give her my biggest smile, which gets a look of surprise from Felicity. I guess she hasn’t seen this side of me in a while. I’m probably going to hear about it when I get back to the Afterlife, but for now, it feels nice to use my power for good.
A heartbeat later, Felicity is giving me a smile of her own and this one is dripping with annoyance and a warning. “No,” she says. If you ask me, her voice is a little sharp and tight, and I’m not the only one who notices. A couple of people at the table are looking back and forth between the two of us. “I have a study session later. It’s on my way.”
Since when does Felicity have study sessions? The girl breezes through high school on her pouty lips and a file of tests left over from her sister’s high school days. “It’s no problem,” I assure her. “This way, I’ll have all the documents I need and I can hand it over to the school bookkeeper in the morning.”
The room is silent. Now everyone’s eyes are darting between Felicity and me. No one stands up to the queen. It’s the first unwritten, deny-if-someone-ever-calls-you-on-it rule of popularity. “Give me the card,” she hisses.
I look at her, my gaze steady as I say, “No.”
I didn’t think the room could get any quieter. I was wrong.
“What did you say?” Felicity asks. She’s practically foaming at the mouth.
I push my chair back and stand up, squaring off my shoulders. “I said, no.”
I expect her to sprint around the table like a barracuda. But she surprises me and stands still, except for her face. Under the surface, her muscles twitch and contort as she tries to remain cool and calm. “Give me the card, RJ, or I swear, I’ll tell everyone.”
And there it is. The warning that should force me back into my seat after handing her what she wants. But I’m not going to take it. Not when I’ve come so close to getting my life back. “Tell them what?” I dare her. “That my mom is having an affair? Call me crazy, but I’d be shocked if you haven’t already told everyone in this room.” A quick glance around the table confirms my suspicion. They’re all looking anywhere but at me.
The surprise of calling her bluff only lasts a minute before Felicity is on the offense. “Now it’s just a matter of time before the whole school finds out. But I think I’ll start with a call to your dad. I’m sure he would love to hear about the extra activities your mom’s been indulging in.”
“That’s not my problem,” I say with a shrug. “She’s the one who has to answer for her actions, not me.” And with that one statement, this has become a battle between two queens. One who’s fighting to hold on to what she has and one who has nothing to lose. If I don’t change things now, Felicity will finish school and become a trophy wife to some loser ex-jock and I’ll be in limbo for who knows how long. I just hope I don’t live to regret challenging her. I don’t want my dad to find out about my mom from Felicity, but I can’t allow her to have any power over me anymore.
“Listen, Felicity, just let it go. Let me go. You don’t like me. I don’t like you. Your power to make me miserable is gone. Let’s just call this a parting of ways and move on. Life is too short to spend in a passive aggressive cage match with each other.”
She lets out a cackle that sounds like the call of the starving baboons they show on Animal Planet. “I should have left you in squalor with your low life friends. But I felt sorry for you. You went from ruling this school to barely being noticed.”
“Do you really believe I think you took pity on me?” I scoff. “My friends, my real friends, are not losers. In fact, the only loser I see is you. You had to blackmail me in order to have someone willing to do your dirty work. But you know what?” I ask, watching her face turn fifty shades of red.
“What?” she seethes.
“I’m better than that. I realize now that I don’t need fear to get people to do what I want.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” she spits back. “No one fears me. Everyone here loves me.”
I cross my arms