Her nerves grew as she walked to the counter. She slid the coat onto the glass. The woman behind the counter gave her a bored look. “Is this it?”
“Yes.”
The woman bent down to get a sack from behind the counter.
She heard movement behind her and a realization hit her. She was probably doing exactly what the pop girls wanted. She was distracting the woman behind the counter so they could take the bracelets. They might even think she volunteered to be the one to distract her. For a split-second, Destiny debated what to do. She could do nothing and just let the girls get away with it. They might take her in as one of them. But her gut clenched, and she couldn’t do it.
When the woman stood back up, Destiny leaned close. “Those girls are stealing bracelets,” she whispered.
The woman pointed. “Those girls?”
Destiny looked. Nikki, Kara and Charley were speed-walking toward the exit. She nodded. “Yes.”
The woman waited until they left the store, then she picked up the phone and pressed a couple of buttons. She talked for a moment, then hung up. “Security will stop them. Thanks for reporting it. We lose quite a bit of money from people who shoplift. We need more teenagers like you.”
Destiny smiled but didn’t feel it. Inside, she felt sick to her stomach. She just got the pop girls into trouble. They probably would hate her forever now. Who knew what they would do to her?
She left the store with her shopping bag, feeling worse than ever before. As she walked, she saw them. A security guard was standing in front of the pop girls, his arms folded. Nikki looked like she was going to murder someone. And then her gaze met Destiny’s. “You’re dead,” she mouthed.
Heat rose up Destiny’s neck, and she picked up her pace. She told herself to ignore the pop girls, but she couldn’t. She knew she’d just committed social suicide. Her face flamed as she walked outside and rushed to get into her car.
Her hands shook as she turned the key in the ignition. How could she have done that? All she had to do was keep quiet. She wasn’t stealing. She was just buying a jacket. No one would have known. The pop girls would have loved her. The store would have absorbed the cost. It would have worked out.
But, no. She had to tattle on them. Destiny felt like she was going to throw up. She drove home and took her jacket up to her room, leaving it in the bag. She shoved it in the bottom of her closet. She didn’t want to look at it. She probably would never wear it now that it was tainted with this memory.
She took off her boots and sat in her bean bag chair. She opened up her Snapchat account and saw fifteen messages. Oh, no. This was not good. She opened the first one, from a username she didn’t recognize.
How could you? You are scum.
It went on, but she didn’t read the rest. She opened the next one, and then the next. They were all variations of the first, some getting vulgar, some threatening. She stopped opening them. Her chest felt hollow as she deleted the messages. She closed Snapchat and texted Eli, tears blurring her vision.
Where are you? I need you.
It didn’t take long for him to get back to her.
What’s going on? I’m downtown at Grind It Up.
Fluffy came up to her and she scooped her cat into her lap. She needed the comfort. She texted Eli back.
I did something bad. Really bad.
She couldn’t stop her fingers from trembling.
What happened?!?
I committed social suicide.
Destiny felt like throwing up. She texted the rest of the story to him.
You did the right thing.
But now they hate me, and they are telling everyone, and I’m getting hate mail now.
Hold on. I’m coming over.
Destiny couldn’t stop shaking. Her phone alerted her to another message on Snapchat. She turned off the sound and shoved it into her pocket, but the phone vibrated each time another message came in. This was so bad. The whole school would know by tomorrow. She would be hated.
She sat there, numb, for twelve minutes, until she heard the doorbell ring. She set Fluffy on the floor, jumped up from her chair and raced down to open the door, even though she was pretty sure she was the only one home. When she saw Eli, she let out a sob and rushed into his arms.
He held her tight. It felt so good to have his arms around her. Like he was holding her together, and without him, she would shatter into a million pieces.
“Hey, calm down. It’s okay. It will be all right.”
“No, it won’t,” she whispered. “Everyone hates me.”
“That’s not true. Come on. Let’s go inside.” He led her to the living room, gently guiding her to sit on the couch. He kept his arm around her. “Not everyone hates you.”
She nodded. “Yes. Listen to them come in.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned on the ringer. The notifications came, one after another.
Eli frowned. “Let me see them.”
Destiny swallowed down another wave of nausea. She opened Snapchat and gave him the phone. He sat for a moment, reading the messages, his face getting red. “I think you should uninstall this app. Maybe even disable your account.”
Disable her Snapchat? But that was how she talked to most of her friends. She didn’t want to, but as the hate notifications kept coming in, she nodded. “All right. You do it. I don’t want to see it anymore.”
She turned away while he fiddled with her phone. A moment later, he placed it on her lap. “Done.”
She closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the couch. “I’m never going to recover from this.”
“Yes, you are. Those girls might be popular, but they don’t own the whole school.”
“But they do.” Destiny blinked back more tears. Nikki was queen of them all. She decided what—or who—was popular. What was in and what was out. And now, Destiny was out. Not only that, she was blackballed. Hated.
“Even the nerds? Do they follow after those girls?”
“No.”
“The band geeks?”
Destiny made a face. “I know what you’re trying to do, but it won’t work.”
Eli blew out a frustrated breath. “What, that I’m trying to show you that not everyone falls down to worship those girls? That the whole school isn’t on a quest to make you miserable?”
“Did you see all those messages?”
“Yeah. And most of them were brand new usernames. Think about it. Get a group of ten kids together and you can send a zillion messages out just by wasting your time.”
Was that true? Destiny ran a hand over her hair. “Maybe you’re right.”
“They don’t have power over everyone at school.”
“Just all the popular people.”
“Think about it,” Eli said, pressing closer to her. “That’s not that many people. The cheerleaders and jocks. And maybe a few rich kids. That’s all.”
Destiny took in a breath and let it out slowly. He was right. The whole school didn’t hate her. She squeezed Eli’s hand. “Yeah. You’re right.”
A text message came through on her phone. She looked at it.
Too cowardly to keep your Snapchat account?
She froze as a cold fear snaked through her. It was from an unknown number. She tried to hide it from Eli but he grabbed her phone and read it. “I suggest you block any numbers that text you today.”
Another one came in.
Do you think you’ll get away from this? If I were you, I wouldn’t go to school tomorrow.
She covered her face with her hands. “It’s never going to stop.”
“Come on now. It’s just the pop girls and their followers giving you a bad time. You stood up to them and they didn’t like that.”
“Really? That’s good that you can deduce that because I wasn’t sure at all what was going on.” Destiny felt bad for being snarky. She sucked in a breath. “Sorry. That was mean.”
“You’re just on edge. We need to get your mind off this. Let’s go do s
omething.”
“Are you done putting in job applications?”
“For now.” He smiled at her. “This is more important.”
“All right.” She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “What should we do?”
“Something cheap. I’m out of money.” He chuckled, and she laughed.
“All right. But let me go fix my makeup. I’m sure I look like a mess.”
Eli shook his head. “Nope. You look like a goddess.”
That made her smile. He was such a good guy. How had she gotten so lucky? “You’re the best,” she said as she leaned over to kiss him again.
Her phone indicated another text had come through. She turned it off without looking.
Chapter 15
Eli spent the rest of the afternoon trying to cheer up Destiny. Every time a text would come through on her phone, she would shove it at him. He was glad she wasn’t reading them anymore. They were getting worse, the more she ignored them. He would block the numbers, but new numbers kept getting through. He was starting to worry that Destiny’s original assessment was more accurate. There seemed to be a lot of kids who hated her.
He took Destiny to the park. They walked the gardens, looked at the sculptures and fountains, and stopped to get an ice cream cone as the sun went down. On the way back to her house, she shrieked and grabbed his arm. “Stop the car!”
He slammed on his brakes, his heart pounding. “What?”
Destiny jumped out of his car. “There it is.”
He leaned down to watch her race up the grass towards the high school. What in the world was she doing? He couldn’t quite see. But as she walked back to him, she held a black-and-white kitten in her arms.
The scrawny thing looked so tiny. Destiny climbed back in the car. “I think its mother got killed. I don’t know if—” Destiny held the kitten up and looked under the tail. “She can eat food on her own yet.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Let’s take her to my house. We can search the internet to figure out what to feed her.”
The little thing meowed. Eli drove to Destiny’s house and pulled into the driveway. “The poor thing. It looks cold.”
“I know. I saw it twice before, but it was too fast. It got away from me.”
He followed her into her house. Destiny pulled a blanket from the closet and wrapped it around the kitten. Then she took it into the living room and grabbed a remote control from the mantel. “Will you Google what to feed a kitten while I try to warm her?”
The fireplace came to life and Destiny curled up in front of it. Eli joined her. “Sure.”
After a moment the kitten wiggled out of Destiny’s blanket cocoon and jumped onto the hearth. She stared at the flames, then tried to bat at them on the screen.
“No, sweetie,” Destiny said, pulling the kitten back.
Eli opened a browser and searched for what to feed the tiny thing. “How old do you think it is?”
“I don’t know.”
“It can eat on its own if it’s six weeks old.”
“How can you tell the age?” Destiny set the kitten down because it was squirming to get away again. The kitten jumped on the corner of the blanket, like it had caught a mouse. Destiny tugged on the blanket and they played a game of chase the blanket corner.
“I’ll search.” Eli went back to his phone and looked for the answer. “Here’s a chart.” He looked at the images and descriptions of the different stages. “Oh, this one has got to be old enough to eat cat food. Look at this picture.” He showed it to Destiny.
“Yeah, she looks like that.”
“Okay. She should be able to eat cat food, then.”
The kitten pounced on her foot and she giggled. “I’ll get some from the cupboard.”
He watched as she stood and walked into the kitchen. This was the perfect distraction that she needed. He was glad she’d seen the scrawny thing in the bushes. He heard her open the can, then a white cat came racing down the stairs and through the room to the kitchen. The kitten watched the cat with curiosity.
“Fluffy! This isn’t for you,” Destiny said. She came back in the room with a bowl of cat food in one hand, and Fluffy held like a football in the other.
When Fluffy saw the kitten, her ears flattened and she hissed. “Stop that,” Destiny said, setting down the bowl of food. The kitten came and attacked it like it hadn’t eaten in days.
“Aw, look. She’s starving.” Fluffy hissed again and wiggled out of Destiny’s arms. She ran from the room. The kitten ignored her, eating the wet cat food.
Destiny’s phone made another sound. She just shoved it at Eli. “Delete and block.”
“I will.” He looked at the message. It was from Jessica.
What’s going on? I got a message from someone saying you stabbed Nikki in the back and stole her boyfriend. Is this true?
Eli’s chest tightened. This wasn’t good. If rumors are starting to spread to the senior band geeks, it was possible the whole school would be talking about her by tomorrow. “You’d better answer this one. It’s from your cousin.”
Destiny grabbed her phone back. Her face drained of color, and she stared before typing furiously on her phone. “They’re spreading lies about me. I knew it. I knew this was going to happen.” She moaned and rocked back and forth.
“Hey, calm down.” Eli put his hand on her arm. “We’ll straighten it out. Don’t worry.”
“How? Everyone is going to think the worst things about me.”
“I’ll think of something.” Eli pulled her to him, and she snuggled into his chest. “Don’t think about it right now.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one everyone is going to hate tomorrow.”
Eli just held her and stroked her back. She might be right. With the rumors spreading that quickly, she might have a hard time at school tomorrow. “Have you thought about staying home tomorrow?”
“I can’t. I have tests I have to take.”
“Then ignore everyone else. I’ll be there. You can stick with me. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens.”
A dark feeling spread through Eli’s gut. He hoped he knew what to do. Something told him he might not be able to follow through with his promise.
Chapter 16
Destiny’s parents weren’t too terribly happy about the kitten, but they let her keep it in her room for the time being. She’d work on them. They usually gave in to her if she persisted.
Monday morning came too early, and Destiny texted Eli before she got ready for school.
I’m nervous.
His text came back almost immediately.
Don’t be. I looked into the Rockford High anti-bullying policy. They can’t do anything to you at school.
She rolled her eyes.
Great. Should I print it up to hand out, then? Maybe get it laminated? You think that will help?
Ha ha. I’m serious. We’ll tell Principal Brown if anyone messes with you.
Right. Maybe Eli had never seen anyone get blackballed at school before. He sure wasn’t acting like he knew what would happen. But she didn’t want to argue with him. It would be pointless.
All right. See you in an hour.
Even though she dragged her feet as she got ready for school, she left the house on time. She parked in the school lot but spied Eli standing outside the doors before she got out of her car. Dang, he looked good in his jeans. Had he done something different with his hair? Whatever he’d done, it was really working for him.
She climbed out of her car and he started toward her. “Hey.”
She joined him. “Hi.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Amanda and Cole are at your locker. We might want to take a minute to get there.”
Her heart sank. “What did they do to my locker?”
“Just your normal stuff. Wrote all over it with red marker. Called you names. They’re cleaning it off.”
He didn’t look her in the eye. She wondered what e
lse there was on her locker that he wasn’t telling her. She decided to let it slide. “Well, that’s original.”
He chuckled. “Yeah.” He put his arm around her. “You okay?”
She nodded even though she didn’t feel okay. She felt a little like throwing up.
“Let’s go in. It’s cold out here.” He walked with her. He looked like he was shielding her.
She liked how protective of her he was being. It was endearing. Eli opened the door for her, another thing she liked about him. He was old-fashioned that way.
The second she was in the building, it was obvious everyone had heard the rumors about her. People stared at her. Others gave her nasty glares. One girl turned around like she couldn’t stand to look at her. Destiny tried not to let it bother her, but it hurt. These were people who had said hello to her just last week. People she sat in class with. People who normally liked her.
“So, Amanda wants me to join in some protest thing she’s organizing for next week. Know anything about it?”
“Yeah, it’s that old opera house they want to tear down.” Destiny tried to ignore the glares. “She wants to go stand in front of the bulldozers.”
“When is it coming down?”
“I’m not sure. Next Friday, maybe?” Destiny had promised Amanda she’d be there against the death of her first-born child, so she’d probably better ask.
“So, do she and Cole have a thing going on?”
Destiny stopped short and stared up at Eli. “What? Why do you ask? Did you see something? Because I’ve always thought she had a crush on Cole, but she denies it venomously. But I see the way she looks at him, and I totally think she’s got the hots for him.”
“It’s just the way they argue. Like they both want to slap each other then make out. You know?”
“Ha!” Destiny shoved his chest. “So, it’s not just me.”
Eli grinned at her. “Nope.”
“Good. I feel validated.” Destiny turned the corner and her blood froze. Amanda and Cole were scrubbing her locker, but it was obvious the word ‘whore’ had been written on it. Several other choice words, too, apparently, but those were scrubbed enough she couldn’t make them out.
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