Page 70 of Evil Deeds

It’s just another day of picking my way through the minefield of popularity at Willow Heights when we walk out of the café after lunch and run into Colt and Harper coming in from smoking. Every day, when I have to see Colt for our project, I watch him, but I don’t wait for him anymore.

I’m not waiting for him to remember.

I know he does.

I’m not waiting for him to tell them about that, or about what happened on the roof.

I know he won’t.

He called me a whore. He doesn’t want me and he never will. It’s time for me to move on.

So after Bye Week, I erased the text I sent him so I won’t see his number in my phone, even without a name. I deleted the messages he sent onOnlyWords,and I blocked him, so he can’t text me again. For the next few weeks, I’ve dedicated myself to rekindling things with Rylan, making sure to be the kind of girlfriend he wants. Every night after bed checks, he climbs through my window. I lie under him while he ruts into me until he cums, and afterwards, while I wait for him to get done holding me, and I tell him I did too.

Everything is fine. I have a boyfriend. The throne is securely mine. The Dolce twins are busy fighting for dominance against Harper. Colt is busy living his best life with Dixie, apparently on the way to buying her a ring and living their happily ever after. If that’s what he wants, who am I to interfere? I’ve made his life miserable enough already. The kindest thing I can do is let him silently gloat in his victory, ignore him when he smirks at me during our assignment, and slap a smile on my face to show him I’m fine.

And I am.

I’m fine until Harper walks in the side door next to the café with him. Until Baron starts giving her shit about hanging out with another guy when she’s back with Royal. Until, in one of those reckless moments, Colt bites back. I want to scream at him to stop being so fucking stupid, but it’s too late.

Baron’s already started in on him.

And then, without thinking, I open my mouth.

One slip. That’s all it takes. I always knew. That’s why I’ve inched along the tightrope for three years. Knowing exactly how precarious my position is. How easily everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve built, can turn to dust. That’s why I never speak without thinking.

Until I do.

“Leave him alone,” I say, when Duke threatens to repeat the scene in the basement that haunts my nightmares.

The moment the words fall from my lips, my blood turns to liquid nitrogen. I try to backtrack, but Baron’s too quick.

“You’re defending him?” he asks.

I see the switch flip inside him. This is what he’s been waiting for since he put us on our senior project together. He wanted me to get comfortable so I’d slip up. And now I have.

“No,” I protest. “I hate Colt!”

Everything in my body has turned to ice. I think I’m going to piss myself with fear. I don’t know what I’m saying, arguments and apologies pouring from my mouth as I scramble desperately to fix this.

It’s too late.

I already know.

I want to scream and rage at the unfairness, at the way someone can be executed with no trial, no defense, no second strike. I can’t speak fast enough. All I can do is watch it crumble, this carefully constructed world I’ve built around me, watch each delicate thread of the finest blown glass turn to shards that pierce my skin as the kings of the school, the Dolce boys I have served for two years, degraded myself for, sold my soul for every single day, turn on me for a single slip.

Queens aren’t allowed mistakes, not even one. There are no second chances. The whole school watches, crowding into the hall to see the spectacle. No one wants to miss the fall of their queen.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Baron says. “You’ve already been run through by all the guys on our side. Guess you had to go pretty far to find someone desperate enough to fuck you now that you’re so loose a guy can’t feel a thing when he sticks it in you.”

His words hit home. As well as I know the Dolce boys, they know me. They know my deepest shames, the things I’ve done to stay in their good graces.

“He must be desperate if he’d fuck a pussy that’s so used it looks like a worn-out old baseball glove,” Baron says, shoving me toward Colt and Harper.

Every word is a cut with a jagged piece of broken glass as he peels back my skin, peeling away the only defense I have, the face that caught me in his web to begin with. They leave me exposed for the whole school to see, my naked ugliness, the huddling, deformed, hideous creature inside my shell.

Duke, the one I said was the best one, joins in with gleeful malice. “You’re not even hot.”

His words are simple but effective. Everyone in the school follows their lead. If the Dolces say I’m hot, I’m hot. If they say I’m a whore, I’m a whore. My protection is gone. Theirs, and mine.

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