“You came back,” Xander whispered, without so much as a hello.
What the hell was I supposed to say to that? “I didn’t have a choice,” I said with a shrug. “Trust me, the last place I wanted to come back to was here.” Not exactly a lie, because I would’ve been happy staying with Mom, having Leah around. If I could've gone on with that life, I would have. This—what I was doing, it was a last resort. The only thing I had left.
“I understand,” Xander said, flipping his head, causing some of his long, black hair to toss.
I was almost positive he didn’t understand, but I kept my mouth firmly zipped shut.
When I said nothing, Xander’s dark eyes moved to the opposite wall, where the class’s equipment sat. Cameras of all sorts. The stuff was already picked through by the rest of the class, who was off doing God knew what.
I didn’t really have a choice when I said, “Tell me how to sign out one of those.” Since Xander made no moves to get up, I did. I walked to the cameras, finding a few digital ones left, one of those huge ones with the big lens, and, from what it looked like, a polaroid sort of camera.
Saying nothing, Xander moved to the edge of the counter, picking up a clipboard, the pen attached by a string. He handed it to me, dark eyes watching, waiting, as if he expected me to explode. Or implode. Either way, he was going to be disappointed. I wasn’t that girl anymore.
The teacher was on the far side of the room, chuckling to himself, probably because of some cat video on Facebook. Since he was so preoccupied, I let myself say in a whisper, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but stop.”
“Stop what?”
I began filling out the sheet on the clipboard. “Stop watching me like you think I’m going to break.” When I signed my name in the last column, I couldn’t help but do it with a hard flourish. If I had an i in my name, I probably would’ve poked through the clipboard as I dotted it. As I set the clipboard down, I took a step towards him, angling my face up to him. Out of the three of them, he was the closest to my height. “If you have something to say to me, say it to my face, for once.”
Xander glanced down, slowly drawing his gaze up my body. My posture, my looks—no, I was worlds different than the Elle Payne he knew. “I don’t have anything to say to you,” he muttered before turning away.
Not the words I would’ve said if I were him. If anything, the bastard should be on his knees apologizing for what he helped do to me. But that would make this too easy. Hell, I was prepped for the hard way. I wanted the hard way, because that meant when I finally stood above the Dick Squad, my victory would be that much sweeter.
I made an unimpressed sound as I reached for the digital camera I’d signed out. If this was the best Xander could do—if this was his real personality now and wasn’t a show, it would be all too easy for me to knock him down a few more pegs. When I was done with him, I wanted him crawling on the fucking floor.
Chapter Five
Most of the seniors were gone by the time the last bell rang. I took my time walking to my locker, enjoying the semi-quietness, at least until I passed the juniors’ hall. I grabbed my bag, shoved in the few books and notebooks I had homework for, and slung it around my shoulders. I headed out of the school’s front doors, stopping when the sunshine hit me.
That was the thing about being cooped up for so long. It sucked.
I turned along the sidewalk, dodging the freshman and other underclassmen as I walked. I didn’t see Diane’s car anywhere—although I didn’t spend too much time searching. She could’ve been parked right in front of me and I would’ve walked right by her. Try as she might, she’d never be like a mother to me. She was no one. If there was one person I hated in this world more than Christian and the Dick Squad, it was Diane, the woman who’d destroyed my parents’ marriage.
I was about to turn onto the sidewalk near the street when a car rolled up, stopping at the end of the school’s driveway. A brown-haired head stuck out, along with a grinning face. “Can I give you a ride?” Alec asked, almost pleading with the expression he gave me.
Did he wait this entire time to offer to drive me home? What the hell. Stalker much?
I shot him a glare. “Why would I go anywhere with you, Alec?”
The words he said stopped me cold: “Because I know what you’re doing.”
Meeting his bright green eyes, I felt my stomach harden. How in the world could he possibly know what I was doing? It wasn’t like I detailed my plan to anybody but Leah—and even then, things were still more vague than they were clear as of the moment.
When I said nothing, when the cars stuck behind him started beeping, Alec sighed and said, “Please, get in.”
I shouldn’t. I knew I shouldn’t, but I also had to know what Alec thought he knew—if the bastard truly had me so figured out. Somehow I found myself heading around his car and getting into the passenger’s seat. Probably a mistake, but I’d made many mistakes in my life. What was one more?
After I got in, Alec turned onto the road, in the direction of my house. Whether or not he was just aimlessly driving or he knew where I lived, I was a bit afraid to ask. I could’ve gotten into a car with a serial killer for all I knew.
“So,” I said, pausing as I stretched out my legs, “what is it you think you know?” I leaned my head on the headrest, turning slightly to look at him. His jaw was set, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the window. My backpack rested on the floor before me, and I reached down into the front pocket, pulling out a sucker. I wasn’t allowed to eat candy at home, at least when my dad was around.
Right now though, I needed sugar, mostly because Alec was too cute to be real. The way he concentrated on driving, how the muscle in his cheek kept ticking, his dark stubble…my hormones were going into overdrive, which was so not what I needed right now.
Sugar it was.
I popped the sucker into my mouth, swirling my tongue around it when I saw Alec was watching me out of the corner of his eye. “You going to answer me, or just drive in manly silence?” I posed the question with a shrug, as if I didn’t care either way.
“Christian’s not going to fall for it, you know,” Alec finally said, looking at me only because we rolled to a stop at a red light.
“Fall for what?” I was the picture of innocence, batting my long eyelashes and playing up the sweet, feminine wiles I knew I had. I was no longer the slightly chubby sixth grader Alec knew. He might’ve grown into a good-looking guy, but I was a sexy woman, too.
“Whatever you’re trying to do. It’s not going to work.”
“Why do you assume I’m trying to do anything? Maybe I’ve just changed.” I pulled the sucker from my mouth as I lifted a leg and rested it on the dashboard. He saw how long my leg was, the shape of it. If this were a cheesy teen flick, I’d say I liked the way he was looking at me.
The red light changed to green, and he was forced to take his eyes off me to drive. “No one thought you’d come back, and no one thought you’d look like this if you did.” Alec paused before adding, “You’re up to something.”
“If I am, so what? It has nothing to do with you.” A lie, but one I hoped he would believe. Certainly, I wasn’t expecting to be confronted on my first day back. Maybe I’d glammed myself up a bit too much. I’d have to lower the sex appeal tomorrow.
“Elle,” he started, “look. I know what we did to you…it wasn’t right. I’m not proud of the kid I was in junior high. If I could take everything that we said back, everything we did, I would. I would take it back in a heartbeat.”
I wasn’t sure how to take his words, as genuine and sincere as they seemed, because I couldn’t trust him. “And how do I know that you mean what you’re saying? How do I know this isn’t something Christian is making you do—trying to get a behind the scenes look at my plans? Not that I’m saying I have plans, because I don’t.”
Wow. Smooth one, Elle.
Alec found my house, slowing to a stop on the road before it. He was lucky I l
ived in a development, otherwise he would’ve been run right off the road. “Christian doesn’t want me talking to you. He doesn’t know about this.”
“Do you always listen to what Christian says? Oh, wait. I already know the answer to that.” I stuck the sucker back in my mouth and went to undo my seatbelt to get out, but a warm hand on mine caused me to freeze.
A warm, large hand that I wasn’t expecting.
“I know nothing I say can make what happened right, and I’m sorry.” Alec’s mouth drew into a thin line, the wind blowing through the open window, tousling his brown hair. “I’m sorry, El.”
El? Why the hell did he call me El all of a sudden? Did Alec think a cute little nickname would make me waver? No, my resolve was firm, and no pet name was going to change it. I would’ve frowned at him, but my mouth was full of candy, and I was still currently frozen under his hand.
“And I’m not saying that I’m going to help you do whatever it is you’re planning on doing, but…” He swallowed. Must’ve been tough to admit all this shit to me. Too bad it was years too late. “I owe you.”
Was he acting nice to me to calm his conscience? Did he view this as some kind of second chance? I stared at him for a moment, slowly tugging my hand out from under his as I got out of the car. I grabbed my backpack and said nothing. I wasn’t about to be his redemption, and I sure as shit didn’t need help taking down Christian.
Besides, Christian wasn’t the only one I was going to bring down. Xander and Alec would fall too, and I doubted he’d volunteer to tear himself down. What kind of boy these days was so self-sacrificing?
As I shut the door, I glared at him. “How do you know where I live?”
“I used to walk around here sometimes,” Alec spoke with a shrug. “I don’t know why, but I thought I’d see you. Took me years to realize you weren’t being homeschooled and moved away.”
I couldn’t picture Alec ever coming around here, and I definitely couldn’t imagine him wanting to see me. Even if, say, he was being genuine, me not living here anymore wasn’t an excuse. If Alec really wanted to apologize to me for what he did, for what he was a part of, he could’ve found me online. I had my profiles set to private, and I was very choosy in who I friended and followed, but still.
Honestly, I had no clue what to say to him, so I settled on saying nothing. I spun on my heel, about to march to the front door, but Alec called out to me again—using that stupid nickname.
“El,” Alec paused, his eyes dropping to my feet and slowly rising up, traveling along my body, taking in every curve, “you look good.” It was a compliment that shouldn’t have made my cheeks flush, but it did.
My whole face heated up and probably turned pink like a fucking cherry, so I answered him by spinning, giving him my ass as I went to the house. Alec could kiss my…not a thought I should finish, given how my body reacted to his compliment.
Oh, come on, Elle. Don’t let his pretty face get to you. If you lose your resolve on day one, you’re hopeless.
Yeah, I didn’t want to be hopeless.
I ignored the sounds of Alec’s car driving away as I stepped into the house, greeted immediately by the one woman I didn’t want to talk to. Diane had been vacuuming the living room, but the moment I came in, she turned it off and met me near the door.
“Your father wouldn’t approve of that,” she said, noting the sucker in my mouth. Diane was a pretty enough woman, I supposed. She was thin in ways most thirty year olds weren’t, with long blonde hair and blue eyes that you just couldn’t trust. Not once in my life had I ever thought she was prettier than my mom, but I was my mom’s daughter. Until the day I died, I would always side with my mom.
How many years had it been? I wondered.
The field trip ended early. I waited near the buses, knowing my mom was at work and my dad had said he would come pick me up. He didn’t often have time off during the week, and if I was truthful, I was kind of excited to spend some time with him and tell him all about the science center we went to.
I didn’t live far from the school though, and I didn’t feel like waiting. Christian and the others had been God-awful today, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend more time in his presence, hear him mutter any more mean things under his breath. So I walked home, eager to both get away and to get home.
The sun was bright overhead, a warm spring day. It made my mood a tad better, but a dark cloud still hovered over me, the same cloud that always seemed to follow me, no matter where I was going.
When I rounded the sidewalk to my house, I spotted a strange car in the driveway behind Dad’s. It was not a car I’d ever seen before, and as I headed to the front door, I couldn’t stop staring at it, as if, deep down, I knew it was a bad sign. An omen of what was to come.
I walked into the house quietly, listening. The field trip’s schedule had said we wouldn’t be home for another hour and a half yet, so in reality, I shouldn’t even be home. I should still be at the science center, surrounded by classmates who hated me. I heard sounds coming from upstairs, and what sounded like a woman’s voice—a voice I’d never heard before. A voice that was definitely not Mom’s.
I slowly dropped my backpack at the foot of the stairs, moving up the steps with confusion. I had no idea what it could be, who could be upstairs—and I didn’t see Dad in the living room or the kitchen when I came into the house, so he had to be up there, too. What I saw…well, I was old enough to know the details, to know that Dad was doing something he definitely shouldn’t be.
A young, pretty blonde woman, to be exact, and in his and my mom’s bed, too.
Dad was on top of her, their bodies moving together, moans escaping them both. Neither had noticed my presence; I supposed I could’ve just walked away and pretended I didn’t see. But I did. I saw, and I knew he was cheating on Mom. This wasn’t right.
I spoke a single word, my voice broken, cracking on the one-syllable question, “Dad?”
Little did I know that this was the end of everything I knew.
That was the first time I’d met Diane. Seven years ago, she was twenty-five years old, nearly a decade younger than my mom. Fewer wrinkles, a bigger chest, a fitter body. For so long, and still, I guess, I thought my dad was some stereotypical clichéd man, having a fucking mid-life crisis, even though I was sure those things only existed in the movies. Whatever it was, whatever game he thought he was playing by fucking Diane behind Mom’s back, had destroyed what little bit of life I had left to enjoy.
To address Diane’s comment about my sucker, I slowly tugged the candy from my mouth and shrugged. “I won’t tell him if you won’t.” When she said nothing, only stared at me, I started moving around her to head up the steps to go to my room.
“Elle,” Diane called after me. “I was thinking we could go get ice cream or something?” Her tone was hopeful, expectant, like she truly thought I’d want to spend an ounce of my time with her of my own freewill.
When she asked me, all I could think was: why the fuck would I want to get ice cream with her? Why would I want to spend any of my time with her? No, I’d rather swallow leeches than go somewhere with her.
But I didn’t say that. I said, “Can’t. Have a lot of homework to catch up on.” Not a lie, but it was an excuse I would use to get out of doing anything Diane wanted. I left her speechless as I went into my room, closing the door behind me. I landed on my bed and dug out my phone. Unlike all the other students at River High, I respected the whole no cell phone during school hours rule.
I knew for a fact, however, Leah did not. My old school was lax on the rules, though. I texted her the highlights of the day, waiting until she called me when she got out to go into the full story. Once the day was explained, when she knew what classes I had with the Dick Squad, I let Leah think.
Leah and I had always come up with possible revenge schemes, but until I knew I had to move back here, it was all make-believe, imaginary. Until suddenly it wasn’t. It was harder than I thought it would be, actin
g stone-cold to Alec—but I would not let his nice facade ruin it.
“Well,” Leah finally spoke. From the noises in the background, it sounded as if she was driving. Unlike me, she had a car of her own. It was old and run-down, but it got her from point A to point B. “Sounds like you need to start on Alec first.”
“Why him?”
“He’s practically in your lap already.” I imagined Leah shrugging, as if it was completely obvious and I should’ve seen it before. “I know you want to start on the head Dick first—” She paused as she let out a giggle. “—but from what it sounds like, Alec might be your best way in. Him and Christian’s girlfriend. There’s not enough info on that Xander yet, but I’m sure something will come.”
Alec did say Christian didn’t want him talking to me. Becoming buddy-buddy with him might make Christian flip, maybe even break up their friendship.
Leah went on, “Make Alec fall for you. That’ll really tick off the head Dick. Make Alec follow you around like a lost puppy, and maybe he’ll have an in that you can use to break up the Dick and his girlfriend. I hear parties are always a good place to stir up some shit.”
Make Alec fall for me, as in make him love me. I wasn’t sure if I liked that idea or not. A part of me was excited, because it meant I got to spend more time with him—he was a cute guy, after all. I had eyes—but at the same time, I was worried I wasn’t strong enough. Suddenly six years away from these people didn’t feel like enough.
A strange thought occurred to me then. “Do you think I could get them all to love me?” Making them love me, genuinely, truly love me, before breaking them was…both exciting and nerve-wracking.
Leah thought on this. “I don’t know. Sounds like Christian wants nothing to do with you, but definitely Alec. You’d probably get Xander before you got Christian, even though it sounds like the three of them aren’t friends anymore. I think it’d be a good thing to find out exactly why Xander left the Dick Squad.” There was a pause before she added, “God, I’m so fucking jealous of you, Elle. This is like some kind of movie shit.”
Spite: A Bully Reverse Harem Page 4
