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KAI
At five p.m., the sun had set upon Redwood. I pulled into the dark cemetery with my gun in my waistband and anger rushing through me. I had been so pissed off today that I didn’t even sit with Poison at lunch. I hadn’t wanted to see Imani.
Pulling up to the curb, I shut my bike off and pulled out my buzzing phone.
Imani: Can we talk?
Imani: Please?
I stared down at her messages and the small green bubble next to her profile picture, which meant that she was online and waiting for me to respond. But right now, I didn’t have anything to say to her.
She knew I didn’t like Akio.
She knew I’d told her to stay away.
She knew something had happened between his parents and mine.
Yet she continued to see him and sit at dinners with him and his parents. She could’ve easily told her mother that she didn’t want to go. Her mother had been more lenient with Imani than usual these past few weeks; Imani could’ve gotten out of that dinner if she wanted, and she knew it.
Instead of responding to her, I clicked off my screen, slid the phone into the back pocket of my black cargo pants, and pulled my hood over my head, so fall-wintery weather in New England wouldn’t freeze my fucking ears off.
After parking my bike, I walked to Dad’s grave and stuffed my hands into my pockets. Despite the coldness, someone had laid his favorite flowers in front of his gravestone, the petals withering in the wind.
I stared down at the stone and frowned, a wave of sorrow and rage rushing through me.
My thoughts drifted to Allie, and I clenched my fists at what had happened today with Principal Vaughn. She hadn’t fucking deserved to have pictures posted all around Redwood of her with Jace, and she really hadn’t deserved to have Vaughn jerking off to her.
It was fucking disgusting.
And tonight, Poison and I would come up with something to make this right. I wanted him to pay. To hurt. To fucking die in my hands. Nobody deserved to have an old piece of shit do that to them, just because.
Who knew what else he and the police force were doing?
The thought made me furious.
Pulling a small flask of bourbon from my pocket, I poured the alcohol all over the frozen grass above his casket and watched it sink into the dirt. It used to be his favorite drink. It was the least that I could do for him now that he was gone.
Once I walked to the other side of the cemetery, I sat down by Mom’s gravestone and rested my head against it, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from my pocket. After lighting it up, I took a puff of it and stared emptily out into the trees that surrounded this place.
A couple moments passed, and I took out my phone. Three new messages from Imani lit up my screen from Discord, but I scrolled past them and clicked on my photos app, scrolling through the endless pictures I had taken with Mom before she died.
My hand tightened around the phone, tears welling up in my eyes.
“You fucking deserved more than this,” I whispered.
In all the pictures before Dad died, she’d had the biggest, most contagious grin. I smiled softly at the screen and took another puff of my cigarette, blowing smoke from my nose and wishing she could still be here with me.
When I reached the end of the album, I let my phone slip from my hand and onto the frozen ground between my legs. I finished my cigarette and stood up to head to Landon’s house for the night. We had shit to plan for Principal Vaughn.
“One day, I’ll make them pay for everything they did.” I took one last look at her gravestone and scooped up my phone. “I promise you, Mom, they won’t get away with it.”
