Page 449 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

The French doors leading to the patio open silently. My school shoes clop over the paving stones to the pool house. I turn the handle, but the door doesn’t open.

I stare for a moment and then rattle at the handle again.

Locked.

“What the fuck?” I cup my hands and peer through the glass, immediately spotting the rows of liquor behind the bar. I glance around, hesitate, and then drop my backpack to the ground. A moment later my blazer is off and wrapped around my elbow.

The windowpane beside the latch shatters on my third attempt. I shake the loose glass from my blazer and reachcarefully around to unlock the door. I stash a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of Bailey’s in my backpack and take a second to adjust the weight on my back.

Then I’m off.

Chapter 55

Jude

I watch Harper from my bedroom window, and I swear I can hear several bottles clinking together in her backpack.

Never thought she had it in her to break a fucking window. I like this new Harper. Fierce, determined. It makes it easier to forget the pathetic, broken Harper I’d abandoned in the screening room yesterday afternoon.

I’ve vowed never to drink again. I got so violently ill yesterday, I swear I started throwing up my stomach lining. Christ knows how Harper does it day after day. But I guess when there’sthatmuch shit you need to blackout, alcohol is a better option than hard drugs.

Dinner was stiff and awkward last night. It would have been worse with her there so I’m fucking glad she kept to her room. Diana said she was having “lady problems” but I know for a fact she wasn’t on her period. No. Harper was having a different kind of “lady problem”.

I still can’t believe it went off without a hitch.

With Sean and Eric’s faces blurred, Daniel had no issue forwarding the edited video to his entire address book. I guess the ten thousand dollars I wired him helped ease his mind.

Weirdly, though, besides the message from Daniel telling me it was done, I haven’t heard from anyone at school. Not even Alex. If there was a moment I thought our friendship was salvageable, it’s passed. If he’d been any kind of a friend, he’d have called me to tell me about the leaked video.He must have realized it was edited when he saw it. But for some reason, he doesn’t seem in the least inclined to safeguard her reputation.

Huh. I guess we still have something in common…because neither do I.

Diana calls just after eleven. I don’t know it’s her until I answer, and then I wish I’d had her number saved just so I could screen this call.

“Jude? Jude, honey, it’s Diana.”

“Yeah.” I roll my eyes and rub my lids. I’d just managed to stop thinking about Harper for all of one minute, and then her mother calls. Great. “What’s up?”

“Is Harper at home?”

My chest tightens. “No, why?”

“She went to school this morning?”

“I guess.”

“You didn’t see her leave?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be stalking her.”

If Diana thinks anything about my tone, she doesn’t mention it. “Jude, honey, could you please check if she’s in her room? The school just called and said she hasn’t been to any of her classes today.”

Christ, woman. I sigh into the phone, already heading for her room. I would have known if she’d come back. She’s probably halfway to whatever her version of my lake house is. California, maybe? She’s the type to enjoy living by the ocean.

“She’s not here,” I tell Diana as soon as I push open Harper’s bedroom door. “And I heard her leave this morning, so...”

“Damn,” Diana breathes into the phone. “Do you know where she could be? Maybe that friend of hers, Miranda or something?”

Way to go, Diana. “Marissa,” I correct bluntly. “And no, Marissa’s not the kind to ditch.”

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