Heat rises to the surface of my skin as she waits for an answer. “Uh…no.”
“How articulate.” Snickers from the peanut gallery deepen my flush and I frown.
“If this class is too advanced for you, I’d be more than happy to revert you back to remedial science,” she continues acerbically, speaking through her teeth in curt, sibilant tones.
“I’m fine.” It’s all I can manage through the haze of anger. I bite down on the retort jumping on the tip of my tongue and instead avert my gaze.
“Then I strongly suggest you stay awake and pay attention.” With that, she whirls on her heels and continues with her lesson. I hate this class. No wait. It wasn’t the class, just the bitch who taught it. If I could’ve, I would have transferred out of her class at the beginning of the semester, but given the fact that Delaney was the only AP Physics teacher in the whole school, I was more or less stuck. My sigh is a whoosh of air as I lower my head to my crossed arms and stare fixedly at the clock. Forty-five minutes to go.
***
I know a pervert when I see one. I’ve been around them enough growing up to know all the signs and the drama teacher, Mr. Thatcher, is most certainly paddling in pervert territory. I suspect his use of “improv” is a not-so-clever excuse to touch girls. But no one seems to notice this. In fact, the nine girls who make up the twelve students in our drama class seem to revel in Thatcher’s up close and personal attention. Maybe it has something to do with his appearance. He’s not bad to look at. With short spiky blond hair, dark green eyes, and a tall, lean build, he had the sort of look that garners a second glance from the opposite sex. I fail to see the attraction.
He has the oily personality of a salesman, a disingenuous smile, and a look in his eyes that never fails in giving me the creeps. At the sound of Ashely’s giggle, my frown only deepens as I watch the scene from the corner of the room. Thatcher is standing behind her, he has his hands on her hips and they travel a little too low to her groin as he apparently attempts to teach her how to stand on stage while facing an audience. It’s complete bullshit, but the giggling gaggle of girls don’t appear to mind. They’re enjoying it. Immensely.
He walks away from Ashley after a while, his eyes bouncing around the room of students practicing various breathing exercise before they land on me. Shit. I turn away from him. In a fit of panic, I approach a small group of girls a few feet away from where I’m standing and attempt to join in with them, forgetting for a split second that I am significantly lower in our school cast system than the three girls in the group. Naturally, Heather Morrison, the redheaded pit bull in designer heels, is quick to remind me.
“Can we help you?” Lethal blue eyes stare pointedly at me only to soften a second later as her gaze veers to something over my shoulder.
“Lacey…ladies…”
Damn it.
My body stiffens as I feel him behind me, not close enough to seem inappropriate, but that doesn’t stop me from shuddering.
“Hi, Mr. Thatcher,” Heather singsongs, blinding every person within proximity with her Colgate smile.
“How are we doing here? Any problems? Lacey?” A large hand closes down on my shoulder and I instinctively shrug it off, stepping sideways to avoid him completely.
“I’m fine,” I say curtly, refusing to meet his probing stare. “Can I be excused?”
“Is something the matter?” He sounds concerned as he takes an approaching step toward me, which I counter with two steps back, more defensive than I should be but I really don’t want him touching me. “Lacey?”
“I have my period,” I deadpan, and receive great joy in seeing him turn paper-white.
“Over share much?” Heather snips, as I step around Thatcher to grab my backpack from the floor. I’m at the door when the bell rings, signaling the end of third period.
***
First block lunch isn’t as crowded as second or third tend to be, which means I have a good chance of finding a table to eat in peace. Lunch is a BLT sandwich, a can of Pepsi, a bag of corn chips, and a green apple. It’s going to have to last me for the rest of the day and hopefully tonight, too, because it’s looking less than likely that I’m going to have any money left after I catch up with our backed up rent. The apple will hold me off for dinner tonight. I’ve gotten by on far less before. I find an unoccupied table in the back of the cafeteria, but getting to it means walking by Heather’s table and that’s always a good time. Fucking not. But I’m not going to turn and run, I’m a lot of things, but a coward isn’t one of them.
Even before I take those few steps down the overly-waxed aisle, I notice the stares instantly, can feel their eyeballs on my skin like lasers. Their whispers seem to swell above the din of the cafeteria, crashing against me like an ocean wave. But I’m used to this. Heather and her cronies can’t touch me, not if I don’t acknowledge them.
“God, do you guys smell that?” Heather asks the seven girls and three guys sitting around her table. “Rita, please tell me you smell it too?”
Second bitch on the right, Rita Shapiro, scrunches her nose and makes a face.
“Yeah, what the fuck is that?”
“Guys, it smells like fish,” bitch number three replies, looking directly at me.
“Yeah, definitely fish...dirty pussy, maybe?”
They don’t fucking matter.
“That’s what happens when there’s a drive-thru between your legs.”
“You should really get that checked out, Lacey!”
“Yeah, your stench is offending all of us.”
“God, Jace, I can’t believe you actually slept with her!”
“Did she make you pay for it?”
Laughter. Horrible, grating laughter. It follows me all the way to that corner table. I won’t give them the satisfaction of showing them how much it hurts. It’s not until I take a seat and set my tray down on the table that I realize how tight of a grip I had on it. Jace fucking Oswald is the main reason behind queen bitch Heather’s animosity toward me.
Junior year, I had made the mistake of thinking I could actually interact with girls my own age and have a somewhat normal teenage life. Heather and I had seemed to hit it off, a tentative friendship starting from a joke I made about Mr. Sage’s BO in our astronomy class. I was sent to the main office for telling the joke and Heather soon followed for laughing rather loudly when she’d heard it. We were pretty much inseparable after that and she included me in everything she did, making me feel like I was finally a part of something. It was while under that delusional spell that I divulged my secrets, telling her things that she had sworn to keep secret. And she did for a while. She had been a decent friend. But everything changed the night of Heather’s seventeenth birthday party when Jace Oswald had decided he wanted some ass and I was going to give it to him. I hadn’t been interested in Jace, but he’d been drunk and the alcohol had made him persistent. Long story short, I managed to knock him out with a beer bottle before sneaking out of the room.
It wouldn’t have been a big deal if Heather hadn’t been crushing on Jace and Jace’s ego hadn’t been as severely bruised as it had been by my rejection. The partial worry I’d been feeling that I had maybe done some serious damage when I knocked him out disappeared that Monday morning when I arrived at school to find him telling everyone that we’d slept together. Naturally, everyone believed him, eager to take the side of the guy they’d known since middle school over the girl they knew next to nothing about. But Heather had fixed that very quickly. Everything I told her in confidence, my upbringing, my mother’s drug abuse, and yes, even the hustling. Heather had made sure everyone in her group knew. And for fear of incurring Heather’s wrath, I was ostracized, frozen completely out of a circle I had once been a part of from people I once considered friends.
But that’s yesterday’s news and a matter I have long since grown immune to. Whatever is said now can’t touch me. Never mind that my heart pounded painfully in my chest or that my nose and eyes stung from threatening tears. It doesn
’t faze me one fucking bit.
“Hey, Lace!” The call of my name startles me, drawing me from my thoughts. I blink, my eyes crossing for a moment at the hand waving in front of my face in an attempt to gain my attention. I look up to find Tyler Hayes taking up one of the chairs adjacent to where I’m seated, a concerned frown etched between his dark brows. “Been calling you for a minute. You okay?” After the whole Heather debacle, I had sworn off having friends and forming any sort of unnecessary attachments to anyone at Riverdale. Tyler still hasn’t gotten the memo.
If Kurt Cobain and Johnny Depp had a love child, Tyler would’ve been it. He’s tall and a little too big for his frame, like puberty struck yesterday and he hadn’t quite worked out the mechanics of his new physique. His ordinarily long, overgrown fringe is tamed back by a black beanie cap, making it possible to see the blues of his deep-set eyes. He has very symmetrical features, an angular nose set above a full mouth. His entire body is a canvas of tattoos, starting from his neck, down to his exposed arms, stopping at two identical black bands around each of his wrists. He has both ears gauged, with a plan of widening the holes in the near future. Dressed in a tattered, sleeveless skull and hammer T-shirt, a pair of torn fitted jeans and black DC sneakers, Tyler is the quintessence of grungy and hipster. He is also the only person I consider a friend.
We were partnered together for media class second semester in junior year and we got along well enough in that atmosphere. It wasn’t until after the Heather incident that we got closer. I’ve told him off a few times, tried to remain distant and keep him at arm’s length to protect myself from getting hurt again. But his persistence has worn me down. In the last year and a half that I’ve known him, he has been nothing but genuine in his friendship, completely ignoring the malicious rumors that hound me. Tyler is good people. I don’t trust anyone but myself, but if I had to trust someone, it would be him.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask with a sniff, sinking my teeth in my sandwich to distract myself. “I’m good.”
“You sure?” he presses, not buying my offhand demeanor for a second.
“Tyler.” But it doesn’t matter whether he buys it or not. I want him to drop it, because there is no way I’m going to discuss what just happened with him, not here anyway, and not when I am this close to cracking. All I want to do is forget for a second that the entire cafeteria heard the cruel taunts hurled at me a few minutes ago. Thankfully, Tyler takes a hint and changes the subject completely.
“Last level of Crusader 4, you up for it?” It’s odd that Tyler and I would be friends considering we have next to nothing in common, except of course, video games. Tyler is a huge gamer and he’d gotten me into video games about a year ago. I love it because it’s a nice escape from reality and it helped that I was good at it too. “The shed, after school.” The shed is Tyler’s fortress of solitude, homage to one of his all-time favorite superheroes. It’s also where we’ve hung out since we met.
I take a second to think about it. I’m not sure if Red is still with my mother at the apartment, but I am guessing he probably is. He usually stayed around a few days. Used my mother however the hell he wanted before leaving her in far worse shape than she started. Not that it was possible most of the time. I have a lot of homework, including a ten-page essay I have to type for lit class that’s due the following week. There’s only so much I can do in the backseat of that car. Tyler has a computer, Internet, and a printer. It beat going to the public library.
“Yeah…OK,” I answer, “but I need to use your computer for a few hours.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever, as long as you can help me with calc.” I can’t help the rise of one of my eyebrows as I stare at him over the rim of my soda can. Why the hell did he need help in calculus when he usually got better grades than I did? I’m sure he notices the puzzled expression on my face but he chooses to ignore it in typical Tyler fashion and instead gives me that crooked smile of his that carries a hint of charm before attacking his pasta salad.
Banal chatter takes up the rest of lunch. We have media class next, so Tyler, ever the gentleman, grabs my tray along with his and heads to nearest trash bin. Meanwhile, I stay behind for a second to bag my apple and the rest of my uneaten bag of chips before I run after him. I find him by the back exit of the cafeteria talking to some guy. They’re facing each other and aside from how close they’re standing, the conversation looks innocent enough to anyone who isn’t looking too hard. But I’m quick enough to catch the effortless exchange of money and drugs carried about through a handshake and a shoulder hug before the other guy walked away. I’ve seen enough covert drug deals in my neighborhood to spot one a mile away.
It doesn’t shock me that Tyler is dealing. He’s a huge pothead with a decent-sized herb garden in the shed to maintain his habit while still making extra money on the side. I also know it isn’t just weed he’s selling. Tyler’s mother is a psychiatrist and his father not only owns one of the biggest pharmacies in Riverdale, but he works there as a pharmacist. Which means that Tyler has an endless treasure trove of pills at his disposal, and ever the entrepreneur, he has chosen to share his pills—for a price, of course. And the students of Riverdale High are ever so eager to pay that price for a medicated high.
When I catch up to him, we walk silently side by side. He says nothing and I don’t ask him. We each have our masks to maintain, talking about our alter egos and the illicit things we do isn’t meant for school grounds.
“Oh, I forgot to mention.” He slings an arm around me and looks down at me, irreverent humor dancing in his sea blue eyes. “You look like shit.”
“Yeah, fuck you very much, Ty.” I step out of his hold and continue down the corridor alone. I know he’ll come after me and only need to count to ten before his long strides eventually catch up with my shorter ones.
“You mad?” he asks, with a nudge to my shoulder. I’m not angry, not really. It takes more than that to get under my skin. What I am, however, is irritated. I know I don’t look my best, hell, there are guys in school who look better than I do right now. But I don’t need Tyler rubbing that fact in my face. I look at with a frown before slowly shaking my head.
“I’m good.”
“You slept in your car again,” he remakes, quietly returning his arm around my shoulders as we enter the stairwell and he stops me from going up the stairs. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Because it isn’t your problem.
He knows about my dysfunctional home situation because I’ve told him that much. He also knows about me sleeping in my mother’s car because he caught me in a lie a few months back and made me promise to call him if I ever needed a place to crash. I never made good on that promise.
“Lace,” he presses when I fail to answer.
I draw in a breath and release it slowly. “It was late. I didn’t want to bother you.” I don’t like imposing on people and hate being a burden even more. The uncertain friendship I have with Tyler is good the way it is now without all the unnecessary crap getting in the way.
“Bullshit, I told you it didn’t…”
“Matter, yeah, I know. It wasn’t a big deal, Tyler. Let it go.” This is the dynamic of our friendship. He doesn’t push too often, but when he does, I always feel the need to pull back and keep him from getting too close. I don’t need him worrying about me. “You coming?” I ask quietly from the top of the staircase, looking down at him.
“You planning on sleeping in your car tonight?” His candid inquiry only makes me want to retreat that much more, but I know he’ll follow, push and prod until I give in.
“I don’t know…maybe.” I’m being honest, and it’s the best I can do right now. I don’t know if I’m going to crash in the car again tonight. If Red is at the apartment, then the answer is a huge, fat yes.
“You’re staying at my house tonight,” he says, without his usual cheerful disposition, taking me off guard for a second. Until I finally give a resigned sigh.
“Thanks,” I m
urmur once we’re on our way again. He says nothing, only slings that arm around my shoulder again as we enter media class.
Chapter Four
Lacey
Last bell is a blessing and a curse. Mr. Bateman’s American History class is one huge sleeping pill, and the fact that he has a voice Ben Stein himself would envy makes it nearly impossible to keep my eyes open. The curse comes in the form of having to eventually return to the apartment. Going to Tyler’s house isn’t a fix. It’s another car¸ another temporary place for me to take refuge before I have to return to my reality. The car, luckily, is still parked behind the blue dumpster when I exit school with an even heavier load of homework than when I entered it this morning.
I check my phone again, something I’ve been doing neurotically all day. Still nothing from Dante. No texts. Not even a freaking phone call. At this point I’m ready to head to his apartment and see if he’s forgotten to charge his phone or somehow lost it. I can’t keep my mind from drumming up one horrible scenario after another where Dante is helpless and hurt somewhere. Or worse, dead. It’s a bit extreme for me to be thinking this way, but the sort of trouble that follows Dante seems to always involve some type of life or death situation. The group of men he hung around with didn’t help either. A bunch of grown ass men, thugs really, who solved everything with guns and beating their enemies to bloody pulps. Taking all that into consideration, it’s understandable why I’m a little anxious. I swallow down that horrible feeling, the one that plummets to the stomach like a stone and feels like the worse sort of cramp you’ve ever had, and head to Tyler’s house.
Tyler’s family lives in the Ever’s Way cul-de-sac in East Riverdale, not exactly the Heights, with its multi-million dollar mansions and exquisitely manicured lawns, but it’s still nice, upper-middle class suburbia with massive single-family homes and white picket fences. The Hayes’ home is the tenth house in the semicircle. Every single-family house is built the same way. White and red brick exteriors, two-car garages, slate roofing, and giant bay windows that extended out from the living rooms. I park the Corolla in the front of their house and grab my backpack.
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