by Mae Doyle
“Okay. I’m back.” I was on the verge of leaving her when she skips down the hall to me, wearing impossibly short shorts and sneakers. “Do we need to bring water on our run?”
Before I can answer, I have to slowly look her up and down. She’s going to stop traffic if she goes anywhere a main road dressed like that. My cock twitches and I shift uncomfortably. I don’t like the idea of other people looking at Nora when she’s wearing those damn shorts.
“No.” We have to get out of this house. Turning away from her, I run down the stairs, her footsteps chasing me.
“We running into town?” The question is innocent, but I whirl around so fast that she gasps.
“Not a chance.” I don’t know where we can run without people seeing her, but then I’m struck with a great idea. “We’re running in the woods.”
She pales and for a moment I think that she’s going to back out, but then she nods. “Okay.”
Okay. I let my eyes slide over her one more time before leading the way to the back door. No chasing Nora tonight. Tonight, I want to see if she can keep up.
Chapter 8
Nora
Everything’s back to normal today, which is to say that nothing feels normal and I still don’t know where I stand with Teague. After our run last night, during which I completely felt like I was dying and slowing Teague down the entire time, we both came home, took showers, and went to bed without talking.
Laying in bed after my shower, my wet hair draped over my pillow, I had placed my hand over my heart and felt it pound. Running with Teague instead of running from Teague was…different. It wasn’t terrible, besides the fact that he’s in much better shape than I am and I struggled to keep up the entire time.
Now, though, sitting in class, I can’t believe that I actually went out into the woods with him. I’m so desperate for him to care for me and to not hate me that it’s difficult for me to set clear boundaries. Tapping my pencil on my desk, I think about my mom.
She would shit a brick if she knew what Teague had done to me and that I was still hanging out with him. The smart thing to do would be to back off of spending time with him, but it feels impossible. Shifting in my seat, I watch as the rest of the class slowly files in. Bethany’s in my class and usually she sits in the very back corner, as far away from me as she can get. Today, though, she beelines for me, dropping her books down on the desk next to me.
The student sitting there, some guy named Mark, looks up in surprise. The grumpy look on his face disappears when he looks up and sees Bethany standing over him, her hands on her hips. “Move, loser.” She pops her gum for emphasis and grins when he gathers his books and scoots out of her way.
Looking straight forward, I try to ignore her. Teague told me that she’s the one who put the maggots in my locker, which means that she’s not only more evil than I first thought, but also somehow has access to my locker, which is a little scary.
“Aren’t you going to say hi?” Bethany leans over and I catch a whiff of her sweet peppermint breath. It’s the sweetest thing about her – the rest of her is rotten and evil. Glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, I see that she’s staring at me, a grin on her face.
“Bethany. Hi.” It’s the best that I can do, and I glance at the door, praying that the teacher will come in. I don’t know why she’s taken a special interest in me now, but I don’t like it.
She pouts, sticking out her lower lip and crossing her arms. “I thought we were friends, Nora. Is that any way to greet your friend?” Now I do glance over at her, taking in her bright blue eyes. I thought they were beautiful the first time I met her, but they’re dangerous pools with drop-offs and cliffs. Jagged ice surrounds her pupils and I my breath catches in my throat as I think about what it would be like to have my head held under the water in her eyes.
“Friends don’t put maggots in their friend’s lockers.” The teacher is late, and I shift nervously in my seat. Anytime now they should show up and Bethany will stop leaning over and talking to me like I actually want to hear what she has to say.
She follows my gaze and glances at the door. “You looking for the teach? She got caught up in something and will be late. Shame.” I don’t know how the hell Bethany has so much control over everything going on here, but more and more it feels like she’s the boss of the school. Teague had told me that her brother, Clay, was the prince, and it looks like she’s stepping up to fill his shoes.
“What do you want?” If I’m not going to be rescued by the teacher anytime soon then I might as well figure out exactly what Bethany’s problem is. She’s beating around the bush and I just want her to spit it out.
At this, she grins and reaches out, lightly resting her hand on my arm. I have to clench my teeth to keep from yanking it out of her grip. “I wanted to let you know my intentions.” She pauses for effect and pops her gum, but I keep my gaze forward. “I think that I want to fuck Teague.”
Something courses through my body and now I do yank my arm out of her grasp. She wants to what? I should be thrilled about this. If he’s busy with Bethany then he won’t have the time that he needs to properly torment me, which means that I’ll be off the hook.
I should be happy about this.
But there’s something that twisted deep in my stomach when she said that. Not only would the two of them paired up be terrifying, but I don’t like the idea of him being with her. There. I said it. Not that I really want him to be with anyone, really, but Bethany would be the worst.
“What do you think? Got any hints on how I can woo him?” She takes my pencil and lightly taps me on the temple. “Or maybe I just need to suck his cock. That’s what you haven’t done, right, little virgin? If I go ahead and do that then he’ll probably just be so grateful that I’m not a stone cold ice princess.”
A chill runs through me, but before I can respond, the teacher walks in, clapping her hands. I notice that she has a huge smear of something on her paint leg. I can’t tell what it is at first – it looks like chocolate, but then I smell it. The odor wafts through the room and it becomes obvious that it’s shit.
How in the hell did Bethany get shit on the teacher?
Glancing over at her, I meet her gaze. She’s grinning like a maniac and tosses me my pencil before turning to the front of the room and watching the teacher. There’s a small smile playing on the corners of her mouth, but nobody else in the class seems to notice. Or care. They’re probably all as afraid of her as I am.
“So, I had a little bit of a run-in with something this morning.” Mrs. Albright frowns and looks around the room like she suspects one of us of covering her with shit. I want to point at Bethany, but I know that I would literally die if I did that. “Instead of regular class I am going to leave for a bit and change, so you guys are going to watch a movie. When you’re done, I want you to each write a paper comparing the struggles shown by the protagonist to what was displayed in the book we just read.”
A hand shoots up in my peripheral vision. It’s Jeremy, and when Mrs. Albright nods at him, he speaks. “The book and the movie are completely different.”
She sighs and holds out her hands. “Do you think that you can give me some grace today, class?” We all murmur our assent and she nods, turning to plug in the TV.
Bethany leans over to me, a wicked grin on her face. “Do you know how hard it is to get someone to shit in a bucket for you?”
My stomach turns. I don’t know how, but I’m going to take her down. Not just for this, but for everything. She’s evil and she can’t be allowed to rule the school.
***
“Hey, are you okay?” Teague’s hand closes around my arm as I try to push through the quad at lunch. My sandwich is clutched to my chest, but I don’t know that I’m going to be able to eat it. The entire time during the movie, Bethany kept making jokes about covering Mrs. Albright with shit, and now I think I’m going to be sick.
I thought that she would only bully me and then get tired of it, but the f
act that she’s willing and able to go after a teacher? She’s gone crazy.
“No, I’m not!” I jerk my arm away from him, but he only snakes his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. I want to fight and pull away, but there’s something about being held tight to his body that makes me relax. “I am not okay. Bethany is…a bitch,” I finish, simply.
He chuckles but doesn’t let me go. Breathing deeply, I feel his cologne fill me up. It’s warm and a little spicy and there’s something about it that feels relaxing and comforting. I can’t describe it, but it almost makes me feel safe, which is weird considering who’s wearing it.
If I know anything from my time at Kennedy Academy, it’s that nothing is safe when it comes to Teague. But that doesn’t explain why it feels good to have his arm wrapped around me. Hell, it doesn’t just feel good. It feels like…
Home.
The realization hits me and I have to step back from him, shaking my head a little to clear it. None of this makes any sense.
“Yeah, she is. What did the queen bee do now?” Slowly he guides me over to a bench and, for the first time since I came to school here, we sit to eat lunch together. I unwrap my sandwich and put it on my lap before I answer him.
“She smeared shit on Mrs. Albright.” And she wants to fuck you. I can’t tell him the second thing, because for all I know, Teague would like that. And if I tell him that Bethany wants him like that, then I need to figure out how I feel about him, and I’m just not ready to do that just yet.
He raises an eyebrow. To his credit, I thought that he was going to laugh, but he doesn’t. “She did what? That was ballsy. Where did she get the shit?”
I frown and shrug, picking up my sandwich and taking a huge bite. Running yesterday wore me out and I know that it’s probably silly to think that I’d still be tired from him, but I’m exhausted. My legs feel like jelly and when I dropped something on the floor earlier, I thought about just leaving it so I wouldn’t have to squat down to pick it up.
Chewing slowly, I frown. I made my sandwich this morning, but this doesn’t taste like it’s peanut butter and jelly. First of all, it crunches, and I’m 100% sure that the peanut butter was smooth, not crunchy. It takes a lot of effort for me to force myself to swallow, and after I do, I carefully peel back the top piece of bread.
“Something wrong?” Teague takes a bite of his sandwich and looks over at me, his eyes falling on my sandwich at the same time. “Holy shit, Nora.”
Holy shit is right. Someone opened up my sandwich and filled it with cat litter. My stomach revolts and I turn, throwing up on the ground right by our feet. Teague grabs the sandwich from me and reaches out to hold back my hair as I puke. My stomach feels like it’s turning itself inside out as I throw up, something hard and painful scratching my throat on the way back up. Rocks, maybe? Thank God it was only one bite, but I still feel ill.
“What the hell?” I gasp, sitting up. Even though it’s gross, I use the back of my sleeve to wipe my mouth, but there’s nothing I can do to get rid of the lingering taste. Teague’s still holding my sandwich, and I take it, opening it back up to look. Yep. Cat litter. I can’t tell whether or not it was used, but I don’t care. I know exactly who did this. She’s had it out for me since I got here and it’s too much of a coincidence for Mrs. Albright to get shit smeared and then me to get cat litter in my sandwich.
Luckily, I don’t have to look far to see Bethany. She’s perched on the edge of a picnic table a few yards away, surrounded by her stupid cheer squad. They’re all watching me and giggling, and I feel fire flame through me as I stand up and march over to her.
“You should see your face!” Bethany’s laughing so hard that she’s gasping for air, both of her arms wrapped around her stomach. “And you really should stop throwing up, Nora. It’s no wonder you’re so skinny.” She and her friends dissolve back into laughter.
“Are you bulimic? Do you think that you could give some girls around here some pointers?” A cheerleader I know by sight, but not by name, is laughing at me, her ponytail bobbing as she chuckles. “We have some fatties at school who could stand to lose a few pounds.”
“Eat shit, Bethany,” I tell her. She looks up at me, her eyes wide, and the smile fades from her face.
“You already did, Nora. How did it taste?” She’s grinning, her cute little nose turned up at me, and I feel anger course through me. I’m vaguely aware that Teague has come to stand by me, but he hasn’t made any movement to stop me, and I don’t know that he could, even if he tried.
I don’t think about what I’m doing, I simply drop the top piece of bread from my sandwich and lean forward, pressing the bottom half with the peanut butter, jelly, and cat litter into Bethany’s face. She squeals and tries to lean back, but I grab the back of her head, making sure to really grind it into her skin.
None of the other cheerleaders move to help me. After a moment, I drop my hands and watch as she peels the bread off, her face still covered in the toppings.
“I’ll kill you!” She shrieks, her voice carrying across the quad. Everyone grows quiet and turns to look at us. “I swear to God, Nora, you’re dead!” Then she starts clawing at her face, trying to remove the sticky mess. She stands, and at first I think that she’s going to lunge at me, but she’s just crying, clawing at her face, throwing down sticky globs as they stick to her fingers.
I should be afraid of her, and I know that, but I’m not. Not anymore. Not after the stunts she’s pulled today. Not after she said that she wants to fuck Teague. Turning on my heel, I walk off, headed for the relative safety of the art room. There is going to be some serious hell to pay later, and I need to start planning if I’m going to survive.
Teague
“You want to tell me where you went after lunch?” Nora hasn’t said a word to me all afternoon. Not in the car ride home, not at dinner, and not even now, although she saw me lacing up my shoes and ran to put hers on to join me for a run. I thought about telling her she couldn’t come, especially with her shit attitude, but the look on her face has kept me quiet. I probably shouldn’t keep trying to talk to her, but I can’t help it. I need to know where she went and if she’s okay.
She yanks her laces so tight that I’m not sure she’ll ever be able to untie them, then looks up at me. “Why? So you and your jerk friends can come next time and ruin that for me, too? Geez, man, cat litter in the sandwich? That’s low, even for you and Bethany.”
I pause, thinking about what she just said. Does she think that I helped put the cat litter in her sandwich? “You do know that that was all Bethany, right? I had nothing to do with that.” When I reach out to touch her shoulder she jerks away, shooting me a nasty look.
“Sure. Right. The guy who I live with didn’t put the cat litter in my sandwich. Not that you had the perfect opportunity to do it, or anything.” Her face twists into a scowl.
I can’t help but laugh, even though I know that it’s going to piss her off more. “Listen, Nora, we don’t even own a cat. Besides, if you left your sandwich in your locker then Bethany had all the time in the world to fuck with it. Think about that, will you?” I tap the side of my head to make a point, but she just rolls her eyes at me.
“Yeah, and I really believe that the two of you aren’t in cahoots.” When she stands up, I do too, stepping in between her and the door so she can’t make a break for it.
“Cahoots? Are we in my grandmother’s old mystery novels or something? Nora, you gotta pay attention. I want nothing to do with Bethany.” She doesn’t look up at me, and I sigh. “Fine. You don’t want to believe me? Then let’s just run.” Turning around, I reach for the door, but her voice stops my hand before I have a chance to turn the handle.
“You promise?” Her voice sounds shaky and I pause. It’s impossible for me to really understand what’s going on in Nora’s head, especially since our conversations revolve around the bullying she’s enduring and how she fucked me over by stealing my storage key, but there’s something differe
nt in her voice right now, and that’s what makes me lean my head against the door for a moment.
The wood is cool and I don’t move, enjoying the moment to myself. It’s near impossible to focus whenever I’m near Nora, but right now my thoughts are mercifully silent.
It’s been a long damn time since I made a promise to anyone, and at first, I don’t answer. I promised Clay that I would take care of his sister, Bethany, and I’m doing a terrible job at that. I promised my dad that I would make sure the stuff in the storage unit was protected and didn’t fall into the wrong hands, and Nora’s compromised that. Let’s just say that I don’t have the best track records for keeping promises.
But it’s obvious that Nora needs this. That’s why I take a deep breath and answer her. “I promise.” My eyes are locked on the door when I tell her this. I refuse to turn around and see the look on her face. I may have to break that promise someday, possibly someday soon, and I don’t want to see her look sad when I do.
I’m not working with Bethany to get hurt Nora right now, but I’m going to have to take care of Jeremy and the storage locker, and I may end up needing her help. I hear Nora sigh and my shoulders fall a little. I don’t want to be the reason that she feels relieved. My feelings for her are so conflicted and so twisted that I don’t even want to be near her, but there’s no way that I can leave her now.
Not now that I feel like we’re more intertwined than ever.
“Let’s run.” I have the feeling that if I don’t break the silence, she will, and I don’t know what she can possibly say right now that will make me feel any better about what’s going on. Nora’s so close behind me that I swear I can feel her, even though we’re not touching.