My Know-It-All Nemesis - Maggie Dallen Page 0,10
limits are. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
His glare matched mine. “I guess I don’t. Here I’d always thought you were above lying to win votes. Guess I was wrong.”
I held my breath to hold in a scream. “How dare you? I’ve never lied.”
“You’re throwing out ideas you know very well will never happen,” he shot back. “Maybe that’s not outright lying, but you’re splitting hairs, Kate.”
I huffed, annoyingly at a loss for words. I wasn’t lying to people. I wasn’t! I had every intention of trying to make some changes that would make everyone happy. Was I sure I could do it?
No. Not necessarily.
But I hadn’t promised results, just efforts.
Ugh. Yeah, okay fine. Even in my own head, the justification sounded weak. But that didn’t stop me from fighting back. When it came to Miller, nothing could keep me from fighting back.
His expression was one of such disdain it made it hard to breathe. “You’re fighting dirty,” Miller said. “It’s beneath you.”
I slammed my hands on his desk as rage overrode that niggling guilt that said maybe he was right. I might not have made outright promises, but I did have a reputation for getting things done. My word was good in this school...and I was about to trade in on that in order to win votes. A sick sense of guilt and shame slithered through my intestines.
Even so, his judgy stare made me fume. “How dare you accuse me of fighting dirty?” I snapped.
His eyes went wide with innocence. Ignorance, at the very least. “What are you talking about?”
“You,” I said. “And that stupid party.”
He looked so confused I almost laughed.
“My Halloween party? What about it?”
I let out a sigh of exasperation. “What about it?” I echoed, my tone taunting as I mocked him. “It’s all anyone is talking about. It’s the biggest party of the semester.”
His eyes widened in surprise. Please. He couldn’t possibly be that dumb. He did almost as well as I did in every class, he wasn’t an idiot—much as I hated to admit it.
After a second he leaned forward with narrowed eyes. “What are you trying to say, Kate?”
“You’re throwing the biggest party of the fall right as you announce your candidacy,” I said slowly. “What do you think I’m saying?”
His expression made my stomach clench. I’d seen a lot of looks from him. Disdain, often. Mockery, always. His knowing smirk? That was a constant. But this...he looked almost…
No, he couldn’t be hurt.
“You seriously think I’m trying to win people over with this party?” he asked.
I glanced away for a second because his glare was hard to hold. It was demanding an answer, and when he put it like that…
I shrugged. “Maybe not outright, but don’t tell me you’re not aware of the effect. You have your rich parents throw some huge party for the whole class, and they look at you and see wealth, power, and fun.” I matched him sneer for sneer as we both leaned in. “You’re trying to buy the election. Again.”
He shook his head. “It’s just a party.”
I tilted my head to the side. I saw his mind reeling, I watched the same flare of guilt as he realized I was right.
“Just a party, huh? Same week that we announce our candidacies? Now who’s splitting hairs?”
He eyed me for a while. “Careful, Gidget. Almost sounds like you’re jealous.”
I jerked back as if I’d been struck. Jealous? Of him? But the horror of that accusation was replaced by fury because...that nickname. I’d been hearing it from everyone this week. Of course, he was the one who’d started it. When I’d returned to school on Monday, I’d waited for the teasing about the uniform. I mean, I had been wearing a chicken hat. A little mockery was to be expected.
Instead, everyone had latched onto Miller’s comments about how I look like I came from a different era, and then the nicknames started. I’d heard Sandy from Grease, and a bunch of old, patronizing terms of endearments like baby-doll and sweetheart, but it was Gidget that stuck.
Which was stupid because if any of these idiots had actually seen the movie, they’d know she was a surfer. Sure, it was a movie from the fifties, and maybe my penchant for Peter Pan collars and full skirts had gone too far, but that was where all ties ended.
He met my glare unabashedly, the jerk.
“I knew you were behind that nickname,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Actually, I had no part in perpetuating