by A. E. Murphy
“Anyway,” Alice goes on with a roll of her eyes. “The blond guy, Jeff, though not his actual name. Everyone just calls him that because, at the beginning of junior year, whenever a teacher called out his name for the roster he’d declare, my name is Jeff.”
I laugh once. “Like that move twentysomething Jump something?”
“Exactly. So funny, but now everyone calls him Jeff and nobody remembers his real name. His family own Bowler Mania and a couple of clubs in and out of town. It has a roller rink where they all go to dance and stuff, nobody actually skates there. For that they have the ramps behind it which is pretty cool.” She rubs her hands on her skirt-clad thighs. “Do you skate?”
I shake my head.
“Ah, you climb, right? So gymnast?”
“I suppose.”
“You need to teach me a few things.” She stops speaking when the reverend starts. We sit and listen… or she does… I use this opportunity to nap until I’m forced to pay attention again.
Lane is not happy. Alice thinks I’m hilarious.
“The short guy is Terry, but he’ll be out of their crew soon,” Alice continues when we all stand to sing.
“Why?”
“He’s been having sex with Asher, though they haven’t all quite figured that out yet.”
My lips part. “How do you know?”
She leans into me and whispers, “I caught them going at it during summer school. I volunteered to be a tutor. It was nasty as fuck. He was gobbling her pussy on Mr. Heath’s desk.”
I laugh loudly, startling those around me. I couldn’t help myself. I did not expect her to say that. My hand slaps over my mouth and we both giggle together like we’ve been friends for years.
“But,” she mutters and clicks her fingers, “Asher is totally in love with Carter, Melvin is just her consolation prize and everyone knows it. Terry is just an extra in her shit show. She’s one of those that just has to have all the attention on her, all the time.”
“What about the tall one?” I ask, leaning closer so as to keep my voice low, ignoring Lane’s elbow in my side.
“That’s Joey, he’s so cute but really weird, keeps to himself, normal family, nothing to note.”
“And Carter?”
She makes a noise that sounds like a mini orgasm. “Carter is bae. He is life. I would sit on his face for hours if he let me. I would be his slave for eternity just for a taste of that massive D he’s hiding.”
I try so hard not to laugh. “You’re crazy.”
“But he is fiiiine… so is Presley mind you. To be the filling in that sandwich.” She gently thrusts her hips forward but her mom sees and slaps her around the back of the head with a bible.
We start giggling again and I think finally, at last, I might have made a friend.
“Will you pretend not to know me in school tomorrow?” I ask, feeling surprisingly vulnerable.
“Because you’ve got a target on your back?” She pretends to draw lines under her eyes with her fingers, like a character out of a cheesy action film. “To battttllllleeee!” Then she links her arm through mine. “Trust me, girl. I’m part of a crew that can make things go boom using a bottle of bleach and chewing gum. Those pretty boys don’t fuck with us.”
“So you’re a nerd?” I jest and she nods twice.
“Exactly.”
With a friend like Alice on my side, I might actually end up liking it here.
“Do you want to hang out after this?” she asks, looking at her watch. “I can show you around town from a teen’s perspective.”
I look at Lane and Stanley and catch their attention with a wave of my hand. “I’m going into town with Alice after this. Is that cool?”
“Be back by dark,” Stanley replies and Lane looks positively giddy on my behalf.
“So what inspired you to learn parkour?” Alice asks as she watches me walk on a narrow wall of a low bridge that cuts over a branch of water that leads from the Mississippi River and back.
This town, for all of its people flaws, is really beautiful. It has a lot of character to it. Not to mention all the gators in the river.
“The need to escape,” I reply but that was only part of it.
“So the rumors are true? You spent time in juvie?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I confirm nor deny it.”
“But you are the senator’s niece, right?”
I nod.
“So why are you in foster care? Why aren’t you living with your uncle and his wife? Aren’t they like loaded or something?”
I shrug.
“You don’t like talking much, do you?”
I come to the end of the bridge and drop down, landing perfectly. “I don’t like talking about my past. Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure,” she replies and starts telling me all about school, who she likes, who she doesn’t, whose dick she wants, whose she wants to chop off. She’s so funny and animated.
We come to the same place that I climbed when being chased by the cops and then pass it too. Just when I think we’re headed for Bowler Mania, we take a sharp left into a gaming store and I’m instantly assaulted by the scent of vaping. The place is cloudy and tastes like grape.
“Umm…”
She grabs my hand and pulls me to the back of the store, past the guy who works there who doesn’t even look up from his comic book.
We head down a flight of stairs into a noisy-sounding basement and I stop in my tracks when I come to the end and see a huge pull-down screen displaying a game that three teens are screaming at as they bounce around on the couch with controllers in their hands.
“Don’t worry, we aren’t stopping.” She moves across the screen and the three teens start cussing her out.
I watch as she grabs an expensive-looking camera and a vape pen from a padded black bag in the corner.
“Are you allowed to take those?” I ask with an amused smile.
She raises a brow while asking, “Do you care?”
Laughing, I shake my head. “Not really.”
“Good, then, let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“You’ll see.”
I groan, but secretly I’m excited for whatever it is we’re about to do.
Alice links her arm through mine, a bright grin on her face. “Yesterday was so much fun, we need to do that again.”
Alice was nice enough to show me where Presley lives and I was surprised to see how huge his house is. Apparently it was one of the first houses built in town and has been in his family ever since. It had to be at least four stories tall but it wasn’t in great condition. It needed a coat of paint and the yard was overgrowing.
We egged it. Or I did because Alice was holding the camera. Then we ran and ran and ran, tears streaming down our faces.
Not my most creative way to get revenge but definitely cathartic to say the least.
We filmed me doing parkour for a little while in a quieter part of town, that was fun, and then we headed back to my house where we sat in my room until Stanley drove her home at nine.
For the first time in my entire life, I felt like a normal teenager.
Nothing can bring my mood down.
Nothing except—
“Miss Oaks, Miss Bonner,” Jefferson barks, drawing the eyes of all the students around us in the hall. “My office… now.”
“Uh-oh,” Alice whispers and we give each other a wide-eyed look. “Do you think he knows?”
“Probably.”
I close my eyes, blow out a breath, and we duck into the office as he holds open the door. We pass his personal assistant at her desk before finally heading through the final door and into his clean office. He paces once, then twice, looks at me, paces again and pushes a hand through his hair.
“This has got to stop,” he barks, looking frustrated, and I spy another teacher who I don’t recognize in the corner of the room with his arms folded.
“What does?”
“This back and for
th between you, Presley, and Carter. We know you egged his house yesterday—”
I place my hand on my heart, ready to use my practiced manipulation techniques. “No I—”
“Don’t lie to me, Miss Oaks. We have a witness who described you and your frizzy friend here—”
“Hey,” Alice whines, “I prefer the term wild-haired, thank you very much, Mr. Jefferson.”
He slams his hand down on the wooden surface of his desk and continues where he left off. “—to the T.” He sits in his comfy-looking leather chair and chews on his thin lower lip. “But I also know that those boys and their friends have given a lot more than they’ve received, so I’m willing to pretend none of it happened.”
“Yes!” Alice hisses in victory.
“In return for what?” I ask because I’m not stupid and her face falls.
The teacher in the corner steps forward and holds out his tablet. I blanche and my cheeks heat with embarrassment when I see myself really going for it on the rooftop like I always do.
“Every time that door to the roof gets opened, we get an alert,” the teacher says and puts his phone away. To be fair the footage was actually really good. “I followed you the first time, though you were leaving the roof, not the other way around, and the second, and the third.”
“I followed you on the fourth,” Jefferson puts in and I wonder how I didn’t notice them. But then, when my headphones are in and I’m losing myself, I really do leave the world behind.
“Think I can get a copy of that?” Alice asks, eyes alight with excitement.
“Scandal, this is Mr. Hammond, he’s our dance and drama teacher here at Saint Peter’s.”
“I’m how you get a dance scholarship to some of the best schools in the entire country,” he states boldly and with pride, puffing out his muscular chest beneath his white button-up. I bet all the girls are crushing on him. “And trust me when I say you have the skills to make it.”
“You are now officially a part of Dance Elite SP,” Mr. Jefferson declares, a broad grin on his face and Alice starts laughing as though it’s hilarious.
I look at my only ally in this room who is laughing so hard she can’t breathe. I don’t get the joke. “You can’t just enroll me into dance class.”
“We can and we have.”
“You’d be an idiot to waste this opportunity,” Hammond adds.
“This could be a great way to make friends.”
Alice is still laughing.
I smack her arm. “What’s so funny?”
“Dance Elite SP isn’t just…” She chokes for air. “Oh my God. Mr. Jefferson, that is savage AF, my man. You just can’t do that. She has no idea what she’s agreeing to.”
Before I can question anything, the door opens and two others walk in, both Carter and Presley who glare at me when they see me, as per usual.
“Sal sent us in,” Carter explains, pushing the door behind him. He sneers at me, his thick, swollen lips twisting with it.
“Heard you got egged,” I say sweetly to Presley who steps towards me with anger blazing in his eyes. Carter grabs the back of his collar and shoves him to the other side of the room.
“Not now,” he hisses as though none of us can hear them.
They stare me down and I stare them down right back.
“Thank you for coming, boys,” Jefferson tells them and motions for Hammond to continue.
“Give a warm welcome to your third dancer.”
I blanche, he has a way of making me do that. My smirk quickly becomes a look of horror and betrayal. “I agreed to nothing.”
Presley starts laughing as though it’s hilarious just like Alice did.
Carter immediately argues, “Not a chance in hell.”
“Neither of you have a choice. You’re amazing dancers, but there’s nothing special about you. There are dancers like you in every school in the country. Some better, some worse, but still… you’re not in a league of your own. You want to be, you need her.”
This time I laugh. “I fucked around on a school roof because these dickwads pissed me off. Oh the irony!”
“And I’ve never seen anybody dance better,” Hammond states simply, his light eyes blazing with determination. Both boys look at me as though I just sprouted a dick and slapped them both with it. “Make this work. You’re now a trio and you’re going to take this school farther than any of our dancers before you.”
“It all comes down to nationals, doesn’t it?” Carter snaps, shaking his head. “She’s not even going to be here in a week. Her foster mom is already trying to have her placed elsewhere.”
At his words, my head whips around and my smile fades. “Who told you that?”
“My mom goes to book club with Lane,” he replies smugly.
“As far as we’re aware, Scandal is a student here until the end of the school year and you will accept her into Dance Elite SP or you’ll both lose your places in dance class.”
“WHAT?” Presley yells, hands balling into fists by his sides. “Fuck you, Hammond. You need us.”
“Like I said… you’re both replaceable. With her… you’re not. Your choice or I give your spots in the end show to Michael and Glen and she goes with them instead.”
Now it’s my turn to grin smugly. “Looks like your future rests in my hands, boys.”
“Two guys, one girl… that’s so hot,” Alice mutters and we all shoot her a look. “Just saying.”
“Your new schedule,” Jefferson tells me as his printer churns to life and slowly spits out a new sheet of paper. He hands it to me and looks at the three of us. “Get over your hatred, guys—”
“Don’t get over your hatred,” Hammond puts in, cutting off the principal. “Stay hating each other, bottle that passion, throw it at each other in dance. This is going to be incredible. With my help, your dances will go down in history.”
“Somebody needs a Xanax,” Alice whispers in my ear making me snort.
As I fold up my new schedule and stuff it into my bag, the boys shoulder past me, almost knocking me over as they go. I grit my teeth and Alice calls them assholes.
“Dance is all about trust,” I say to Hammond. “If I injure myself so badly because of them and lose the only thing I have that keeps me alive, let that be on your conscience.”
Then I leave with Alice hot on my heels.
“This is going to be mental,” she says breathily and I hum my agreement.
“I need money,” I say at the dinner table. I loathe to ask them but I need new clothing for dance as is expected by the school.
They both look up from their food. “What for?” Stanley asks as Lane asks, “How much?”
“School supplies,” I reply, “a hundred dollars.”
“What could you possibly be buying for school that costs a hundred dollars?” Lane gasps.
Stanley, however, reaches into his wallet and pulls out a few twenty-dollar bills. “Trust,” he declares and slides the bills my way but keeps them trapped beneath his fingers on the table between us. “It’s everything.”
I nod, understanding that he’s giving me a chance here, despite my past, despite my treatment of them.
It’s no wonder Lane wants to place me elsewhere.
I pocket the money and move to the counter to grab Curlyfry’s leash that is hooked to the wall. I need to start pulling my weight around here before I lose it. I’ve only been here a week but already it’s better than anywhere else.
“It really is for school supplies,” I say to Lane. I could tell her that it’s for a new dance uniform but then they’d both get involved and I don’t want them involved in my life outside of this house. They don’t need to be. “Curlyfry, come on, let’s go walkies.”
The big dog comes bounding into the room so fast he collides with my body and knocks me back a step. As I hook his lead to his collar, he licks the side of my face.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” I utter, grabbing Curlyfry’s ball and stuffing it into the pocket of my jacket.
“Come on, boy. Come on. Let’s go.”
I open the door and squeak when Curlyfry bounds forward, dragging me with him. It’s a good thing I can keep up and an even better thing that he is such a well-behaved dog because after a while I drop the lead and we just jog together, side by side.
I wasn’t expecting much when I showed up to school this morning. Meaning I wasn’t expecting Carter or Presley to turn up to the dance studio for practice.
I’ve spent the past twenty minutes warming up in the mirrors, doing my stretches, jumps, rolls, etc. It’s been great moving around such a large expanse of space. This is such a downer; I was hoping they’d quit and saddle me with nicer people. When the door opened, I expected to see Mr. Hammond but not the two guys trailing behind him with bitter looks on their faces.
“If you keep frowning like that, your pretty teen-boy faces will look forty before you’re twenty,” Hammond tells them and then smiles at me. “Ah, you’re here.”
I take a large swig of my water, aware that I’m already a bit sweaty, but at least I don’t smell. My hair is tied high above my head and I’m wearing form-fitting pants and a matching crop top, with a loose-fitting see-through thigh-length wife-beater over the top. I love modern gym clothes, they’re so comfy and sexy.
Even Mr. Hammond can’t help but glance at my ass when I finish my stretching.
Kind of gross but also flattering because this guy is hot, and from what I’ve heard, he’s very professional when it comes to his students. He has knocked back more than one attempt from a horny-as-fuck teen girl. Alice was telling me all about it last night over the phone while mentally prepping me for today.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Hammond comments, looking giddy like a little boy on Christmas morning with a brand-new track for his train set. He clicks his fingers and the two bored- and scorned-looking boys stand per his request. “Together.”
I stand between them, distance between us but I feel flanked. I don’t like it.
“Now,” Hammond says firmly and looks between us all. “Whatever is happening out there, stays out there. You can despise each other. You can call each other whatever you want. You can egg each other’s houses and scratch each other’s cars… I do not care. What I care about is that in this room, even though you hate each other, you aren’t about to hurt each other.” He walks slowly back and forth as he talks and I just don’t acknowledge the cunts either side of me at all. “Her body is yours to protect in this room, during your dance. Her body is your body. If you hurt her body, you’re hurting yourself.”
