Page 10 of The Wrong Side of Kai
“Vans, wait!” Chyna calls after me, her worried voice echoing down the deserted hallway. But I don’t want to wait. I want to get my hands on Harrison, and I don’t care what the consequences are for assaulting someone on school property.
Mr. Lee’s classroom is in sight. My rage is burning, adrenaline surges through my veins. I push open the door to a sea of faces that all swivel toward me, but I’m only searching for one.
“How nice of you to finally join us, Miss Murphy,” Mr. Lee drawls from his desk. “Please take your seat while I fill out your detention form.”
I don’t listen to him. I lock my eyes on Harrison instead – slumped at his desk in the back corner of the room, slowly straightening up as he sees me. He drops his hand from his face and exchanges a glance with Anthony who’s sitting next to him, his features flashing with panic. I bet he expected me to be crying in a bathroom stall or something. And, to be fair, I just was. I bet that’s exactly what he wants – for me to be too ashamed, too mortified to show my face again.
“C’mon, give us a show!” Anthony calls out, shaking his chest at me, then grins as my classmates release a hushed symphony of laughter that dances around the room.
With my hands balled into fists by my side, I march across the room, weaving my way around desks and ignoring all of the other murmured remarks. My fiery glare is still set solely on Harrison, and his face turns pale as I near him.
“Vaness—” he tries, but the whip of my hand against his cheek cuts him off.
*
“I’ve spoken with Principal Stone. You’reverylucky that you aren’t getting suspended right now,” my school counselor, Mrs. Delaney, informs me as she walks back into her cramped office.
“So you can’t be suspended for self-defense. Good to know.”
“Vanessa, let’s not joke about this,” she says, firing me a stern look as she sinks down into her chair opposite. I look at her graying hair and then down at her bright red Crocs. She’s too old to be a high school counselor, really. What does she know about teenagers? She doesn’t get our humor, that’s for sure. “Why exactly did you raise a hand to Harrison Boyd? Is there something the school should know about?”
“Because he’s a douchebag,” I say, flippantly waving her away. I don’t like the soft, concerned tone of her voice. This isn’t some therapy appointment. “Can I go now? I accept that I shouldn’t have hit him, so just give me the detention form or whatever and I’ll get out of here.”
Mrs. Delaney just stares at me. “Vanessa,” she says with a small shake of her head. She almost looks hurt by my lack of participation, but I refuse to confide in my school counselor about the hell that my life has suddenly become. “You hit a fellow student. Why? Did Harrison provoke you?”
I nearly laugh in her face, but I think better of it and keep my features under control. “Seriously, it’s just personal drama,” I say, growing frustrated. The last thing I want to do is discuss the fallout from a leaked sex tape with a woman who could be my grandmother. I just want to get out of this stuffy office. I rise to my feet, prepared to leave. “We shouldn’t deal with our issues on school property. I get it. Please can I just have the detention form?”
Mrs. Delaney reluctantly signs me up for two weeks of after-school detention, and I almost have to pry the damn form out of her fingers before she allows me to leave. I head out of her room and into the main office. It’s quiet, the majority of the desks empty, the doors to most private offices closed. Must be a busy morning at Westerville North.
I heave a sigh and glance down at my hands to examine the damage. I lost two nails slapping Harrison, and another in Mrs. Delaney’s office from digging my fingers into my palms so hard, but scheduling an appointment with my nail tech is the last thing on my mind right now. All I can think about is howembarrassedI feel. I’m not going to classes today. It’s all so fresh, the drama and the gossip. Hell, if it was any other girl in that video, I’d be talking about it too. Scrutinizing her. Mocking her. So, I’m skipping the rest of the day. Chyna is already waiting outside in the parking lot for me, and although we’re not going to run off to Cleveland, wearegoing to go get ice cream from our favorite ice cream shop uptown.
“Aren’t you the girl from that video?” a voice says, cutting through the silence, and I stop in my tracks in the middle of the office. I look over at the row of chairs against the wall, only to find a guy slouched back in one with his hands hanging between his legs. Totally nonchalant, totally couldn’t care less. I don’t recognize him as one of my fellow students.
“Yep, that’s me,” I say. Better to own it, I decide. Less awkward than trying to deny it. “No, I won’t give you a private show.”
“I hear it’s been kicking up a storm.” The boy studies me curiously as he sits up, his interest piqued. “But I wasn’t going to ask. Trust me, you’re not my type.”
“Ah, I get it,” I say, as I flash him a knowing grin. I may as well play the part. “You like the sweet innocent type, right? Not trash like me.”
“Actually, I just prefer blondes.”
My eyes close shut and a groan rumbles in my throat. I run my hands back through my hair as I take a couple of slow breaths. “Sorry. It’s been a rough morning,” I admit. “I don’t mean to take it out on everyone else.”
“I bet,” he says. “Can I ask you something?”
“No, the sex wasn’t worth it.”
He smiles again and waits for a beat, almost like he’s trying not to let himself laugh out loud. “Actually, I was going to ask if you spill people’s drinks often.”
I stare at this stranger while my mind catches up. Everything is lagging – my thoughts are dominated by Harrison and that video and the fear that I may still pass out – but suddenly the boy comes into focus and I realize I knowexactlywho he is.
He was at Maddie’s party on Saturday when he turned up uninvited with the rest of the Westerville Central football team. . . and I collided into him. Ididspill his drink on his jeans, and he told me to watch out, and then he had that stupid brawl with Harrison.
I may be stone-cold sober right now, but the thoughts that cross my mind are similar to those when I was buzzed that night. It’s like I’m seeing him for the first time all over again. I go quiet for a few seconds while I assess him, his presence that’s working wonders at distracting me from the ball of shame thrumming painfully in my chest.
The curls of his hair, the warm bronze of his skin, the stark blue of his eyes. . . I focus on the slit in his eyebrow again, so I don’t find myself staring at his ridiculously perfect lips.
“Yeah. . . I’m sorry about that,” I eventually muster, my voice sounding much more like my own now. “What are you doing here?” I ask, glancing around the Westerville North main office as though to remind him that he doesn’t attend this school.
