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Over Brandon’s wide shoulders, Mr. Lewis sighs and gives up trying to get us to pay attention, telling the class to read certain pages and answer the questions at the bottom before he sits at his desk and plays around on his laptop. People shift and scoot their seats over to their friends’ desks, and in my periphery I briefly notice Warren joining his friend across the room.
“It is,” Brandon continues, popping his gum. He’s so close to me I can smell the cinnamon. “One minute I was at the motel party celebrating my homecoming game win, the next I wake up in the hospital with a bunch of staples in my head.” He turns his head to the side to point at his scalp, where the hair has been shaved shorter and a neat row of medical staples indicates where a piece of the vase was protruding.
“Wow, what happened?” I ask, my voice flat and showing no spark of concern at all.
We’re playing a game here, sizing each other up and seeing who will reveal what first. Maybe I’m a little intimidated by him, but I’m not scared of him. I still remember what happened the last time we were alone together, when he kissed me and basically told me I’d been asking for it, then told the entire school I was a whore before he, Jason, and technically me got in a physical fight in the school halls, which led to us being suspended.Plushe got Gia to meet him in a motel room last Friday night, saying he’d give her a fake ID, only to throw himself at her to the point she had to smash him over the head with a vase to get him to stop.
I can get past the rumors and lies he spread about me, and even get past him kissing me when I didn’t want him to, butnobodyfucks with my little sister. So, he might have been knocked unconscious and bled all over the place, and maybe I feel a little bad about him almost dying, but now that he’s okay, I’m finally allowed to feel pissed.
“That’s the interesting part,” Brandon says, picking up my pencil and tapping the eraser side on my desk a few times. “I was told a bunch of kids from Comack Silver High were pissed they lost the game, so they crashed the party and jumped me.”
That’s the story Jason’s brother, Jackson, made up on the fly. It’s almost scary how well he did it too, how fast everyone started spreading it among themselves, even admitting to seeing that group of kids with their own eyes to officers asking for statements. It makes me wonder how many of the things we think happenedactuallyhappened, or are they just things we convince ourselves happened?
“I heard. A bunch of kids in black and one in camo.
Crazy what kids will do these days over a stupid football game.”
“So crazy,” Brandon says, his tone still neutral, still testing. “Trashed the room and stole my phone too.”
A phone with a hideous black phone case emblazoned with a large gold “B” on the back—a phone that’s currently burning a hole in my desk drawer at home. The phone I can’t open because he changed his password. I have to physically force myself not to bite my nails and give myself away.
“What a shame, and you had such a cool phone case too.”
I’m being a brat now, I know. But he started it, and I’m not going to cower just because he’s leaning over my desk and touching my personal belongings like he’s entitled to them, like he’s entitled tome.
His eyes narrow, and he tapsmypencil againstmydesk again. “There’s a problem, though.”
“Oh? And what’s that? The doctor said you’re not allowed to force yourself on girls until your wound heals?”
His flared nostrils are a warning to stop poking the bear, but I don’t care. I was so angry with myself while walking home from his house that day, because I wanted to say more. Well, I’m not going to hold back anymore.
“I don’t do that.”
“Don’t you, though?”
His jaw clenches, like he’s trying really hard not to scream at me. “Every girlI’ve ever been with has always wanted it, even if they didn’t say it.”
Anger rises in my chest, spreading through my limbs, making me clasp my hands together on my lap to stop them from reaching out, ripping the pencil from his hand, and stabbing him with it. “And what if they say,
‘Hey, stop that, I don’t like you like that’? Then what?”
He leans closer to me, and I force myself to hold my ground and not lean back to give him any more space.
“Every girl wants me like that. Even you. You just don’t know it yet, you frigid tease.”
He called me that last time I turned him down, and it takes a conscious effort to use Anusha’s breathing techniques to calm my anger; otherwise, that pencil really might end up in his eye. He knows he’s gotten under my skin because his lip crooks up in a self-satisfied smirk, and he leans back, giving me some room again.
“As I was saying,” Brandon continues self-righteously now that he thinks he has the upper hand, “there’s a problem with the story they were telling me.”
Shit. This is where he announces that he told everyone it was Gia who assaulted him with the vase and that officers are on their way to question her right now. My heart picks up. Gia’s going to be freaking out, and I’m not there to protect her.
I swallow, still playing his stupid game of nonchalance. “And what’s that?”
He points the pencil at me, sharp point first. “IswearI was meeting a certain petite, pixie-haired fifteen-year-old when I was attacked. Weird she wasn’t the first person interviewed about what happened . . .”
I snatch the pencil from his hand and slam it onto the desk. “Isn’t it weirder that you’re a senior meeting a fifteen-year-old in a motel room alone?” This time I don’t hide the insinuation and venom in my tone.
Brandon places a hand on his chest over his heart in mock hurt. “You must really think the worst of me. If you recall,Iwas the one who ended up with glass in my head and nearly bled out.” He points at his scalp. “A shit-ton of staples, remember?”
