Page 8 of Spite

Chapter Four

I was the unluckiest girl in the universe. It was official.

I’d wanted photography to be the one class where I could relax, where I could breathe and not have to worry about putting on the front of a tough girl. Was that going to happen, though? No, no it most certainly was not. Why, you might be wondering?

Well, it was Murphy’s fucking Law. I’d seen Christian in two classes, Alec in one. It was only fair that the final guy in the Dick Squad was in my last class of the day, wasn’t it? Xander was here, and I would officially have no time to relax and actually be happy.

Xander was basically the teacher’s helper, from what I understood, and tasked in helping me choose what I wanted to work on the rest of the year. All the other students had chosen their projects; they’d make a huge portfolio and be graded on it. Until then, everyone had an A.

While the teacher went to his desk and surfed Facebook, the rest of the students broke off into groups. Some of them roamed the halls, snapping pictures. When the weather was nice, they went outside. I sat at a table in the back of the room, fuming, mostly at myself.

Mostly because I’d been stupid for hoping to have one free period to enjoy, where I didn’t have to be on alert and watch what I say and what I do. There were, what, ten other kids in the class? None of them were familiar to me, so they were all fine. No revenge. This class was not supposed to entail any revenge plots from me.

Now…now all that had changed.

Xander was sluggish in making his way to my table, pulling a chair and sitting on it backwards, like he was some cool kid. I didn’t want to look at him, definitely didn’t want to meet those eyes that I knew were so dark they were near black, but I would have to eventually. Best get it over with, right?

Xander was a crony. A wannabe. Someone who followed Christian without a second thought, and I hated him for it.

Today was chicken and fries day at school. It was the one time I bought lunch; every other day I packed what I could find in the apartment. Mom didn’t go grocery shopping too often, mostly because she was never sober enough. If Mom didn’t have the strength, I would have to. I could grab the card out of her wallet and go by myself—I knew what numbers she pushed on the pin pad when checking out. I could do it. Maybe this weekend.

I got my tray, along with my fries and chicken nuggets, paying the lunch lady once I reached the end with the change in my pocket. The smell wafted up to my nose, and I let myself smile as I exited the kitchen area and entered the cafeteria.

Lost in my own head as I headed to my usual table in the corner, I was too focused on how I would present myself to the cashier with Mom’s card, if the cashier would try to call the police or something, to notice the foot that suddenly jutted out before me. My own foot caught, and I tripped, losing hold of my tray.

My precious fries and chicken nuggets slid along the floor, my tray colliding with the tile. I was on my hands, having caught myself with my wrists and my knees, and before I could look at the kid sitting in the table nearest me, I heard it.

The laughter.

It was slow, soft at first, but it steadily grew louder until all the tables around me were full of it. Until I wanted to claw at my own ears to drown out the noise. Various names were spoken—no, more like spat—at me. Loser. Freak. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, but their words still hurt all the same.

I tilted my head somewhat, turning to view the owner of the foot that had tripped me. Christian, of course. I shouldn’t have expected anything else. Behind him, Alec couldn’t even look at me, almost like he felt sorry for me, and across from him, on the other end of the table, Xander sat, smirking, watching me with a fire in his dark eyes.

I hated it. I hated them. I wished…I wished they’d get a taste of their own medicine, but today was not that day. I got up, hurriedly grabbing the tray and the spilled food, trying my best not to burst into tears as I exited the cafeteria after dumping it in the trash, tray and all.

Really, I should’ve known better than to have wanted something. Anything I was excited for, anything that made my life just a bit more bearable, always screwed me over in the end.

I made it to the bathroom, locking myself in a stall, before the tears began to fall, cascading down my cheeks like a waterfall. A waterfall I could not stop, not anymore. Why was life so hard?

Xander Hill may not have been the ringleader, but as far as I was concerned, he was guilty by association. He’d laughed at me, just like everyone else. Whatever spiteful shit I’d come up with to torture him, he would deserve every ounce of it.

I felt my nerves tighten as I slowly brought my gaze up to meet his, and then my nerves were set aflame. The Xander I stared at was nothing like the Xander I remembered. Up close, he looked like a completely different person. What six years could do to a person, evidently.

Xander was no longer a preppy-looking boy. His black hair was longer, swept to the side, his eyebrow pierced, along with his lower lip. He was the thinnest out of the three, though I could tell, beneath his dark clothes, there was still a bit of muscle on him. He was, for lack of a better word, an emo.

A sexy as hell emo, but an emo nonetheless.

Huh. Not at all what I pictured. And, judging from the fact that I hadn’t seen him at all with Christian today, I wondered if the three had a falling out. A shame. I could’ve been the root cause of their falling out.

“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.

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