me go, but tension still lingered in the air as I walked away.
* * *
My first class was hell—math, of course—and to make things worse, I still hadn’t been able to talk to Ellie about what I was certain I’d just figured out. Mr. Gomez was a hothead, and he hated students talking in class. I remember one time he caught two people passing notes, and he made them take an extra quiz each week for a whole month. That added up to half their grade! It sounds crazy, but he didn’t bat an eye about it.
Plus, Ellie didn’t seem to want to talk to me. She just looked straight ahead and noted down everything the teacher said without giving me the time of day. We had barely spoken since our confrontation with the Di Bianco brothers. I had tried my hardest to get her to open up, but all she had to say was, “Kami, we’re going to be late to class! This is no time to get into it!”
It mattered to me, though. I had been so wrapped up in my parents’ divorce, the harassment I’d suffered, my friendship with Julian, going out with Taylor, hooking up with Thiago, and everything else, that I’d barely paid attention to her. And I knew that was wrong.
I promised myself I would go back to being the person I’d been before, at least when it came to my friendships. I couldn’t just throw aside the people I had history with. And realizing that made me think of Kate.
Did Kate know what her brother had been up to? Had she known he was manipulating all of us? Had she helped him dig up dirty secrets on half the people at our school?
I wanted to know, and I wasn’t the only one. Lots of people were convinced the two of them had been in cahoots, and more than a few people had turned their back on her. They sneered and scowled at her, and it almost seemed as if they were taking everything out on her since Julian had disappeared. Ellie had even joked about how the illegitimate queen had fallen, and now I could retake my throne. I hated her saying that, it sounded so superficial, but I knew it was just her way of finding humor in everything that we’d gone through.
I didn’t want to be on any throne, though, especially not among the cheerleaders. I didn’t want attention. I didn’t want anything to do with that school, actually. I just wanted to finish the year and go to college and never look back. These kinds of things didn’t happen at college—people were more mature, and parents weren’t around all the time scheming to take away your freedom. That was exactly what I needed.
To start from zero.
Taylor popped into my head. He wanted to go to Harvard; I wanted to go to Yale. That would be a problem, but I was relieved to think I wouldn’t be the only one who would have to deal with it. Everyone knew that if you started a relationship your senior year of high school, you had to accept that it might end. Most couples couldn’t handle the distance, especially not at college, with all that newfound freedom that often went to people’s heads, driving them to cheat or break up with someone…
I tried to tell myself that what I had with Taylor wouldn’t end that way. But with my heart still longing for Thiago, I’d started to believe that I didn’t deserve either of them. And yet I was too weak to let them go.
Did that make me the worst person in the world?
I think the answer’s pretty damn clear.
