Page 17 of My Rules for Revenge
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Indira Guerra.”
“Oh, okay. First name and last name. Well, I’m officially Frank Jackson. Welcome to this boring-ass class, India.”
“My name isIndira.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” I said as I rolled my eyes.
I grinned and looked away. I was hoping he would leave me alone, but apparently, he was interested in me.
“Are you from around here? You look exotic, like those ‘models’ from HotGirls,” Frankie smirked.
I was completely taken aback by the question as his friends obnoxiously giggled behind him. I wasn’t offended by the fact that he thought I was a model. I was offended that he thought I would degrade myself to be on HotGirls. I knew that he was only trying to get under my skin. He barely knew me, and he was already behaving like an ass.
“No, I’m not a HotGirls model, because I’m not old enough, and even if I were a model, I would certainly not be on HotGirls,” I scoffed. “I’m not that type of girl,” I assured him.
“My bad. I didn’t mean to offend. You wanna tell me where you’re from at least, or am I gonna have to guess?” Frankie asked.
He smiled, flashing his pearly white teeth.
“I’m from Nicaragua.”
“Nicaragua? What state is that? I have no idea where the hell that is,” Frankie admitted.
“It’s a country,” I clarified.
“Are you a quiet person?” Frankie asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Frankie asked.
I shrugged and pretended to focus on the teacher. Frankie frowned and turned away from me.
“Sorry, boys. It looks like she’s the quiet type. On to the next.”
Frank and his friends laughed aloud as our English teacher loudly shushed them. They didn’t care. In their eyes, they could do whatever they wanted.
I later learned that Brightwood High had one of the best basketball programs in South Florida. Their teams typically made the playoffs every year. The school made a hefty amount of money from ticket sales and sponsorships. The football and baseball programs weren’t far behind either.
My father was an accountant, and my mother was a housewife. This was mainly because my father was a controlling psycho. He wanted to be the only one making money and wanted to control all of our finances.
After many years of marriage, my mother managed to convince my father to allow her to take online business classes. When she began to take them, I usually found her asleep at the computer. I tried my best to wake her up whenever I saw her asleep, fearing my father’s temper.
Despite my efforts, my father saw her a few times dozing off and got really angry. He argued as to why he paid for the classesif my mother wasn’t paying attention. She usually blew him off because she didn’t want to argue. This only made my father angrier. This happened a lot. Whenever they had their annoying arguments, I hid in my room—it was my only sanctuary, the only escape I had from the yelling and the noise.
My parents weren’t involved in my personal life much. They knew nothing of my favorite hobbies or if I had any friends in school. They never asked. All they cared about was whether or not I had good grades in my classes.
They regularly asked if I was on track to secure a scholarship to a prestigious university to study chemistry. I was…until I was forced to leave, and after what happened, I never went back there.
It all started when I met Heather Chang. I needed to get into more extracurricular activities for college and wanted to join the book club. I wasn’t interested in reading anymore, but I thought the big universities would appreciate a student who was involved in the literary arts. Little did I know that the president of the book club was an explosive firecracker whose life would unexpectedly intertwine with mine for the worse.
I nervously stood outside the book club room and didn’t dare to peek inside. Heather was there. She was rigorously cleaning a spot on the wall with a scrub brush and a moist rag. There seemed to be a spray-painted symbol that she was desperately trying to remove.
