pervert is as neutered as Donald Asher. Regardless, we stop by his place on the way back to Oak Valley, just to see if he has anything interesting to tell us. If Sara Young wonders why we stopped by his place, eh. I’m sure we can find an easy way to explain it away.
The principal of Prescott High—yes, still the principal, even during this period of online schooling—stares at the six of us in his living room like we’ve just walked in infected with the plague. His eyes dart from Aaron to Victor to me, and then drop to the floor where they remain for most of our conversation.
“Anything else interesting you want to tell us?” Vic queries politely, relaxing on Vaughn’s couch and studying him in just such a way that he’s to be reminded to whom he belongs. Already, he’s told us all about the broken online system they’re using for the Prescott student body, how flawed it is, how much Ms. Keating despises it.
That information infuriates me to no end. Like, how is it fair that a school shooting is costing these kids even a meager chance at an education? It isn’t fucking fair and as soon as Vic has his money, we’re going to do something about it. Mark my words.
Vaughn whimpers, his injured hand clutched tightly against his chest. There are clean nubs where his fingers used to be. No way in hell this man had anything to do with setting Stacey up—he has even less backbone than he does fingers.
“Ms. Keating keeps asking about you,” Vaughn offers up, looking at me specifically. He hands me a business card with a personal number written in pen on the back. “You’re so cloistered up in that school, she hasn’t been able to get ahold of you. She asked if I’d seen you around or if I might be able to give this to you.”
“Good boy,” Vic praises, like he’s rewarding a stray dog with a scrap. “You’ve been well-behaved, Vaughn. I’m impressed.”
Scott Vaughn, the man who tried to convince me to be a cam girl for him, just shrinks in on himself in such a way that I’m reminded of Donald. Another monster reduced to rubble at the feet of bigger, better monsters.
It’s cathartic, it really is.
Havoc has delivered everything they promised me and then some.
I add Ms. Keating’s number to my phone and then tuck the card in my pocket.
And even if Principal Vaughn is nothing but a leftover stain from an old and painful life, one who has little to no information to give us about the school or anything else for that matter, I’m glad we stopped by because this is how I end up inviting the Vice Principal to my motherfucking high school graduation.
I’d invite the cop, too, you know. That is, if she weren’t already planning on coming.
With the weeks flowing through our fingers like quicksand, the Havoc Boys and I settle into a routine. We get up in the morning and drink coffee together, casually walk in the direction of the girls’ part of the school so we can see them, and they can see us, but nobody will know that we’re related.
Sometimes, I just push my sweats down at night and bend over so all five boys can use me, fucking me one after the other to slake my insatiable thirst and make sure that I’m taking care of theirs. Last week, Aaron asked if that bothered me, if I felt like I was being used.
I laughed and told him the truth: we all use each other, Aaron, but we all need each other, too. It’s perfect. What we do is perfect.
Standing in the kitchen now, I bounce on my toes and try not to think too hard about this morning when I bent over and put my palms on the wall of windows, spreading my legs for all five boys before class. Jesus.
A smile teases my lips as I blast Cardi B—I’ve decided I’m, like, her but in poor white trash form—and swing my hips to “Bodak Yellow” which is still my favorite of her songs though “WAP” is a close second. Embedded in the same playlist, I’ve got plenty of Megan Thee Stallion.
“Bernie,” Aaron murmurs, kissing the side of my neck and palming my ass. I slap him away but only for show. In reality, I crave his touch the way the ocean craves the shore. Even when it retreats, it always comes back; it simply can’t