Page 213 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

“Fucking genius,” I murmur.

“I’ll send it to you,” Marcus says, retrieving his phone when the video’s done playing.

“Yeah, you do that.” I’m still laughing as I make for the stairs. “Throw your shit in one of the rooms and let’s bang out a few games of pool.”

Marcus grabs his backpack and follows me up the stairs, detouring to his favorite guest bedroom—the one two doors down from my father’s den. Apparently, he has a thing for balcony’s, and that’s the only guest room that has one. It doesn’t have much of a view, but beggars can’t be choosers.

While I’m changing into clean clothes, my phone vibrates on my bed. I go over to it, tugging a shirt over my head as the video comes through. I watch it again, but this time I don’t smile.

This time, I’m trying to see past the ridiculous cutesy fucking dog ears and shit Cindy pasted on Indi.

I want to see her eyes. Those fierce fucking eyes of hers.

Yup, there it is.

She fucking hates me so much, it’s bleeding through the phone.

“You coming, bro?”

My eyes snap up, and I toss my phone back on my bed. “Sure,” I say gruffly, charging out of my room.

What the fuck’s wrong with me? I should be elated that she hates me; it means my plan’s fucking working.

Instead, I feel hollow inside. I chug the last of my beer before we hit the entertainment center on the ground floor, and immediately head for the bar.

“Shot?” I yell over my shoulder as I slide around the bar and grab a bottle of rum.

“Make it a double,” Marcus says, taking a pool cue from the rack and weighing it in his hand. “Else you’ll never fucking win.”

I bark out a laugh, pour us a double rum and coke, and then add a shot of tequila on the side. I bring him the small shooter glass, and clink it.

“To fucking shit up,” I say.

“Amen, brother.”

Indi

I’m supposed to be catching up on a week’s worth of school work, but instead I can’t stop thinking about Briar. What he did to me in the woods last night. How it felt when he had me on my knees in front of him in homeroom.

I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as enigmatic as him. There’s danger in his eyes, but instead of running, I’m drawn closer.

My mother made a point of keeping me away from boys. She wasn’t expecting me to lose my virginity on my wedding night or anything, but she impressed upon me how important it was to wait for ‘Mr. Right’, like she’d done with Dad.

But I haven’t met my Mr. Right yet. Not even a Mr. Maybe. I’m starting to wonder why the hell I listened to her.

It’s disrespectful. Downright rude. But as much as I loved her, as big a role as she played in my life…She’s not here anymore.

I have to make my own decisions now. I have to decide who Mr. Right is, or if I even want to keep waiting around for him.

I slide that thin silver chain through my fingertips, a sad smile pasted on my mouth. I’m staring out my bedroom window while the smell of whatever Marigold’s cooking downstairs wafts up to me.

Mom had lots of jewelry, but Dad commissioned this necklace from someone right here in Lavish for their 45th wedding anniversary…which he knew they’d never get to celebrate when he was diagnosed with stage four terminalcancer. Blue was Mom’s favorite color, and he’d known the day he married her that he would get her a sapphire.

I would love to wear this necklace all the time, a way to carry her with me, but if all else fails…I might have to sell it to escape this place. It’s worth seven hundred thousand, this stone.

I’m a hundred percent sure this is what they were looking for that night.

I got home at two in the morning. My phone had been ringing, but I didn’t recognize the numbers. I’d had so much to drink, I didn’t even think anything of it at the time. Multiple calls from random numbers? A mere glitch in the Matrix. Nothing for me to concern myself over. Especially when a hot guy from my school brought me three drinks, and seemed fascinated by everything I said. I thought we’d be making out by the end of the night, perhaps even screwing.

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