‘how the hell did this happen’ rather than ‘these are all the answers Edith is hoping to hear,’ you know?”
“Yeah, that would have been awfully convenient,” I murmured. “Yet another mystery to unravel.”
“Hey.” Eddy tapped the table to get my attention back from my conspiracy theories. “More important topics. Are we having a house warming at your sweet new pad?”
She was beaming with excitement, and I couldn’t help laughing. “And invite who? Did you forget you’re my only friend, aside from Dante?”
Her expression turned cagey, and I knew it was because of their brief romance. “How is he? Jasper mentioned something about him being in a fight?”
My mood soured significantly and I scowled in Jasper’s direction. “Something like that,” I agreed. “He’s okay, though. Just ... steering clear of all this shit for a bit.”
I’d texted him between classes and told him about my new place. He badly wanted to come by and check it out, but I wanted him nowhere near any of the Delta bullshit. Look where it had landed him last time.
“Come on,” I said, stuffing the last mouthful of pasta in my mouth. “Let’s get out of here before I catch a plate of spaghetti on my head or something terribly clichéd like that.”
She laughed, following me to drop our dirty trays. “There wasn’t even any spaghetti on the menu today, so that’d be impressive!”
“There are resourceful bullies at the rich kid academy.”
Apparently, I was dabbling in foresight because the afternoon was just as irritating—and creative—as the morning had been. As hard as it was, I kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself throughout all of it. Lashing out at silly high school bullies wouldn’t solve shit. My issues were with Beck, and they weren’t going to magically solve themselves overnight. So in the meantime I would simply ignore, ignore, ignore until—hopefully—the bullies got bored.
10
After school I rushed straight home. I needed to, in order to shower off the chocolate sauce and feathers crusted into my hair. At least it hadn’t been something totally gross like fish guts or dog shit. Still, the expensive sort of chocolate sauce they’d used had hardened into clumps, and even as I ran my shower to warm the water up, I was cringing at the thought of picking it all out. Maybe I could just crank the heat up and let it melt out?
My phone buzzed on the vanity, and I gave it a death glare. Considering Eddy had just dropped me off and Dante had said he was “doing shit” tonight, it could only be Beck. I mean, sure, it could have been Jasper or any of the other guys but my Spidey sense screamed Beck. Especially when it buzzed again a scarce thirty seconds later. Then again. And again.
“Fuck off.” I groaned, ignoring the vibrating device and stepping into the massive double shower.
I took my sweet ass time in the shower, opting for the melt-it-out technique, so by the time I got out, my fingers were pruned and the bathroom was thick with steam.
“Woops, forgot the fan,” I murmured to myself, feeling just a tiny stab of guilt that this was technically my apartment that I was potentially water damaging. It probably wasn’t something rich people ever noticed but my Mom had been a stickler for using the fan when we showered. Mold and buckling from moisture were expenses we couldn’t afford.
My phone flashed its annoying little light at me while I towel dried my hair, and I glared at it. I should just change my number. That was the sane thing to do, right? When you got played by a sociopathic nutcase who now won’t leave you alone, you changed your number. It was only smart.
And yet, my fingers were itching to check those damn messages.
“Nope, no moments of weakness for this chick,” I scolded myself, quickly picking my phone up and rapidly swiping all of the unread messages into the trash. It was safer than leaving them there begging to be read when I couldn’t sleep later.
I dried off and dressed in my comfiest pajamas, then ordered my very first pizza to my very own apartment. Okay, technically it was Richard Deboise on the deed, but he’d made it clear that he was putting my name into some clause that would see it transfer to me on my eighteenth birthday ... only three weeks away.
When I’d eaten half my body weight in pizza and dusted off a full family sized bottle of coke, I