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IMANI
I’d failed my fucking test because of Poison.
Grinding my teeth together, I glared out the car window and dug my nails into my palms. I hated them so fucking much that I couldn’t put my hatred into words. All I wanted was to get through the rest of this year without Mom breathing down my neck, but that surely wasn’t going to happen. When she saw that thirty-two percent on the test, she’d hound me for every little thing.
And I couldn’t take it anymore.
“It’s right around the corner,” Mom said, pointing to the Stop sign.
Dad turned on his blinker and placed his hand on Mom’s knee. “I know where it is, honey.”
Unable to stop myself, I pulled out my phone and glared at the Discord app. Then, I tapped on it and glared at Landon’s profile picture, which didn’t have a green circle next to it for once, which meant that he wasn’t online. I started typing out a long, angry message to him, giving him a piece of my mind.
But then I erased it all.
I didn’t want to talk to him.
Yet I retyped the message. But I did want him to know not to fuck with me.
“What are you up to back there?” Dad said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “All I hear are those buttons clicking about a million times a second.”
After deciding not to send the message, I shoved my phone in my purse and forced a smile. “They’re not buttons, Dad.”
He smiled back at me and pulled to the side of the road. Balling my hands into fists, I stepped out of the car. Dad handed the keys to the valet and grabbed Mom’s hand, pulling her toward the restaurant. A cold fall breeze whipped through the downtown streets, making my curls fly up in all directions.
Yeah, I know. Why waste three hours of my life straightening my hair, just to wash it again? Well, if I hadn’t done something when I got home, I had been afraid that I’d call Landon on Discord to talk to him. And I didn’t want to do that.
“How’d the test go?” Mom asked me when we stepped into the most upscale restaurant in all of Redwood.
It cost over a few hundred dollars per plate and was where most of the Redwood rich went to show off how much money they had. Honestly, it wasn’t even that good, and I’d prefer some mac and cheese from the box any day.
Mom cleared her throat. “Don’t tell me you failed it.”
“No,” I lied, giving her my best forced smile. “One hundred percent, like usual.”
But in a couple days, when she checked my grades—yes, she was that kind of mom—she’d find out I’d lied to her.
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart. All you have to do is keep studying. You’ll stay at the top of your class come the spring, easy.”
I pressed my lips together to suppress a grumble and followed her through the restaurant to Akio and his father. I didn’t get why she wanted me at the top of the class. It was constant damn pressure and the reason I’d turned to video chatting in the first place—to relieve some stress. But now, I was fucked because of it.
After the overzealous greetings, I sat across from Akio and sank into the plush chair, hating that Mom had made me come tonight. I didn’t like Akio and would never like Akio. All I could really think about were those three boys who had my damn life in their hands and could ruin not only my reputation, but my parents’ reputation, too. My parents had grown up on the bad side of Redwood and gone on to make a name for themselves.
Mom valued that more than anything and wanted our lives to be picture-perfect.
It was funny, what money did to people.
“How’d it go with Poison?” Akio whispered to me when our parents fell into easy conversation. He looked around when he said it because their mere name brought terror to the snooty, rich families of Redwood. It wasn’t a secret that Poison wanted to use up every last one of them, sucking them dry in exchange for jobs.
I didn’t doubt that they were going to use me, too.
But by the way Landon acted last night …
Shaking my head, I pushed away the thought. If I thought Landon actually liked me, I was going freaking crazy. He just used me for my body. I was a girl he could get off to and talk to every night, even after we were done touching ourselves.
Maybe he does …
“Uh, Imani?” Akio asked.
