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“Hey.” I offer her a pathetic smile, to which she responds with a sigh.
“Let me guess, the three sexy assholes ditched you again.” She adjusts the handle of her backpack, the light breeze blowing strands of her hair into her face.
“I really wish you’d stop calling them that,” I tell her as I dig my phone out of my bag.
I message the guys through group chat, letting them know I’m heading inside without them. Then I throw my phone back in my bag, sling it back over my shoulder, and head inside the school with Jessa.
“And I wish you’d stop defending them.” She pops a piece of gum into her mouth as we weave through the crowd filtering inside the gothic building trimmed with columns. When I frown at her, she blows out a weighted sigh. “Look, I know you’ve been friends with them forever, and I know they used to treat you like you were the center of their world, so I get it. But lately”—she pauses to pull the door open—“they’ve been treating you like shit.”
“They’ve just been busy.” I slip off my sunglasses as we step into the hallway. “They have a lot of responsibilities.”
“So do you.” She pops a bubble. “And you don’t treat them like shit.”
I’m preparing to go into full-defense mode when my attention gets snagged on something in the hallway.
Ryder, Reece, and Blaise are hanging out in front of Ryder’s locker with a group of guys.
So they did blow me off this morning and never even sent me a text? Just like they never invited me to hang out with them last weekend? And the one before that?
Rage bursts inside me, and I storm toward them.
Ryder has his back to me, and when I reach him, I shove him. He stumbles and bumps into Reece, who trips over his feet and ends up dropping his phone.
I get some sweet, sick satisfaction from noticing the screen cracks
“Why the hell did you leave me standing outside by myself for twenty minutes?” I demand as Ryder recovers.
Blaise is leaning against a locker, but he straightens as he scratches the back of his neck.
“What the fuck, Al?” Reece gripes as he picks up his broken phone. “You fucking made me crack the screen.”
I cross my arms and blast him with the dirtiest look I can muster. “No,youmade you break the screen when you chose to blow me off this morning.”
Reece narrows his eyes at me, but Ryder speaks first.
“Would you chill out? Just because we’re done with you, doesn’t mean you need to go all crazy,” he tells me with an eye roll. “Jesus, you fuck a girl once, and she acts like you’re engaged or something.”
A few of the guys standing with them laugh and snicker, while Blaise looks the other way and Reece becomes obsessed with staring at his phone.
I wait for someone to declare that I’m getting pranked, but no one says a damn word. Then I stand there, frozen, not saying a word. My tongue feels like it’s glued to the top of my mouth.
This isn’t happening?
Why would they do this?
It has to be a joke, right?
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jessa comes to my aid as she strides up and shoves Ryder hard enough to make him stumble again. “God, I nailed it the moment I met you. You’re just another stuck-up, spoiled, entitled, rich, asshole douchebag.”
But he’s not, I want to say. Because he isn’t.
Except, right now, he is.
Ryder leans in toward her. “You think I care about anything you say?”
“No, but I know you care about what she says, even if you’re trying to be cool right now and pretend you don’t.” Jessa stares him down—hard. “And we both know she didn’t sleep with you, so stop spreading rumors.”
The cruelest smile tugs at Ryder’s lips. “She did, though. Ask Ryder and Blaise. I fucking popped that cherry—”
