Page 409 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

“Jude…please…”

She gasps when I yank the sheets off her, and then tries to grab them back. I toss them over my shoulder. “You’re pathetic, you know that?”

She scowls at me but doesn’t argue. Perhaps because she knows it’s the truth. Her makeup is smudged, her hair in disarray. But despite the shadows under her eyes, she doesn’t look hungover enough to be holed up in her room all day like this.

“You have a test this week.” I point the notes on her side table. “You’d best start studying.”

“Who died and made you king?” she mutters. Then she twists onto her side and pushes the notes off her nightstand, hunting through the mess until she finds her glass of water and the two aspirins.

“This shit’s got to stop, Harper.”

She glares at me. “You think you’re such hot shit but you what? You’re a pussy, just like Sean says you are.”

My heart’s beating way too hard. Suddenly, I want to break something. I leave her room, slamming the door behind me, but even that doesn’t help.

I can’t believe I felt sorry for her. I can’t believe I fucking sympathized. I thought we had a common enemy.

But no.

There are only two sides to this war: Harper and Jude. How long will it take Harper to figure out she’s fighting a losing battle?

Chapter 26

Jude

I’m watching Harper chatting with Marissa in the cafeteria like a verifiable stalker. Today is pizza and salad. Marissa’s sipping on a Diet Pepsi, Harper’s got her pink water bottle out. They always get pizza on Fridays. It’s also the one day Marissa doesn’t go and puke it up in the bathroom afterward.

I should have realized that since she dropped off notes for Harper, Marissa might want to be my stepsister’s friend. I’ll allow it—Marissa’s got good grades, and from what I could find out, the only thing that might be an issue is her bulimia.

It doesn’t look like Marissa’s sharing whatever’s in Harper’s water bottle.

I know she got booze from somewhere because my stepsister is barely a functioning alcoholic. I guess I should be glad she doesn’t have close friends because they might have taught her the kind of tricks that make it impossible for people like me to figure out just how much Harper drinks in a day.

I warned her.

Ifuckingwarned her.

After I emptied out the pool house bar, I thought Harper might actually make a recovery. The first half of this week made it seem like she was genuinely making an effort to stay sober. Her pink water bottle stayed in the kitchen cabinet, and instead I’d see her buying water from the vending machines at school, or drinking from the water fountains. She’d even take the bottles home and toss them in our recycling bin in the scullery.

For once, there was a fucking ray of sunshine on the horizon.

But Harper was just laying low. Luring me back into my comfort zone. Looking back, it’s painfully obvious that she was making a point of showing me how obedient she was.

She could have thrown those bottles away at school, but she wanted me to see them. She would engage me in conversation at the dinner table, and she’d be chatty on the way home from school as if to confirm that she wasn’t slurring.

Bitch had me wrapped around her fucking finger.

But she’s still getting booze from somewhere because unless she’s got some medical condition I don’t know about, her morning shakes are from being hungover.

I asked her outright more than once, and every time the sincerity in her blue eyes made me believe she was actually coming around.

Last night after everyone had gone to bed, I was up with an assignment, and I heard her bedroom door open. I don’t know when she figured out about the stash of booze in the attic, but it must have been several days ago because when I went to go check the next morning, most of the bottles had been watered down. Seemed she no longer caredwhatshe drank, as long as it did the job.

Ifuckingwarned her.

I could have taken the bottles back to the pool house, then shown them to my parents. But there were so many ways that could backfire. She could claim I was setting her up, thatIwasthe one doing the drinking, or that the weekday cleaning staff was stealing tots.

She wouldn’t go down without a fight.

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