Page 12 of Toxic Hope
“Earth to pearls,” I whisper, nudging her chair harder this time. By now, there is soft laughter around me, a few snorts. “I know you’re in there. What, you think you can ignore me now? That’s funny. You were feeling feisty yesterday, though, weren’t you?”
She doesn’t know it, but the longer she ignores me, the worse it’s going to be. Because I don’t give up. I’m not some schoolyard bully who’s going to get tired and give up. I’m somebody whose life she has fucked up considerably at this point. If it wasn’t for Dad’s connection to Paul, things could’ve gone even worse.
Which means having no remorse over kicking her chair hard enough to make her head snap back. That has to be what does it, right? She has to turn around, say something. React.
Why are you doing this?A tiny voice in my head. Soft. Barely a whisper. It’s loud enough for me to hear, though, and a sort of sick, uncomfortable feeling slowly washes over me. Why am I doing this? When I take a step back and observe this situation from the outside, I have trouble understanding what this is going to accomplish.
Which is why I need to stop thinking so much. All I know is, she’s a snide, sanctimonious little narc.
And she, of all people, has no right to ignore me. “What a shame you couldn’t ignore me when it mattered,” I mutter, staring at the back of her head while the heat in my stomach moves up through my chest and blooms like a poisonous plant. She had a chance to pretend we never met, and she madethe choice to get involved in our private business. She doesn’t deserve peace or consideration when she had no consideration for us.
And when I think of it that way, when I remember her defiance and how obvious she made it that she saw herself as being better than us, sheer rage explodes and gives me no choice but to reach out and grab her by the hair.Let’s see her ignore this.
That’s when the weirdest thing happens.
Instead of yanking her head back, like I planned, her hair just… comes off. Not only the handful I took, either, but all of it. An entire head worth of blonde curls is now clutched in my fist. I’m still so pissed and now battling confusion, so it takes me a second to realize I’m holding a wig.
And that her head underneath is pretty much completely bare.
I wanted a reaction, didn’t I? Her sharp gasp grabs the attention of anybody who wasn’t already watching us. All eyes turn our way as she swivels in her chair with one arm awkwardly covering her head and the other arm outstretched so she can grab for the wig. “How dare you?” she whispers through her clenched teeth, shaking, red faced, reaching out frantically while soft laughter rises around us.
“We should’ve named you cue ball, instead,” I mutter, and the laughter gets louder. It makes me hold the wig out of reach, too, since it’s obvious everybody’s on my side. She brought this on herself.
“Give it back!” she whisper-screams, glaring at me while she tries to hide her baldness.
“What is going on back there?” The professor’s sharp question lowers the volume on the laughter like magic while Emma still tries to get hold of her wig. “Preston, what are you doing? Give it back. They’re not here to play games.”
With a snicker, I shove the wig in her direction. An undercurrent of soft laughter lingers in the air while she pulls it on and adjusts it, then looks around defiantly. “What? I’m the first person who ever lost a bet and had to shave their head?” she asks, holding the gaze of one classmate after another.
In a louder voice than before, the professor announces, “All right, enough of this. Back to the lecture.” His voice drones on while the occasional snort and whisper around me tells me this isn’t over. Nobody’s going to forget this. By the end of the day, everyone in school will know pearls wears a wig, and had it snatched off in the middle of class. It won’t be just me and Easton giving her the attention she could have avoided if she would have only minded her own business. Everybody’s going to get on her ass now. She won’t know a moment of peace after being humiliated like that. And all it took was me trying to pull her hair.
She could have avoided this. She only has herself to blame.
And maybe now, she’ll be a little smarter about who she shows her attitude to. Maybe she’ll think before she acts like a know-it-all bitch who’s so superior to everyone around her. We all know the truth now. She’s no better than anybody.
At least, that’s what I’m telling myself by the end of class. I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to the end of class more than I am right now. It doesn’t matter that it’s Friday, the last class, any of that. I want to watch her scurry out of the room. I’m craving her humiliation. For her to know she’s the reason for it in the end.
So when everybody starts getting their shit together and getting up from their desks, I stay put. I’m too busy watching her, clocking every move. Waiting for that inevitable moment when she ducks her head and lifts her shoulders and runs out of here like the room is on fire.
Yet when she stands up and immediately glares hatefully down at me, I’m kind of thrown off. And it’s not just that she glares. It’s that she stands there, holding my gaze, like she’s daring me to say something. Endless seconds pass with the two of us locked in a staring contest that tells me she is anything but intimidated.
I’m so busy asking myself who the hell she thinks she is, the way she still has the balls to stare me down, that I can only sit and stare while she marches out of the room with her head held high.
It’s amazing how quickly rage can harden into something hateful. Something dark and dangerous.
What is it going to take to put her in her place?
7
EMMA
I hate him. I hate him, and I want to die. But not before I kill him first.
Cue ball. How fucking original. Like I’ve never heard that before. Like I didn’t spend weeks searching for the highest quality wig I could afford, just so I could feel like my normal self. Like I didn’t spend hours learning to style it, so I’d look natural, not always stuck looking the same.
Now, here I am, with the weight of dozens of eyes on me and all the judgment behind them. My work was for nothing. The snickers and snorts land heavy on my ears and pummel me until I’ll be surprised if I don’t end up bruised. They might as well throw rocks at me. It might hurt less.
Don’t let them get to you. This will pass. The kind of thing Mom would say to me, if she was here. But this isn’t the same as a fight with my best friend in second grade. This is a bunch of people who are old enough to know better, laughing at me for something I can’t control as I fight my way out of the room and into the hallway. There’s an almost painful pressure behind my eyes and a stinging sensation that goes along with it. I will not cry in front of these people. I won’t.
