Page 115 of My Rules for Revenge
“Hey, man, quit that talk. That’s not going to help you now. So, what? You ended up not being a perfect goody-two-shoes after all. You screwed up, big deal. Your life isn’t ruined. No one’s perfect. I’m obviously not. For what it’s worth, you’re a better man than me,” Jacob pointed out.
“I don’t know, Jacob. It’s hard to be positive right now.”
Jacob stared at his empty plate. He seemed to be in deep thought. After a couple of minutes, his head tilted up, and he looked me in the eye.
“The same place you’re at now, I was in as well. Guess who helped me out of it? You helped me, Eddy, when you didn’t have to. I’m willing to help you now. We will do what we have to, to make this right,” Jacob reassured me.
“How do I make this right?”
“I’m not sure. How do you want to make this right? The way I see it, we can go one of two ways. We can do it your way, the peaceful route, or…we can do it differently. Don’t think that I’veforgotten what you did for me. You helped end the feud between Heather and me. I owe you,” Jacob said with gratitude.
That was all I needed to hear from Jacob. I felt a fire starting to burn in my very core. All I thought about was how my relationships with Heather and Indira had been destroyed because of Frank, my supposed best friend.
He was helping me get a D1 scholarship, but I didn’t care anymore. He ruined everything and faced zero consequences. Instead, I paid for it, Heather paid for it, and Indira paid for it. We all paid for it, except him.
After everything I went through, everything I had done to keep the peace… I knew I didn’t deserve this. This was a sudden, cruel twist of fate, and I didn’t accept it. I was prepared to do anything to redeem myself.
“You know what? I’m done being the good guy. I want to expose Frank for everything he’s done. I’m done protecting him and his secrets. He’s a freaking pervert who treats girls like objects—he thinks he owns them. I’m tired of pretending I don’t care about what he’s done. I don’t care about the consequences anymore. I have nothing to lose now. I don’t care about basketball right now. I want him to pay,” I declared.
Finally, I was standing up for myself, and it felt good.
“What do you want to do?”Jacob asked.
“Are you still friends with Manny?”
“I’ll text him. He’ll help,” Jacob assured me.
“This is against everything I believe in, but I want Frank’s dreams to be crushed, and I want his personal life in shambles.”
Jacob nodded.
“I will give you the tools you need to do this, but I can’t get directly involved. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this sort of thing anymore, but I’ll make sure it gets done.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it myself. I want to be the only one who’s involved. They’ll only know my name,” I promised.
“What’s the plan?” Jacob asked.
“I’m going to expose every single horrible thing he has ever done,” I remarked.
After we discussed things and left the restaurant, we exchanged numbers. Once he left, I met up with the guys from the basketball team. They wanted to get me to play pick-up basketball at the gym. I almost ignored their texts, but I decided that I needed to pretend to be their friend for the time being. They couldn’t get a single whiff of what I was about to do.
When Porter’s SUV pulled up, I heard rap music blasting from his speakers. He was driving while Frank sat in the passenger seat next to him, and Marcus was in the back seat. When I entered, I sat behind Porter in the backseat. They were all happily dancing and bouncing around in the car. It made me sick to my stomach. I took one long, hard stare at Frank until he noticed me. Soon enough, he glanced in my direction and turned his head around. He gave me a quick head nod.
“What’s up, Eddy? You look depressed. Are you good? Do you want a little weed? Bro, don’t tell me you’re still mad about that thing with Heather and that other Indy chick. Forget about them—they’re history. Plenty of other fish in the sea, bro,” Frank chuckled.
“There’s not much left. You impregnated fifty percent of the female population in Brightwood,” Porter pointed out.
They all laughed.
“Yeah. I’m good,” I smirked.
“Cool. We’re about to show these clowns who go to Pinecrest who’s boss.”
Once he turned back around, I frowned and looked outside the window. That was the moment when I decided that we were no longer friends.
He had no idea of the storm coming his way.
