didn’t lose—”
“Truth, it’s okay.”
I shake my head.
She bends down and picks something up off the floor. Then she takes my hand. “Let’s go use my vanity.”
“No, it’s fine, really.”
She holds up the box she picked up. “I bought this round brush dryer thing. I wanted to try it on your hair and see if it lives up to the hype.”
The round brush blow dryer was something I looked at online. She must have seen me checking it out.
“Come on; let me do your hair.”
After being buzzed in, I walk down the main corridor, the Hall of Achievements, as they call it, wearing a boot, because I have a severely bruised ankle bone. I begged Mom to let me keep it off during school hours because, let’s be honest, I need no help drawing attention to myself.
The framed musical posters have been removed, and in their place is information for the junior prom and different sporting schedules.
It’s eerily quiet in the empty hall without the normal chatter and squeaking shoes of students and administrators. I should like it—not running into anyone—but I don’t.
I pass the middle school hallway, which smells of pubescent students’ rank pits and smelly sneakers, masked with perfumes and colognes, even though it’s not as pungent as our old school. The ninth and tenth grade wings aren’t half as bad, unless you happen to use the bathroom during shark week, when everyone’s period seems to sync. Not that the upperclassman bathrooms are much better, but at least they have a firmer grip on hygiene.
When I get to the doors leading to the courtyard that I have to cross in order to get to the upperclassman area of the school, someone calls my name from behind.
I look back and see Tobias Easton walking quickly toward me.
“Fuck off,” I huff as I push the door open and hurry out of it.
When I feel my backpack get jacked back, I turn around and look up at him. “I don’t know who the fuck you think—”
He pulls me toward him, and the door slams behind me. “You’re a fucking detriment to yourself and an annoyance to me.”
I push his hands off my hips. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
He narrows his eyes. “Or what?”
I pull my phone from my pocket, hit my messenger then the Steel crew group chat, and hold up my phone. “I’ll have four guys here to show you or what.”
“I just saved your ass from getting busted by the door, and you’re gonna be a bitch?”
“Wouldn’t have needed to be saved if you didn’t jack me back, and it wouldn’t have needed to be saved the other night if you and your little posse hadn’t invited me to see your little show,” I spit.
“Don’t kid yourself; I didn’t invite you anywhere. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty fucking sure I told you to stay the hell away from me.”
“Don’t kid yourself; I never came looking for you.”
“You broke into my house.”
“Your door wasn’t locked,” I snap.
“You took pictures of my fight.”
“Like hell I did!”
“Prove it,” he hisses.
“Prove it?” I huff.
“Show me your phone.”
“Fuck you,” I say as I start to turn around.
When he jacks my phone from my hand and turns his back to me, I reach around him to grab it back, but he holds it out farther.
“Jesus, I’ve never seen so many selfies in my fucking life.”
“I’m a freaking teenager; that’s what teenagers do.” I walk around him, but he holds the phone up too high for me to reach.
“Where are the fucking pictures?”
“I told you I didn’t take any damn pictures. Now give me my phone or I swear I’ll—”
“Text your crew?” he says, shaking my phone back and forth tauntingly.
“I’ll kick you in the nuts, and if you don’t think I can, think again. Your minuscule target is no match for my big boot.”
He looks down. “Fuck.”
“Don’t worry; no one knows where it happened, besides Patrick and Brisa, so feel free to stop sending texts asking me about my head—or was it my leg?—and then getting butt hurt when I don’t reply. And then … and then sending your little ponies to text bomb threats. I’m not afraid of you, or any of them.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
“Oh, please.”
“Do I look like I’m fucking around? What are you talking about?”
I’ve had enough.
“I didn’t take pictures, you … asshole. I had my phone out, taking notes.”
“This is no joke, Truth,” he spits my name as if it’s venom poisoning his mouth.
I snatch my phone back