Unscripted - Nicole Kronzer Page 0,85

boneless, but the move just infuriated Ben more.

“Stand UP, bitch,” he demanded, digging his fingers even deeper into my forearms. Whimpering from the pain, I listened.

Jake and Cade remained silent—why weren’t they saying anything? How could they stand by and watch all this happen? But somehow, they also couldn’t turn away—they were rooted in place like an I-don’t-want-to-get-involved deer in the something-is-seriously-wrong headlights.

Jesse moaned and tried to get back up again.

“Does your little Boy Scout boyfriend know about us?” Ben taunted me. “Does he know you’ve been cheating on him with me?”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but at that moment, the Pauls rushed out of the door, led by High Ropes Jake, just in time to hear Ben demand, “Does he know what a little slut you are?”

“Ben!” Paul DeLuca shouted.

Turning around in shock, Ben dropped my arms, so I grabbed his shoulder to force him back to face me, then spectacles-testicled him, and he collapsed to the ground.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Paul DeLuca stood over Paul Paulsen’s shoulder in their office, reading my itemized list of Ben and Ben-sanctioned offenses. Paul DeLuca kept shaking his head. “Paul, she told you about Ben this morning, and you sent her back into the fray?”

He rubbed his hands over his head again and again. “I didn’t realize—Ben told me she had a crush on him and—” He put his face in his hands. “We’re done for.”

“Y-You’re done for?” I stammered. “How about ‘I’m sorry?’ ”

“He’s featured on our website! There’s a whole page about him where he says we made him what he is today!” Paul Paulsen moaned. He opened up his laptop with one hand, furiously tapping a pencil on the desk with the other. “I’m going to take the website down. Right now.”

I gaped at him.

Paul DeLuca slowly took the pencil out of Paul Paulsen’s fingers. “P2,” he said softly, “snap out of it. Listen to yourself.”

“Who is going to want to come here after this gets out? How will we get funding? Especially if she presses charges?” Paul Paulsen regarded me, worried. “Are you going to press charges? Will the Boy Scout press charges?” He reached over to select another pencil from his collection, but Paul DeLuca stilled his hand.

“I—” I looked around the office, like the answers would be on the walls or ceiling but found nothing. I swallowed. “We’ll have to talk to our parents.”

P2 sunk his face into his hands again. “Parents. Oh god.”

Maybe I should have expected his reaction after the way he dismissed me this morning, but I couldn’t help it—I was stunned.

Paul DeLuca gestured for me to stand up. “Paul and I need to discuss some things. Why don’t you see how the Boy Scout is doing? He’s in the nurse’s office.”

“Jesse. The Boy Scout’s name is Jesse,” I said. I tried to find something in Paul DeLuca’s eyes—sympathy? Understanding? But the only feeling I could discern was worry. And it wasn’t worry for me or for Jesse.

“Right, okay,” Paul DeLuca said, his back already toward me.

Frowning, I stepped into the hallway and closed the office door.

“What if it gets out that the Boy Scout is black?” The door barely muffled P2’s panicked voice. “That will make us look even worse.”

Fury gripped me, and I flung open the door.

“Free advice,” I spat.

Startled, they stared at me.

“Maybe stop worrying about how you’re going to defend yourselves, and start asking what you can do to help.”

Without waiting for a response, I pulled the door closed and strode down the hall. My breath shook in and out as I walked.

But as gross as it had felt to overhear Paul Paulsen’s comment about it being worse for them that Jesse was black, I knew it would have been even harder for Jesse to hear it.

This thing was layer after layer of suck.

I took a minute to calm down. But then I felt strange approaching the nurse’s office again. Dad always says places hold memories, and this place only held a memory I wanted to forget.

After knocking twice, I tentatively pushed open the door and peeked inside.

Jesse was perched on a stool facing a sturdy white woman in her fifties who was shaking her head as she washed her hands in the sink. Jesse’s face had been cleaned up, but his shirt was still bloody.

“Hey,” I whispered, “can I come in?”

“Yeah!” Jesse’s eyes did that Christmas-tree-in-a-dark-empty-field thing and he started to smile, but flinched.

“Oh no,” I said, taking a step inside. “It hurts to smile?”

He nodded.

“I bet laughing is