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I smooth my face into an expressionless mask, one I’ve perfected over the years so no one would know if their cruel whispers hurt the queen. Guess all those years were good for something. If this is all I have left to show for it, I’m damn sure going to make the most of it.
“And?”
“I tried to text you, and then I tried to message you onOnlyWords,”he seethes. “Was I supposed to come to your house to find you?”
“Stalk much?” I ask, raising a brow.
It strikes me that in all the years I’ve gone to school with him, watched him get him beaten down and tortured and bullied, I’ve never seen him angry. I’ve seen him degraded, I’ve seen him desperate, but I’ve never seen him lose his cool this way. I should be afraid, but he’s the one person who’s never hurt me, even though he’s the person who has the most reason to.
“You drove off in the middle of a panic attack,” he says, glaring at me. “Was I just supposed to shrug it off?”
“Um, yes,” I say, widening my eyes at him. “I’m not your problem, Colt.”
I want to add that he sure didn’t worry long before he shoved his dick in someone else, but that would mean admitting I came back. He’d want to know why, and I’d want to tell him, and we’re both better off if that never happens.
His eyes bore into mine, and he lowers his voice to a growl. “It’s my problem when I just gave you pills that could hurt you.”
I swallow hard, realizing this isn’t just about me. It’s about his mother. But it’s also about me. And even though it makes me a worse person than all the things I’ve ever done to him, some little part of me is pleased to know that I scared him, because that means some little part of him cares.
But he’d never admit it, just as I’d never admit what I feel.
I’m not sure which is worse, the thought of him laughing in my face if I told him, or the thought of him reciprocating. If he laughed at me, it would kill me. But if he felt the same… That would kill him. And I’m not sentencing him to worse than he’s already had to endure.
So I close my locker and turn to him, hugging my books to my chest and holding my head high, like Mom instructed. They can make me a whore, but they can’t make me a victim.
“Well, I’m fine, so you can rest easy. You didn’t turn me in a zombie like your mom.”
It’s a low blow, but I don’t have it in me to be clever and cutting and spare him at the same time. The moment the words leave my mouth and his jaw tightens, I want to tell him I didn’t mean it, that I want to get in the car with him and drive forever and never look back. But I can’t.
I have a choice to make, and I choose cruelty.
It always wins over kindness.
As if to reinforce my decision to stay strong, I see Dixie skulking further down the hall, watching us like the sneak she is. I have no doubt if I tried to join Colt and Harper in their outcast party of two instead of walking around school alone like a target, she’d go running to the Dolce boys to tattle like a sniveling little bitch. She did it last year when Colt hung out with Harper, and they almost beat him to death for it. If she’d risk her own boyfriend’s life to keep him from hanging out with another girl, there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to stop an enemy.
“Besides, why would you want to text me?” I ask, leveling Colt with a cold look. “You have a girlfriend, and even if you didn’t, it’s not like I’d talk to a loser like you.”
He shoves off the locker, gives me one last dark look, and shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable,” he says, then turns and stalks off to join Dixie.
She smiles at him as he approaches, all sugar and sweetness. But when he slips an arm around her, she turns to look over her shoulder at me, her eyes full of pure malice. She won’t warn me to stay away. It’s too late for that. She’s out for blood, and she’s going to make me suffer. It was all there in that one look. She’s not done with me. She won’t be done until she destroys me.
Good. That means my plan is working—Mom’s plan anyway. If Dixie still sees me as competition, she thinks I have something left of value, something she can take. If she thinks she can destroy me, that means she doesn’t know I’ve already been destroyed.
*
The rest of the day is no better. I thought I’d be happy to be free, but every time I see the elite crowd—my crowd—walking by without even sparing me a second glance, I want to cry. Mysisters sweep past and give me scornful glances just like the other girls I’ve cheered and danced with for years. It’s like they don’t even know me, like I’ve become a different person. Worst of all, it confirms the truth I always feared—that it all meant nothing.
All the years on the throne.
The bond I share with all my girls on the cheer squad, all the girls on the dance team, severed with a single command from the kings. It doesn’t sink in all at once, not even slowly. It comes in waves all morning, each one fresh and sharp as a blade every time a girl I’ve passed tampons under the stalls to turns away like she doesn’t know me, every time a girl I’ve shared a hotel room with on road trips ignores me like it never happened.
Mom told me to try again, to fix it, but I don’t know how because I don’t know why I was ever there to begin with. Royal chose me, claimed me, and crowned me. I never chose to be there, never did anything to deserve my place. But I know enough about the school and how it works to know that if I want my spot back, I won’t get it in the café in front of the whole school, who will eagerly await my entrance so they can watch me be humiliated yet again. If I grovel to the Dolces, it won’t be with an audience.
So I push out the side doors near the café and walk out to the bleachers. The itch for a cigarette starts, and I sit on the bottom step, hoping Colt comes out to smoke today, even though he’s been sitting inside since Harper started her rebellion. He’s probably in there sitting with Dixie, who crowned herself Rebel Queen when Harper went to visit colleges for a week and wasn’t there to defend her place. Dixie’s probably in there basking in her glory with Colt by her side, both of them reveling in my downfall. Not that I blame him. If anyone has a reason to relish this moment, it’s Colt.
When no one joins me, I find myself staring at the empty football field where I’ve stood so many Friday nights, surrounded by my squad, hyping the crowd as they settle into the bleachers. Goosebumps race over my skin, and it’s like I’m there now, with the chill in the air and the buzz of the banks of lights kicking on and the hum of anticipation for the game running through the crowd.
I may not have loved being queen, but I loved being top girl. I loved getting the crowd all riled up, loved performing, smiling, dancing for all of them. It was the only time I felt like my beauty was mine, not a weapon to be used against me or by the Dolce boys against someone else. I liked being part of something bigger. Weaving between the other girls, moving my body in rhythm with theirs, shaking our pompoms in unison. I liked knowing that if we got the crowd hyped before the game, they’d cheer harder for the boys, and in some tiny way, it might help them pull out a win.
