Page 71 of Vexatious Queen

JANUARY 27 – TUESDAY 12:11 PM

Ren

Taking two trays from the tall stack, I handed one to Ivy as we moved through the lunch line.

“Is he looking over here?” Ivy whispered.

I assumed she meant either Zigzag or Sabastian. They were sitting at opposite ends of the cafeteria like two fighters waiting for the bell to ring so they could go at it.

“Which one?”

“Um…I guess either,” Ivy answered, and I looked over my shoulder at her.

She just shrugged. Giving in to the insanity, I turned to see if either of them was looking this way. She grabbed my arm, and I almost lost all my food.

“No, don’t look. I don’t want them to know I’m looking.”

Ivy shook my arm, and my bowl of soup was precariously close to spilling.

“You’re not. I am,” I said, gently tugging out of her death grip. “You’re going to spill my lunch.”

She let go, but her eyes were still a little wild.

“Yeah, but if they see you looking, then they’ll know that I’m talking about them.”

“You are.”

“I know, but I don’t want them to know that,” she said.

“Well then, don’t look now, Sabastian is on his way over here,” I whispered.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she mumbled, making me smirk.

It was nice to live the normal teenage drama through Ivy. Maybe when I turned seventy, I could gossip about who wore it best or about something completely ridiculous, because so far my childhood had been filled with far too much…adulting.

“Hey,” Sabastian said when he reached us.

“Hey. Did you have a nice weekend,” I asked, and then nudged Ivy’s shoulder to no avail.

Ivy had stopped moving—she was barely breathing.

“It was okay, I guess. Went to a party at Sacred Heart,” Sabastian said, and that got her attention.

Ivy slowly turned around to face him like some creepy mannequin on a display stand. She crossed her arms and glared at Sabastian. I looked between them and tried to back away, but Ivy grabbed my arm.

Okay, this wasn’t what I meant by living vicariously through her drama. This was a little more involved than I wanted to be.

“You went without me,” she asked, and Sabastian tilted his head.

“You kissed someone else, got pissed with me when I decked the fucker and then broke up with me. Why wouldn’t I go without you?”

Oh god.

“I see,” she growled, and then started to drag me to the table.

I pointed at the cutlery on the way by, but she wasn’t stopping, and it was probably better that she didn’t have a weapon.

“Ivy, I want to talk to you,” Sabastian said as he followed us. “Why do you keep walking away?”