by Mina Thorne
I rolled my eyes and looked away, letting her think she won this round.
She got changed and waited for the rest of her squad. I waited too, dying to see what happened.
"What are you looking at, dyke?" she snapped at me but I didn't respond. I just waited.
Just as Agnes was finally pulling on her little skirt and grabbing her pom poms, Becca started to squirm.
And as they walked through the tunnel under the bleachers onto the field, she was really wiggling in her uniform.
I hung back and suppressed my triumphant laughter.
It was hard to do though, because as the sun beamed down on us and we started doing stretches to prepare for our run, I realized how hot and sweaty I was.
I glanced over and saw Becca starting up the first of their routine, a vigorous dance number that required a lot of movement...kicks and twists, multiple ways to make her body move inside her itchy uniform.
And man, did it work.
I pulled out my phone just as it fully kicked in. She stopped in mid song, tried desperately to scratch her back and then begged Sienna to do it for her. When Sienna hesitated, Becca grabbed her pom pom and took the handle, shoved it down the back of her shirt and started jumping around trying to get to the itchy spot.
I started to laugh and everybody noticed where I was looking. Soon we all enjoyed the show as Becca frantically tore at her clothes and scratched her nails up and down her reddened skin all over her body.
I walked closer and zoomed in, noticed huge angry welts forming on her arms and legs, and on her belly when she pulled her shirt up, but I didn't feel bad at all. Becca must have had an allergic reaction to the powder which only made it worse.
And I didn't feel a damned thing, in fact it made me happier to see her suffering ramp up a notch.
As she ran off the field to the laughter and jeers of our fellow students and some of the guys on the football team, I realized something though.
It still didn't feel like enough.
I still wanted more. For her to hurt more, like she'd hurt me.
She’d done so much to me, and I worried that nothing would ever feel like I’d evened the score.
But I’d keep trying.
Chapter 30
There was no way for Becca to prove it was me. I was so lucky, it turned out that there were no cameras in the locker room due to privacy reasons. She knew it was me, but she had no hard evidence of it. I was so smug around her, every damned time I looked at her, I gloated.
Dr. Adams pulled me into his office and tried to grill me, to get to the bottom of it, but I maintained my Montgomery cool exterior and didn’t crack.
So I was left unscathed and Becca’s reputation took a massive hit.
The entire week was amazing, I was finally at the top of my social game at school and things were kind of smoothing over with Dad. By smoothing over, I mean we both agreed to not talk about it and felt extremely awkward in each other's presence so we generally avoided each other as much as possible.
Like father, like daughter, after all.
The rumor somehow got around that Becca had fleas, that she was fucking the family dog and got them from bringing him into her bed.
"He's a German Shepherd, can you believe it?" Sienna asked, scandalized in the cafeteria one day towards the end of the week.
"I doubt she actually fucked him," I replied, trying my best to be kind and decent. But it was Becca we were talking about, so I couldn’t hold back.
I leaned in close and looked from Sienna to each and every girl on the cheer squad sitting at my table. "Unless she just had him sleep with her and a jar of peanut butter," I added and made a licking motion with my tongue.
The cheer squad girls laughed loudly and Becca shot us dirty looks from across the cafeteria where she was sitting with Mason and a couple of the lesser known football players.
Yes, I was on top and it felt good.
But it still wasn't good enough.
But I had a new plan percolating in the back of my head. Something and more devious, but not fully fleshed out yet.
I'd noticed Elaine taking pills in the mornings with her cut fruit and coffee breakfast. I wanted to get a look at the bottles when she wasn’t looking, but she was always there at breakfast. I needed to investigate them when she wasn’t around, I’d get my moment though.
So I let myself enjoy the week on top, and the attention of Barrett and Whitt, and the girls from the cheer squad, but I was formulating a plan for Becca as I was laughing and being adored.
On the weekend I did a little sleuthing and found a treasure trove of pills in Elaine's bathroom. She had Adderall, which was used as a stimulant by many wealthy people according to Google. I also found Xanax, which was a downer and commonly used to mellow people out as a relaxant.
I found many illegal weight loss pills from Mexico, a hormonal cream used for vaginal dryness...ewww, gross but that explained a lot, I'd be bitchy if I had a nasty dried up vag too....and many, many different types of pills, creams and extracts for battling the aging process.
None of them were helping her, believe me.
I also found a slip of paper with a website address and what seemed to be a password and login name on it. On the same piece of paper was Becca’s Instagram account name, Bad_Bitch_Bex. I didn’t know what they were doing there, so I snapped a photo on my phone quickly and put it back.
After reading up on the various drugs in Elaine’s stash, I decided to take a few Adderall and a few Xanax and put them in a little contact lens case I found in Elaine's drawer. It was an old one, a free sample kind they hand out at the optometrist. She'd never miss it, and I hoped she'd never miss the pills. If she did, hopefully she’d think she was so drug addled that she’d forgotten taking them.
On the way out of her bedroom though, I ran into Kit.
"What are you doing in here?" she asked me with suspicion edging her tone.
"I was looking for a tampon," I replied. "I ran out." I used to hate lying, but being in Harrisburg meant I'd gotten good at it. Really good at it.
"Just ask one of the staff. There's more than enough in the store room for you. Anything you could ever need," she replied.
"It feels weird, you know? Like hey, maid who I don't ever talk to...get me a period plug, will ya?" I smiled.
She smiled back and relaxed. "I get it. This is all a big adjustment for you. But I promise they won't think anything of it."
"Thanks," I replied. “That does make me feel better.”
She walked out into the hall with me and turned towards her little office at the back of the house.
I went upstairs, rushed back to my room and hid the lens case at the bottom of my lingerie drawer.
My heart was beating fast, from almost being caught or from the excitement of finally standing up for myself...I couldn't tell.
Either way the shock of adrenaline in my blood was addictive and I couldn't wait to put together part two of my plan to take Becca down.
Saturday came around quickly and I was invited back to the school with Barrett for the big football game.
I wasn't part of the cheerleading squad, even though I'd secretly always wanted to cheer, but I wanted to be there to watch my guys and jump up and down for the team.
I'd never been to a game where I was personally invested in a couple of the players and I was pretty excited about it. I sat just behind the bench, but not too close to the cheerleaders. Becca was still a dangerous little snake of course and I wanted to distance myself from her as much as possible.
Marie and Agnes waved to me when they saw me, and Sienna made her way up to where I was sitting.
“Why aren’t you on the field?” I asked as she sat down and extended her leg.
“I twisted my ankle. It was a stupid injury. Becca was supposed to catch me but said I weighed too much,” Sienna replied and glared at Becca who was prancing around on the field in her adorable little cheerleading uniform.
Man, I envied her. I di
d love the way those uniforms looked and I’d always practiced routines back home. It was too bad I wouldn’t get a chance before I graduated.
As the game started, Sienna and I stopped chatting and began to watch what the Westview Academy Warriors out on the field against a rival team, the Hawks.
She helped me immensely by explaining some of the game plays and rules as I slowly got used to what was going on.
Knowing most of the guys on the team and crushing badly on a couple of them made the whole game insanely exciting. I yelled so loudly I almost lost my voice, and I trash talked the ref's calls so much that a couple of the linesmen glared at me until I actually sat back down and shut my mouth.
For about a minute only, until the next terrible call. Then I jumped up and started yelling all over again. Sienna laughed loudly and encouraged me, she loved my wild side apparently.
It was exhilarating and it was incredible. And it did something to me, seeing Whitt and Barrett out there on the field in their tight uniforms and heavy gear. It made them look gladiatorial, like the gods of our high school.
It made them look dangerous and sexy. And I loved them like that, both of them.
I realized that as much as I loved flirting with other guys, I didn't have the same primal reaction to them that I did with my two guys. When the whole team was on the field, my eyes constantly sought out Barrett and Whitt, and only admired Chase and Rome, Mason and the other members as secondary additions.
It was a powerful revelation to me, and something that still puzzled me. How was I so equally attracted to two boys at one time. And what the heck was I ever going to do about it?
The end of the game came quickly and with much fanfare. The football stands held hundreds of people, most of them from Harrisburg, and I swear every single one of them was on their feet screaming at the top of their lungs as Whitt passed to Barrett who made one last, frantic rush for the end zone.
I didn't even know exactly what had happened, but I knew they'd won us the game and everybody simultaneously worshipped and adored them.
My boys.
My Barrett and my Whitt.
I screamed and jumped up and down next Sienna who was screaming just as loud and trying to nurse her ankle while sharing my excitement.
But we looked at each other as Barrett spiked the ball and Whitt and the rest of the team dog piled him, screamed again and started hugging each other while jumping up and down. I felt bad for her injured ankle, but couldn’t help my enthusiastic response to the win.
I glanced over at Becca and she was in mid routine but you'd never know it, her eyes were locked on me and her hatred burned from within.
Good. I still had plans for her.
As things began to die down, Sienna and I started to realize we were still hugging each other like our lives depended on it.
We pulled apart and laughed awkwardly, and I said, "Shoot, sorry about that ankle.”
“It’s okay,” she laughed, “it might not be as bad as I thought.”
We sat back down as the crowd started to disperse. I noticed the team coming back onto the field after they cooled down in the locker room and they huddled around their coach, listening to him discuss their victory.
I raised my eyebrows and looked at Sienna as Mason jogged over to Becca and pulled her into a huge hug followed by a deep kiss.
Life at Westview Academy sure was funny, just when I thought I had people figured out, Becca and Mason appeared to have teamed up.
Just another reason I had to act and get rid of her as soon as possible. With another person on her side, Becca would be more dangerous than ever.
Chapter 31
The rest of the weekend went quickly, so did the following week and the week after that. I fell into an easy rhythm with Becca avoiding me while I hung out with Sienna and sometimes the other cheerleaders, and spent time split between Whitt and Barrett.
Of course Barrett did have that home team advantage, living with me. I did my best to see Whitt when possible, but homework and family commitments got in the way sometimes so we texted at night and got to know each other that way.
My first impression of him had been right, he was funny, blunt, honest and loyal. Where Barrett was brooding and dark and made me feel like I was on shaky ground with him, Whitt was the opposite. I knew where I stood with Whitt at all times and I appreciated it.
On the family front, Dad and Elaine stopped making comments about the incident at the club. That's what both of them called it, the incident, but that's where their shared version of it ended.
Dad was still enraged that Taylor had tried to assault his little princess but at least he'd finally stopped looking at me like I was damaged goods or something.
He finally also stopped cutting me off when I told him how Becca had set it all up. He seemed to believe me a little more on that aspect, not that there was anything he could really do about it.
Elaine though, she hated me for it. I knew Taylor Dennis was the man she was having an affair with but I couldn't be a hundred percent certain. The only evidence I had existed in the evil looks she gave me whenever she had the chance.
She was good at it though, never giving me the evil eye when Dad was around. She always waited until we were alone, or nobody was looking.
It did make for awkward family dinners, but Barrett helped me make it through those with funny stories or even funnier looks while Elaine was talking.
After feeling weirdly guilty about what happened at the club, I forced myself to sit through family dinners to make Dad happy...besides, it actually did give me more time with Barrett.
Between school, football, and my catching up on some aspects of Westview Academy's tough curriculum that I'd missed in California, we didn't get to see each other as much as I’d like.
The family loyalty thing didn’t seem to go both ways though. Elaine and Dad seemed too busy to have anything to do with our school activities.
Midway through another week was another football game. I asked Elaine and Dad if they were going to make it, but both of them had given lame excuses to miss it. I decided to go of course, so I showed up and sat where I was before to enjoy the spectacle.
Marie and Agnes seemed to be leading the cheer squad with Becca taking more time out than usual.
Sienna limped up to sit with me again and we started talking until the game started.
It was just as exciting as before. I couldn’t believe the physical reaction I got watching my guys slam into the other team, use sheer force and physicality to get what they wanted. If I had a dick, I would have had such a boner after a few minutes of it.
Their primal energy exited me beyond belief and I felt heat building in my body as my eyes followed them around the field. I was soaking wet and had fantasy flashes of both of them using their physicality to have their ways with me.
During the halftime break Becca came out onto the field and settled in, watching me.
“What the fuck is her problem?” I asked Sienna when Becca wouldn’t look away.
“She probably wants a little girl-on-girl action with you,” Siena laughed and held her fingers to her mouth and stuck her tongue through the V and waggled it suggestively.
I laughed and pushed at her until she stopped and we giggled together.
Dr. Adams walked out onto the field and motioned to the coach. He walked over and the two men stood with their heads together in deep conversation.
I caught Whitt’s eye and raised my brows in query. He shrugged and shook his head.
Dr. Adams and the coach shook hands and Dr. Adams headed back through the tunnel under the stands, leaving the team on the field.
Becca looked over at me with a nasty gaze and I shuddered. She was up to something, my hair almost stood on end, I could sense something going on.
“This is weird,” I told Sienna. “I think Becca is up to no good.”
“She always is,” Sienna laughed. “But Dr. Adams normally never comes around, so that’s kinda weird.”
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The coach walked over to the bench and motioned to Barrett. My stomach sunk like a brick and I felt my pulse thread faster in my neck.
The coach started to talk to Barrett and it didn’t look good.
Barrett threw his helmet onto the field and gestured angrily, arguing with the coach, who yelled back at him.
Mason walked over and put his hand on Barrett’s chest, Barrett punched him in the stomach and Mason doubled over as Barrett stalked off the field.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked, but Sienna was as clueless as me.
I didn’t know what to do, if I should go after Barrett or stay and finish the game.
Becca’s smug face as Mason took Barrett’s spot helped me decide though.
I stood up, told Sienna I’d see her at school, and went running after Barrett.
Unfortunately he was nowhere to be found, and I was alone in the parking lot once again.
I didn’t want to go back in and watch the rest of the game though, it felt like a betrayal to Barrett if I watched Whitt on the field alone.
So I sat on the steps in front of the school and texted with mom and Reg for a while. It made me realize how much I missed them, how much I missed having caring parents in my life.
If Dad and Elaine were here, at least we could tackle this issue as a family but with them being so detached from us, Barrett and I were left to navigate the world on our own.
Whitt found me after the game was over and offered me a ride home. I stood up and agreed, thankful for his attention.
“He shouldn’t have just left you here,” he said when we climbed into his Range Rover.
“He’s upset. Do you know what happened?”
“Maybe he should tell you,” Whitt replied and headed towards my place.
No matter how much I asked him, he wouldn’t give me details of what went down.
I guess their bro code ran deep after all.
He pulled up in front of our place, put his vehicle in park and killed the engine.
“Listen, it’s not like I want to ice you out of the conversation, I just feel like this is something Barrett needs to tell you,” Whitt said.