A Bad Boy Stole My Bra

by Lauren Price

  Violet is sitting beside me on a desk, swinging her Doc Martens below her. She’s more excited than she should be about this. Then again, she’s always loved the idea of defeating the social hierarchy – and if anyone personifies that very thing it’s Tiana.

  “Are you nervous?” Dylan asks me, approaching with a shy smile.

  “A little bit,” I admit. “Not so much about the confrontation – about why she hates me so much. She’s gone to great lengths to make me feel like an outcast. She must have a reason.” I release a breath. The story between me and Tiana is anything but simple. Toby cheated on me with her. He left the both of us to go to Chicago with no warning, leaving the mess of his mistakes behind. I have every right to hate her, but what right does she have to hate me? As far as I’m concerned all she’s done is cause me pain.

  “You’re right, she must have a reason,” Chase agrees. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a justified one.”

  “Guys.” Joe smirks. “If we make her sit down, I could so put a whoopee cushion on her chair. Or, if you’re into some more hardcore stuff, there’s always superglue. I’ve got some in my locker. Maybe gluing her to the chair will bring her down to earth.”

  “Dude.” Chase laughs, fist-bumping his friend.

  “No whoopee cushions, no superglue,” Violet says, twisting her nose stud.

  She has her game face on.

  “What’s taking Alec so long?” Joe whines. “He’s so bad at this seduction game.”

  I begin to laugh at this, just as Tiana pushes into the room with Alec behind her. We all hush the moment she walks in. It takes her a second to realise exactly what she’s been pushed into, but by the time she turns round and tries to escape, Alec is standing blocking her exit with a smug expression on his face. I sense Violet stand up. It’s time.

  “You jerk!” Tiana hisses in outrage, glaring at Alec. “I can’t believe you tricked me. Let me out right now!”

  “Now, now, that’s not very nice.” Chase chuckles.

  He sounds so creepy, like a Disney villain or something.

  Tiana goes still at the sound of his voice before turning slowly to face us all. She looks more dishevelled than her usual ice-queen appearance. Her eyes rest on me, and her face contorts with rage. “Riley, what do you think you’re doing with them? So help me, I’ll tell everyone – ”

  “Tell everyone what?” I interrupt, pulse racing. “That I was the reason my cousin died? Go ahead. I can face it.” Her eyes flicker between us all. She’s figured out by now that they all know my secret. I share a look with Alec, who’s leaning against the door with his arms crossed. She is completely blocked in.

  “You seem to think they won’t care.” Tiana steps forward and raises her arms in exaggerated gestures. “If what you did gets out, you’re screwed. Everyone will exile you. So I suggest you rethink whatever plan you and your ‘buddies’ have concocted and keep your head down.”

  “No one will exile her – because we’ll stand by her,” Toby says quietly. “I won’t let that happen. I’ll tell everyone you’re just an attention-seeker. Maybe you deserve that, after all the bullying you’ve done to other people.”

  I glance at Toby with respect, glad to see that he isn’t just thinking about me. That girl Chelsea, who was kissing Alec when Tiana humiliated her? She was kicked off her basketball team because Tiana had a word with her family on the school board. There are other people too, people who have crossed Tiana and lost. She’s selfish and a bully and she thinks she has free rein over us all. That needs to end.

  “Even if you did tell everyone.” I step forward. “Even if the worst of everything happened, I wouldn’t care, because being disrespected by the whole school is better than disrespecting myself enough to allow you to push me around. I know I did an awful thing, with awful consequences, but still I’m better than that.”

  Something lightens in my chest as I speak the words aloud, and I’m not just convincing myself anymore. It’s true. I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse than some snide comments from strangers. Violet grips my hands and squeezes. I can tell she’s proud of me for saying that, and so am I.

  “Are you, Riley? You think you’re better than everyone, don’t you?” Tiana is clutching at straws now; I can see it by the look in her eyes.

  “Says you,” Violet points out.

  “Fine, fair enough,” Tiana snaps. “Yes, sometimes I put others down to push myself up, but that’s life. It’s all very well for you to stand here now and judge me for what I’ve done to Riley, but none of you know what I’ve been through to put me in this position. Do you know why I want to isolate her?” Tiana stares at us individually. “Do you?”

  “No,” I say. “So tell us.”

  “You.” Her eyes are cold and fixed onto mine, freezing a path of ice down the back of my throat and through my veins. She fills me with dread, even when I know she’s got nothing on me any more. “I wanted to make you feel isolated, because that’s how I’ve felt my entire life. There was a time, last year, when I met a boy in a coffee shop. He made me feel less alone. We talked, and for the first time in my life, someone seemed to understand me, to have respect for me. We had sex, and I fell in love.” She glances at Toby, accusatorily. “Only, when I told him this, he panicked. He told me that he was already seeing a girl and that he was in love with her. Then he ran off to Chicago.”

  Toby. Toby, no.

  I gawk at Toby, only to see him staring down at the floor mutely. He should be ashamed. His actions didn’t just hurt me, or Kaitlin. They hurt her too.

  “I was alone then,” Tiana hisses. “I accepted that, but I always hated you, Riley, for taking away my shot at happiness. Then guess what happened? Alec arrived. I spoke to him in class, and I liked him. He was the first guy to notice the fact that I’m actually really smart. He asked me why whenever the teacher asked me a question, I’d get it wrong, yet I’d always have the right answer written on the page below me. He noticed!”

  She looks behind her at Alec, and I watch her expression soften. Then she turns back to me.

  “And then” – Tiana scowls – “I heard that you and Alec were a thing.”

  I can do nothing more but look at her, dumbfounded. My mouth doesn’t have the capacity to shape words. My brain can’t function. I had no idea Tiana felt like that. It can’t have been easy for her. However, I can’t shake the feeling that nothing is an excuse to treat people the way she has. She wants to make the world miserable just because she is, and the stuff she just told me isn’t a reason to hate me. It’s an excuse to. I can see why I’m the ultimate person to blame, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve done anything wrong to her.

  “Have you looked at things from Riley’s point of view?” Violet asks, walking towards Tiana with a cold expression on her face. She’s going to make an amazing lawyer someday. “Because, if you did, you’d realise that the object of your hatred has done nothing to personally offend you. She lost her cousin this time last year. She’s been through pain too, and yet you don’t see her treating you like crap, despite the fact that you were the reason Toby cheated on her.”

  Tiana glares. “That’s not my fault; I didn’t know.”

  “I know you didn’t, but that’s not the point,” Violet argues. “The point is that pain is no justification to treat people badly. It’s all well and good to tell us all how difficult your love life has been, but if you removed your head from your ass long enough to look around, you’d see that everyone deals with some horrible stuff, and you can’t blame Riley for everything bad that’s happened in your life.”

  I see the rage ignite in Tiana.

  “You’re all blind,” Tiana hisses. “She’s blinded all of you.”

  “Just shut up,” Violet hisses right back.

  Dylan reaches for Violet’s hand. Joe is suddenly by my side, bumping my shoulder lightly. Alec’s arms uncross and he’s looking at me. As all this goes on, Tiana stands, blinking in shock. A realisation seems to dawn on her as sh
e watches all of these interactions go on around her. She looks around, and all she can see are our relationships. Friendships. Bonds.

  “I hate you all,” she says softly. “I hate you.”

  Then she turns, shoves Alec out of the way and storms out of the classroom.

  23

  Cootie Brownies

  “Alec, I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”

  I frown down at the pale lumpy gloop in the bowl and the sight makes me gag. I guess this is karma for making brownies freestyle, without using a recipe. I’m pretty sure that chocolate brownies are supposed to be made with cocoa powder, and they’re not supposed to have clumps of butter swimming around in them. We didn’t have any cocoa powder, so Alec improvised by using Horlicks – a bizarre powdered drink that tastes kind of like a hundred-year-old diluted chocolate bar. The result doesn’t look good.

  “Me neither.” He frowns. “But I’m sure it will taste good. Should we add more sugar just in case?”

  “Alec. You added enough sugar to make all your teeth fall out with one bite,” I deadpan, coughing a little bit at the end of the sentence. In reaction, Alec swiftly takes the bowl from me, frowning and covering the mixture to protect it. He and I are currently attempting to make brownies to feed Millie and Jack, who we are supposed to be babysitting. Even though I suggested good old sandwiches, Alec wanted to “live a little on the edge” and make brownies. If the brownies do come out as bricks, the fault is entirely his.

  “Don’t cough near the brownie mix, Riley!” he whines in a playful voice, shielding the bowl from me as though it’s a baby or something. “No one likes cootie brownies.”

  “Cootie brownies?” I cough out a laugh. “I apologise if I’m allergic to your bullshit. Let’s stick the mix in the oven and maybe it will turn out better than it looks now.” I wrinkle my nose dubiously at the mixture as he pours it into the tin. I don’t think Alec believes me. Heck, I don’t even believe me. That mixture looks like something a very old cat would puke up.

  Ew, I don’t want to think about that right now.

  It’s been a couple of weeks since the confrontation with Tiana and things are almost back to normal. Almost. I’m sitting with my friends again in school, and I can’t explain how much of a relief that is. I feel a lot happier now, happier probably than I’ve ever been thanks to my mind feeling looser, less constrained. I even messaged Tiana to tell her if she ever wanted to talk about stuff that I’d be there for her. She didn’t reply of course, but the offer is there. Nobody should feel completely alone, no matter what terrible things they’ve done.

  I would be lying if I said that it’s like nothing has changed. Something has formed between Alec and I, a kind of awkwardness. Now all the obstacles have disappeared, it’s like we don’t know what to do with ourselves. I’ll catch him looking at me, but the minute I do he’ll look away.

  I’ve been trying to keep the conversation light and nothing too heavy, but it’s beginning to worry me. Did he ever really like me in the first place, or were we just friends after all? If he did, does he still like me now?

  “Done.” Alec slams the oven shut with a flourish. “Fifteen minutes should do, right? I guess we should probably start cleaning up.”

  I turn to survey the kitchen. It’s not that bad. There’s a little bit of flour on the floor, and Alec accidentally dropped an egg, but apart from that the damage is fairly minimal. I glance over at the open bag of flour, suddenly having an idea. Yeah, it’s pretty obvious what I’m planning to do.

  “Sure,” I murmur, leaning over to grab a handful of flour behind my back. Alec bends down to put the baking powder back (that we used five teaspoons of – I hope that’s enough), and as he straightens up again I catapult the handful of white powder straight into his face. It’s only as I throw the flour at him that I realise I have done so with too much enthusiasm . . .

  “What the actual –” Alec yells. “Why did you punch me?” He inhales sharply at the pain, breathing in the flour that I’ve thrown all over his mouth before he dissolves into an insane coughing fit, clouds of white billowing everywhere. I watch the situation, my jaw comfortably resting on the floor. Oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. You’ve done it now, Riley.

  I take a risky step back. Alec’s gaze snaps up to mine as he coughs away the last puff of flour, and his eyes narrow dangerously. I just punched him in the nose and almost suffocated him. If looks could kill, I would be six feet under right now. On the bright side, he looks like a snowman. You’d have thought it would be hard to take him seriously at this point, but the look Alec is giving me is deadly.

  I am so screwed, I’m practically a screwdriver.

  “Oh, that’s it.” Alec’s voice is hard as stone now, his eyes never leaving mine. I watch in horror as he plucks an egg from the carton. We all know what’s coming next. My head is screaming at me to run but my feet don’t obey, and in less than a second Alec’s hand comes down on top of my head with a loud splat. The egg gunk runs down my face and I close my eyes in disgust as I feel it dripping through my hair, cold and slimy. Alec begins to laugh.

  “Ew,” I squeal. “Grasshole.”

  “Well at least I didn’t punch you when I did it.” He smirks, slinging his arm over my shoulder. “Come on, we better get this cleaned up before my mom gets back.” He releases me to grab the remaining utensils that are strewn across the counter, giving me a horribly clichéd pang of sadness at the loss of contact. Ah, I’m so cringey. I take the mop from him, following as he lugs the bucket over to the sink to fill it. Water runs from the faucet and splashes angrily into the bucket, filling with bubbles when the washing-up liquid is added.

  “I’m gonna need to go home and shower again,” I complain, running my fingers through the goo and shell in my hair. “I already showered this morning.”

  In response, Alec scoops up some of the bubbles from the bucket and sloshes them against my cheek. “No need.”

  I’m about to scoop up my own revenge and splash his face with it when we’re interrupted by the sudden ring of his mobile. It’s easy to recognise his ringtone – it’s My Chemical Romance.

  Alec frowns, fumbling in his pocket and pulling out a sleek expensive model. He presses the button and checks the caller ID, face puckered with confusion. However, as he registers the words on the screen, he instantly presses the “end call” button and puts his phone on the counter. His eyes won’t meet mine as he takes the mop from me again, and his skin has paled. What is wrong with him?

  “Who was that?”

  “My dad,” Alec mutters after a few seconds.

  “Your dad?”

  My voice is masked with surprise. To be perfectly honest, I’ve never delved properly into that topic with Alec. I know the basics – his dad left them when he found out Marie was bisexual – but I never realised he kept in contact. It makes me feel incredibly self-absorbed for dumping all my problems on Alec when I hardly know a thing about his issues. I watch him as he concentrates remarkably hard on cleaning one particular tile.

  “Alec, are you okay?” I ask, not really knowing what to say to him.

  “Mhmm,” he replies curtly.

  An awkward silence falls. If he doesn’t want to tell me, he doesn’t have to, I remind myself. Still, I can’t help but compare it to everything that I’ve told him, and I feel my insides shrink a little in disappointment. Evidently, I’ve not quite broken Alec’s walls down yet.

  “Riley,” he sighs.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry, I just . . . I find this difficult, okay?”

  I turn to look at him. “You don’t have to explain yourself, Alec. I know what it’s like to want to protect your vulnerability. It’s okay.”

  “My dad is a dick,” Alec states plainly. “There is nothing else to it. Yes, he tries to keep in contact with me. Emails, phone calls. Yes, he pays child support . . . but he completely ignores my mom. He hasn’t spoken to her since the day he left. He doesn’t want anything to do with her, a
nd as a result, I don’t want anything to do with him.” He sighs again, realising that he’s splashed water all over the floor in the midst of his rant.

  “I don’t blame you,” I finally say. I know that he doesn’t want to talk much more about it. It must be so difficult for him, to be so detached from his father. I know what it’s like to feel a little disconnected, but at least I’m still on relatively good terms with my dad. I can’t help but wonder if my mom was right – that maybe Alec’s trouble with his dad has made him insecure, has made him less able to trust.

  I take the mop from Alec and begin to clean the water he’s spilled. We’re almost finished now, and then we’ve just got the counters to clean before we can change clothes and make ourselves presentable again. The egg trail left on my neck is drying by the second – cracking and crumbling every time I move. Bubbles pop on my cheek.

  A comfortable silence rests on us. I glance over to Alec and he appears deep in thought, so I just hum his ringtone under my breath and continue to scrub the tiles. All I can smell is egg from my clothes and hair, and it’s hard to keep a straight face when Alec’s eyebrows are flecked with flour. How does he manage to look good even when he’s covered in flour? I’m sure I look a total mess.

  “Riley,” Alec says after a minute, very quietly. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?” I look up, surprised to see that he’s watching me. “Mop the floor?”

  “No.” His eyes burn into mine – deeper than an ocean, and frankly much prettier as well. His voice is serious and awed, unlike my teasing tones. “You just . . . you know exactly what to say to me. How to manage me. I tell you about my dad and how I don’t want to speak to him, and you just . . . you just understand. You don’t push me to try to get a better relationship with him, you don’t pry or ask too many questions. You listen, and you know what I need in the moment. How?”