Page 82 of My Rules for Revenge
After Heather, Vivian, and I went out to the movie, she invited me to go out numerous times. But it was during the period of time when I hung out with Eddy. I didn’t want anyone to know, so I never told her. It felt nice that whatever I had with Eddy was private. I was very protective of our relationship. I wanted no one in. I was scared that if anyone found out about it, it would ruin everything.
Heather was understandably upset that I blew her off countless times. She had asked me to go to dinner, to go to the movies again, to help with the book club’s bake sales, and even to go to the library.
I came up with dozens of excuses. I either had extremely hard chemistry tests to study for, or I had to help my mother out with errands. One time, I even told her that I had fallen asleep while scrolling through social media and hadn’t seen her message until it was too late.
She probably knew that at least half of these excuses were lies, but I loved being with Eddy. I felt like I could tell him everything and anything. We were even going through similar family problems. I never felt like I could tell Heather these things because we weren’t close like that.
As a result of my blowing her off, she became cold towards me during the book club meetings and rarely talked to me, which was a problem because I needed a huge favor. I had found out from my guidance counselor that if I became the co-president of the book club, it would greatly help my case when it came to applying for Ivy League schools. My grades were the best they could’ve been, but that wasn’t enough. I needed additional scholastic achievements.
One day, I walked in and saw Heather counting large amounts of money at the teacher’s desk. She was systematically placing them inside a lockbox and was highly focused. I quietly sat down and patiently waited for her to be finished. She occasionally glanced at me while she counted. I awkwardly grinned at her whenever she did so. After a short while, she finished a portion of what she was doing and sighed.
“We don’t have to meet today, Indira. What’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you about something. It’s about the presidency of this club,” I clarified.
“Okay, go on.”
“I spoke with my guidance counselor, and she said that it would be great for me to become the co-president of this club so I could put it on my college applications. Is there any way I could become co-president?”
Heather scoffed and raised her eyebrows.
“You’re joking, right?”
“No. I’m not joking,” I said with a serious face.
“Indira, we’ve barely spoken in the last two months.”
“I know, and I’m sorry about that. I’ve been busy. I promise I wasn’t trying to blow you off.”
“You didn’t help me with any of the bake sales. There were students in this club that I barely remembered who came out to help me.”
“I know. I noticed.”
“Okay, then where the hell did you get the balls to ask me if you could be the co-president?”
Heather’s face was flushed with anger as my skin went cold.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to answer that,” I admitted.
Heather laughed and stood up. She stomped towards me and leaned on a desk.
“Are you trying to use me, Indira? Has that been your goal all along?”
“No, of course not. I wanted to be in this club.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I swear,” I said.
“Alright, alright, alright. Maybe I’m being too harsh on you,” Heather admitted.
“Maybe.”
“I want to know why you’ve been blowing me off, though. You don’t have to get into specifics, but I feel like I deserve the right to know,” Heather explained.
“I’m not comfortable talking about it.”
“Are you having problems at home? I have problems at home, too. We could talk about it.”
