Confessions of a Queen B*

by Crista McHugh

  Brett typed away at his computer, his back to me. “First off, I found a way to take down the videos and replace them with this.”

  A video of two kittens wrestling filled the screen of one of his monitors. My lips twitched. “A definite improvement over seeing Summer’s fake boobs.”

  Brett cleared his throat, a line of red rising into his cheeks. He continued typing. “Second, I think I may have found the person behind the videos.”

  I jumped to my feet and stood behind him. “Who is it?”

  Brett leaned back in his chair, cracked his knuckles, and spun around to face me. A sly grin formed on his lips. “If I told you that information…”

  “You’d have to kill me?” I finished, hand on my hip. I doubt I looked the least bit threatening with the damn doll strapped to my chest, but at least it conveyed a hands-off vibe. “Seriously, Brett, I didn’t come over here to play games. I have a blog post due by midnight, and if I can crack this scandal open in the process and make this guy pay for what he’s done, then I want to do it.”

  “I understand you wanting revenge, Lexi—if it involved one of my own sisters, I’d feel the same way, but I want to make sure you understand everything before you act without thinking.”

  “Are you saying I’m impulsive?”

  His gaze fell on my lips. “Well, there was yesterday…”

  I rolled my eyes and plopped back on the edge of his bed. “Can we please not bring that up?”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you keep asking why, Brett? It happened, okay? Call it a moment of temporary insanity. I didn’t intend for it to happen, but it did. And now you’re never going to let me live it down, are you?”

  He laced his fingers together like some James Bond villain who enjoyed torturing 007 and seeing if he could break the secret agent. “What happened, happened.”

  “And if I remember correctly, you instigated it.”

  His brows rose in mock innocence. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You’re the one who kissed me first.”

  “You were the one who pushed me into the closet.”

  “Because I was trying to keep you from getting caught by Principal Lee and Coach Dittmer.”

  His folded hands shielded his mouth, hiding the most expressive part of his face. Had he been so distracted by the wiring of the camera that he didn’t hear them? At last, he said in a soft voice, “Maybe so, but you were the one who kissed me back.”

  My skin itched from the thousands of little prickles of sweat that broke out all over my body. Denying what happened would get me nowhere. It was time to own up to the mistake. “Yeah, I did.”

  His gaze locked with mine, his mouth still hidden behind his hands and making it harder for me to read his emotions.

  My defenses were shattering under that stare, from the intense emotions glowing from his dark eyes, from the way they narrowed like a predator picking apart his prey. I’d never backed down from a challenge—it was one of the ways I’d won my Queen B status—but this time, I had to look away. I focused on the frayed edge of one of the carrier’s straps and asked, “So why did you kiss me?”

  I dared to look up through my lashes when he didn’t answer right away. He hadn’t moved, but something had changed in his demeanor. Gone was the cocky predator. In his place sat a guy who looked as awkward and confused as I felt.

  “Temporary insanity,” he said in a voice so raw it choked my heart.

  He turned back to the computer and started typing again. “Between the post on your blog and the clips on YouTube, I was able to track down the ISP address of the original poster.”

  “English, please.” My legs had the steadiness of rubber bands when I stood to approach the desk. I’d survived the discussion, but I’d taken a beating to my soul for it. Thank God I had something else to focus my attention on instead of licking my wounds.

  “I was able to get information on where the videos were posted and who posted them. And you were right. They are the same person.” A few taps and clicks later, a name appeared on the screen. “Here’s your locker room spy.”

  I squinted at the unfamiliar name. “Adam Kozlovsky. Who is he?”

  “I’m not surprised that you don’t know who he is. Maybe this will help.” A few more clicks, and the image of an Eastline High student ID popped up on the screen.

  The graduation year indicated he was a sophomore, but his face was just one of the hundreds that blurred together in the hallways every day. He wore an Eastline baseball cap, but there was nothing athletic about his physique. Zits covered his pudgy cheeks, and thick dark curls peeked out from under the cap. His blank expression showed total disengagement with the photographer.

  A new window opened up. “Here’s his schedule, if you want to confront him.”

  I took a step back. “How did you get this information?”

  Brett did his best Dr. Horrible impression, ending with the same uneasy wannabe evil laugh. “It’s not that hard to hack into the school’s system, Alexis.”

  “ ‘Hack’? As in illegally gaining access?”

  “It’s only illegal if you get caught.” He twisted from side to side in his chair. “It’s not like I’m changing grades or class rank, Miss Potential Valedictorian.”

  “There’s nothing ‘potential’ about that, Football Boy.” Then I caught the threat behind his words. “Wait a minute—have you been spying on my records?”

  He just grinned.

  “Two can play at this game, you know. I still have that picture.”

  “I know.” He tilted his head toward me. “In this case, I’m enjoying the game.”

  He was probably the only person in the school who had enough balls to play it. Everyone else preferred to avoid me than meet me head on.

  I memorized Adam’s schedule, but it wasn’t enough. “Can you send me a copy of his ID?”

  “Why?”

  “Do you have to ask that all the time? It pisses me off.”

  “I know.”

  “And let me guess—you enjoy pissing me off?”

  “Yep,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk.

  “Why?”

  His eyes traveled from my head to my toes and back again before he stood up from his chair. He closed the space between us, cornering me between his bed and his bookcase.

  My lungs burned as I tried to fight the ever-increasing drive to breathe. If I gave into it, he’d see how breathless I became when he was near me, how hard I worked to suppress my attraction to him, how much I craved a repeat of yesterday afternoon.

  He unhooked the baby carrier from around me and tossed it and the doll onto his mattress. My last layer of defense had been stripped away, and the heat from his body penetrated mine. “I’m not really pissing you off, you know.”

  I plastered my back against the wall, pinning my eager hands behind me to keep from wrapping them around his neck. My bottom lip trembled as I said, “Wanna bet?”

  He halted, keeping a few inches of air between us. “You’re not pissed off, Lexi. I’ve seen you angry, and this is not it.”

  “Then what am I feeling, Mr. Know-It-All?”

  “Flustered.” He drawled the word out in a low, rumbling whisper.

  A shiver raced down my spine. My arms shuddered, and my chest rose and fell like I’d just come from gym class. “Flustered?”

  “Uh-huh.” He brushed a curl out of my face, his touch as delicate as a gentle breeze. “You’re actually kind of pretty when you’re flustered. Your eyes flash. Your cheeks fill with color. Your lips…” His voice trailed off as he propped his arm up just above my head and stared at that particular piece of my anatomy.

  My tongue darted out to lick them before I could catch myself. “Are you going to kiss me again?”

  Everything about him said yes, from the hunger in his eyes to the way he leaned closer to me. “Do you want me to?”

  Yes, yes, yes, yes! My crazed hormones screamed, but my mouth refused to work.

  Brett must have take
n my silence for consent because he continued to close the gap until his lips grazed mine. The kiss bore the same uncertainty, the same restraint as before. He pulled back, waiting to see how I would react.

  I pressed my arms against my sides to keep from jumping him like I did last time.

  However, when I didn’t knee him in the groin, he repeated the kiss. This time, he was out to make a bold statement. No hesitancy. No restraint. Just his lips firmly molding mine, teasing me, tempting me.

  The pit of my stomach throbbed as he continued to kiss me, slow and steady in contrast with the disjointed fluttering of my heart. We both managed to keep our hands off of each other—mine at my sides and his above my head. Perhaps it was our way of making sure our shirts stayed on this time while still thoroughly enjoying the connection.

  Brett ended the contact between our lips, but he didn’t retreat. His face hovered near mine, the tips of our noses touching. “You drive me nuts, Alexis Wyndham.”

  “Glad to know I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

  He was moving forward to kiss me again when his mom called his name from the end of the hallway. He bolted from me like I’d burned him, a curse dropping from those delectable lips of his.

  I slid down the wall onto the mattress and managed to hug the doll to my chest just as his mom opened the door.

  She glanced at me, then at him, and back again. “Brett, you know the rules about having guests over past eight o’clock on a school night.”

  “Yes, Mum, but Alexis is here helping me with our class assignment that’s due tomorrow.”

  I did a double take at the screen. Somehow, he’d managed to hide all the open windows pertaining to the voyeur and pull up the worksheet on stress relief that we were supposed to be working on.

  She scanned the homework, then looked back at me as though she was trying to spot any evidence of unscholarly activities.

  I forced a smile on my face and hugged the doll even tighter. “We’re just about to wrap things up, Mrs. Pederson.”

  She gave Brett a stern glance, wagging her finger at him. “Fifteen more minutes, and then she has to go. You need to rest for the game tomorrow.”

  When she left, she didn’t close the door all the way.

  I was glad she didn’t. It would be too tempting to pick up where we left off if she had.

  Brett lowered the window with the assignment and brought back Adam Kozlovsky’s ID. “Back to this—I did a little more digging on him, and I wanted to intercede on his behalf.”

  “Wait a minute.” I jumped to my feet and whirled his chair around. “Just a few minutes ago, you said you’d want revenge if it were your sisters. Why is my mine any different? I mean, besides the fact Taylor’s a hot mess and Sarah seems to have her shit together?”

  “I’m not going to go into details,” he said slowly, the wariness behind his words hinting at how much those details had him on edge, “but I really think you should handle him delicately.”

  “Give me a damn good reason why I shouldn’t plaster his face all over the front page of my blog.”

  Brett leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes as though trying to reason with me was the most exhausting thing he’d ever done. Maybe it was. I was notoriously stubborn. But in this case, I had the upper hand. I had justice on my side. “Remember what I told you last week about compassion and happiness?”

  “Are you suggesting I show this guy compassion after what he did?”

  He leveled his gaze with mine, dead serious for once. “Yes.”

  “Why?” We stared each other down for several breaths, and when he couldn’t give me a good reason, I turned for the door. “I have to go and re-write my editorial into an exposé and get it up before midnight.”

  A hand clamped around my wrist before I made it to the hallway. Brett pulled me back and blocked my escape. “For someone who gets her kicks picking on the in-crowd, I’d expected better from you, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “Excuse me?” I tried to get around him, but he was bigger than me and took up the entire doorway.

  “You heard me, Lexi. You’re one of the few people in school who has power—true power—to shape the school. You could be the hero for every unpopular kid in school, but you’re too narrow-minded to see that.”

  “And what about you? You’re the most popular guy in school. Perhaps you should be taking some of your own advice.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.” He waited until I gave up trying to get past him before continuing. “I know who Adam is because he’s frequently a target of some of my teammates.”

  “And you condone this bullying?”

  “No—not at all. I try to stop it as much as I can, but I can’t be everywhere at once.” He licked his lips, his face paling. “But when I did some digging in his school records, I found out some information I shouldn’t have seen.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve already gone out on a limb for you, and I’m not going to reveal any more damaging evidence.” He raked his fingers through his hair, but it did little to hide the tremor in his hand. “But let’s just say he’s pretty fucked up. And if you publicly humiliate him like you’re planning on doing, it may just tip him over the edge.”

  Even though he was doing his best to protect the kid, he’d told me enough to chill my blood. My anger congealed into a lump of fear centered in the middle of my throat. I had to swallow hard to choke it back down and find my voice again. “He can’t get away with what he’s done.”

  “I’m not suggesting you let him, nor am I condoning his actions. I’m just asking you to consider the consequences of your actions and give compassion a try over ball-busting for once.”

  Talk about ruining my perfect plans for revenge. I’d been so dead set on making that asshole pay, but somehow, Brett had me hesitating, thinking about the consequences of my actions. If I stayed here any longer, he’d probably talk me into treating Adam Kozlovsky to fro-yo and talking about our feelings. “I have to go before your mom comes back.”

  This time, he didn’t stop me.

  I went home and fired up my laptop, rewriting my editorial into a piece that would condemn Adam Kozlovsky. As I tried to paint a picture of the misogynistic voyeur I pictured him to be, I pulled out last year’s yearbook and tried to find more information on him. I found him listed as a member of the chess club and the computer club, but when I looked at the pictures, he was absent. Last year’s photo looked the same as this year’s. Same frumpy appearance. Same blank, disengaged expression.

  I stared at his photo, wondering the reason behind it. Brett mentioned he’d been bullied, but so had other kids in the school, especially freshmen. That didn’t necessarily translate into fucked up.

  Consider the consequences of my actions, huh?

  I went back to my blog post. If I hit send now, everyone in the school would know what he’d done. Girls would never give him the time of day after this, and since the main target of his videos was the cheerleading squad, I’m sure some of their boyfriends would place him at the top of their shit list. He probably wouldn’t be able to walk down the hallways without getting harassed by someone.

  Repressed memories followed me from junior high when the in-crowd had chosen me as their target for harassment. That sick feeling I had in my stomach every time I walked through the door hit me again. I doubled over, my eyes wincing hard enough to squeeze out tears. I’d hated my life then. Thankfully, I’d had family to support me, to help me overcome that. I’d been strong enough to rise above the bullying.

  The nausea gradually faded as I pushed back those memories and focused on how far I’d come.

  I glanced back at the photo. Was he strong enough to do that? Or would I only make things worse? Would I push him over the edge like Brett had warned?

  The clock read 11:45 p.m. I posted a quick note on my blog that my usual Friday post would be late and went to work rewriting my story.

  Last week, I deviated from the norm here at th
e Eastline Spy and unintentionally became a conspirator in scandal. But now it’s time to come clean. It’s time to reveal some uncomfortable truths. And it’s time to make people realize that certain things cross the line of what’s acceptable.

  My fingers trembled as I typed. I read through it one more time, satisfied with what I managed to come up with, and scheduled the blog post to go live at the start of fourth period.

  Chapter 18

  “How about some hot and heavy action in the principal’s office? Check out the before and after pictures of Mr. Collins and Mrs. Goodell. Either they were experimenting with some hair gel, or something else must have disheveled their immaculate coifs. Of course, she might just be grabbing his tie like a leash as an odd way of straightening it, too.”

  The Eastline Spy

  May, Junior Year

  I woke up the next morning with an odd feeling of peace, especially considering how little sleep I’d gotten between my blog post and the doll. I got dressed, strapped the baby carrier to my chest for the last time, and drove to school. I waited for that odd flop in my stomach, that sense of second-guessing my decision, but it didn’t come. After agonizing for hours on what to do with Adam Kozlovsky, I knew I’d made the right decision.

  There was no need for a handoff that morning, so I was surprised to find Brett waiting for me at my locker, wearing his game day jersey. “Alexis, please—”

  “I already scheduled my post, Brett.” I opened my locker and switched out my books for the morning. “There’s nothing you can do now to change that.”

  A look of defeat crossed his features. He looked down at the ground. “And what did you decide to do?”

  I slammed my locker closed. I could tell him, but I decided it would be more fun to let him stew about it, especially since he enjoyed flustering me so much last night. “You’ll find out when the blog post goes live at lunch.”

  As I walked off, he called after me, “Don’t forget to do your part of the assignment.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d been so focused on nailing the person behind the videos, I’d forgotten all about that.