Page 78 of My Worst Pucking Enemy

She gives me an odd look. “Are you okay?”

“Sure am!” I shove the book into my Alice in Wonderland book bag. “Thanks so much for this! That was really thoughtful of you.”

Clair leans forward, peering at me with worry. “You honestly look like you’re in pain right now. Do you have gas or something? Fennel is supposed to help with that.” She shoots Kennedy a look and arches one eyebrow. “Did your grandmother used to say that?”

“Maybe,” Kennedy says coolly, and takes a sip of her boba tea.

“Do you even have a grandmother?” Clair challenges her.

“I’d have to, or I couldn’t exist. I have two, in fact. One of them’s still alive.”

My heart is thundering in my chest. When am I going to let this bastard stop getting to me?

Someday, but today is not that day. “You guys, something just occurred to me. I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Clair, thank you very much for the gift! Gotta go!” I leap up and hurry off.

“You forgot your lunch!” Kennedy calls after me.

I am swallowing tears and my throat is swelling with sorrow. I can’t answer her. I’m so angry I see a red mist of rage swimming in front of me.

My poetry is extremely personal, and I’ve never shown most of it to anyone. When I write poetry, it opens me up to this raw, vulnerable place, and if someone were to say anything critical about it, I think it would destroy me. It’s my own form of therapy, and it’s my way of experimenting with words in a way that’s private and safe.

Having him steal my thoughts and my feelings, all the emotions that I poured into my poetry, is a worse violation than anything else that he’s done to me.

And I’m not going to just sit here and let him get away with it. I saw those stars in Clair’s eyes. This book of poetry is going to make him even more beloved and popular, and it’s all based on a fraud.

Well, this is it. I’m done letting Nass-hole push me around.

I’m going to out him, and he’s not going to be able to stop me.

The email I sent to him will be proof. I mean, I wrote these poems in a journal, and they have dates on them, but he’d surely just argue that I copied the poems from his book and hand-wrote them.

It’s a hell-walk all the way back to my dorm room. I keep bumping into people and mumbling angry apologies. When I finally get back to my room, I’m a jangle of nerves.

It’s okay. This is Professor Alex Nass-face’s last good day. I’ve finally got him on something, I remind myself. Colleges take plagiarism very seriously, and the fact that this bastard stole from a student is going to make it even worse.

I open up my laptop and log in, and then I quickly log in to my student email program.

I search for the email that I sent him with the poetry attached.

I can’t find it anywhere. I search and search, and it is nowhere. I search through the trash folder. It’s not in there either.

My heart sinks. I feel sick to my stomach.

Just in case, I log out and search through my personal, non-school email, even though I am one hundred percent sure that I sent him the poem from my school email to his school email.

Of course it’s not there. So I search through my school email one last time, with no luck. All of my other emails are there, but that one is missing, and that makes me wonder if he had some way of erasing the email without telling me.

That son of a bitch.

I think he’s going to get away with it.

Listlessly, I pull the book out of my purse and search through it, flipping through the pages.

He stole five of my poems from me. It’s not even hard for me to spot them; the language and style is very different from the other poems.

I’m so stunned by this that I don’t even know what to do. I can’t face anyone today. I shed my clothes and change into pajamas, scrub off my makeup, and crawl into bed, even though it’s only mid-afternoon and it’s a beautiful day out.

Then I remember. I’m supposed to meet up with Paxton tonight for that charity calendar thing.

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