Leah and I had always come up with possible revenge schemes, but until I knew I had to move back here, it was all make-believe, imaginary. Until suddenly it wasn’t. It was harder than I thought it would be, acting stone-cold to Alec—but I would not let his nice facade ruin it.
“Well,” Leah finally spoke. From the noises in the background, it sounded as if she was driving. Unlike me, she had a car of her own. It was old and run-down, but it got her from point A to point B. “Sounds like you need to start on Alec first.”
“Why him?”
“He’s practically in your lap already.” I imagined Leah shrugging, as if it was completely obvious and I should’ve seen it before. “I know you want to start on the head Dick first—” She paused as she let out a giggle. “—but from what it sounds like, Alec might be your best way in. Him and Christian’s girlfriend. There’s not enough info on that Xander yet, but I’m sure something will come.”
Alec did say Christian didn’t want him talking to me. Becoming buddy-buddy with him might make Christian flip, maybe even break up their friendship.
Leah went on, “Make Alec fall for you. That’ll really tick off the head Dick. Make Alec follow you around like a lost puppy, and maybe he’ll have an in that you can use to break up the Dick and his girlfriend. I hear parties are always a good place to stir up some shit.”
Make Alec fall for me, as in make him love me. I wasn’t sure if I liked that idea or not. A part of me was excited, because it meant I got to spend more time with him—he was a cute guy, after all. I had eyes—but at the same time, I was worried I wasn’t strong enough. Suddenly six years away from these people didn’t feel like enough.
A strange thought occurred to me then. “Do you think I could get them all to love me?” Making them love me, genuinely, truly love me, before breaking them was…both exciting and nerve-wracking.
Leah thought on this. “I don’t know. Sounds like Christian wants nothing to do with you, but definitely Alec. You’d probably get Xander before you got Christian, even though it sounds like the three of them aren’t friends anymore. I think it’d be a good thing to find out exactly why Xander left the Dick Squad.” There was a pause before she added, “God, I’m so fucking jealous of you, Elle. This is like some kind of movie shit.”
My life was some kind of movie shit. Great. What I always wanted.
“I miss you,” I whined into the phone. “I wish I could’ve stayed.” I mean, I was eighteen. Legally an adult. I shouldn’t have had to move here, but I couldn’t think about living on my own and paying all those bills myself, so it wasn’t like I had much choice. I didn’t have a job. Mom always wanted me to focus on school, which had been great, until it wasn’t enough.
“Me too,” Leah agreed. “The rest of senior year is going to suck major monkey balls without you.” We both laughed, our laughter trailing off to silence. “I hate to do this, but I got to go, Elle. Mr. Ramos is making us write a research paper—”
I knew the one she was talking about. It was the dreaded research paper all seniors at my old school hated. “And you procrastinated until the last possible moment,” I finished for her, smiling at my ceiling.
“You know me. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.” I said my goodbyes and hung up, setting the phone against my stomach as I lost myself in my thoughts.
Make Alec fall in love with me, drive a wedge between him and Christian. I could do that. While I was focusing on Alec, I would keep an eye out on Xander, be nice to him. Kiss his ass, if I had to. Oh, and who could forget Jessie? I still had no idea whether she was as nice as she acted—I had her notebook in my backpack to copy tonight—but I could be friends with her. Get her to trust me, and then tear her away from Christian and leave the douche with nothing.
Christian deserved absolutely nothing.