note of excitement. “You’re a fucking rock star! That shit Saturday night…fuck, you’re hardcore.”
“Hardcore,” I repeat like a parrot, completely lost.
“You totally told that shithead, Liam Fitzgerald and his fucking brother. Read them both for filth.” Dante smiles, his cheeks tinged red with a blush. Again.
“Shit, that’s not even my favorite part,” Brantley steps in. “When you slapped that asshole across the face…”
He starts clapping, eyes so wide, they look like saucers. “Shit, he tried to play it off but hot damn, girl, you embarrassed the hell out of him.”
Okay. I blink several times. Of all the things I was prepared to face today…
“Fuck, did you see the way St. Jude crew just froze, like they couldn’t fucking believe that their little golden boys were reduced to nothing by one of ours?” Brantley goes on.
“You heard?” I question. Hell, I didn’t even see these two there.
“Well, we didn’t hear everything, just when you were circling him, getting in his face like the fucking badass you are,” Dante replies softly, watching me. The guy just cursed. I’m impressed.
“Wait, there were people recording?” I question. It’s then that Brantley looks royally pissed.
“I don’t know how they did it, but everyone’s phone was taken by those thugs. I assume to delete all the footage but then shit went down with Fitz’s car. It wasn’t until Sunday night that everyone who was there got their phones back. It was total chaos.”
“You got your phones back on Sunday?”
Well damn. I don’t know whether to be impressed or to be pissed off with Julian and his friends for hiding all the evidence that they came for me. If it ever comes down to it, it would be my word against theirs and I’m not so sure I’d get a word in, even with all this support I think I have.
Something tells me the Fitz brothers have more fire power than I could ever imagine.
“Yeah, can you imagine that shit? Not having a phone for that many hours, especially when I wanted to see if the world of social media was buzzing about a Fitzgerald death.” Brantley seethes. “The fucking asshole isn’t dead, though. You heard about that?”
“Yeah, I did.” My throat grows dry like I swallowed sand.
“Mia!” Someone shouts ahead of me. Pushing her way through the crowd that’s looking at me, nodding, clapping and whistling, I see Kristine rushing towards me.
“Here come the clout chasers,” Dante says so low under his breath, if I wasn’t walking beside him, I would have missed it.
“What?” I look at him, but he shakes his head, surprised that I heard him over the ruckus in the main hallway.
“Nothing,” he says, not meeting my eyes.
Hmm, clout chasers?
“Mia! Oh my gosh, girl!” she shrieks, and I wince. “You are all everyone’s talking about.”
“I see that,” I mumble, looking around. I walk down the hallway, with jocks calling my name as I pass and the added headache-inducing noise of these idiots banging on lockers.
“All hail, Mia the fucking savage queen!”
“Hey, Mia. I’m fucking proud of you!”
Proud of me?
“Y’all bitches better bow down. No one has ever made the Fitz brothers shiver with a savage read like that!”
“Mia, can you be my girlfriend?”
“Marry me, Mia! The Fitz brothers won’t stand a chance.”
“Way to go in telling them off!”
It doesn’t come as a surprise that all these hollers and hoots are coming from guys.
The girls are silently applauding, with menacing frowns on their faces as they stare at me with even more hate than before. I promise you, if looks could kill… But, it’s just high school.
“You know, after Lit class last week, I really thought you were hashtag TeamFitz, but now, I think I owe you a Brantley apology, girl.” Brantley swings his arm over my shoulders, squeezing me to his sweaty body. “I’m sorry, Mia. I will never suspect you or question your loyalty to Clintwood ever.”
That makes my stomach drop.
Brantley moves away from me then starts doing lame handshakes with his teammates, leaving me to walk toward my locker.
How can people be this excited and high over what happened to me Friday night? They didn’t hear the shit that Liam said, let alone Julian’s gruesome, toe-curling promises of retribution in my ear. They don’t know just how personal the war between us is and here they are, thinking I did it for the damn school?
The jocks are all ridiculously happy, they think Saturday was a victory, so why then aren’t they appalled about the accident?