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ChapterFifty-Six
VERA
“You’re lying,” one of Skylar’s friends snapped, pressing her lips together and glaring at me. “Blaise would never take you out on a date or hang out with someone like you. He was only around Skylar. They spent every night together.”
Every night together? Maybe before me.
I winced at the thought. Hearing her say these things to me brought up the memory of catching them together in the janitor’s closet. Skylar had orchestrated it all, and Blaise hadn’t had anything to do with it—that I knew—but still, I couldn’t push the nightmarish feelings away.
No matter how many feelings that Blaise had admitted for me, I was still insecure, still didn’t think someone like him could actually like me the way he said he did. But I liked him. I really truly liked him, and I wasn’t going to let this bitch get in my way. I couldn’t.
“I’m not lying. I have proof.”
“Then, where is it?”
Swallowing hard, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through our text messages from the other night when he had taken me out to milkshakes. Nothing to prove he was there with me. I scrolled through my pictures and apps for any sign that we were together.
But there wasn’t anything. And it was my fault.
I hadn’t wanted anyone to know that we were together. I hated that fact now. I wished I could take it all back, wished I had taken a picture, a memory of us together. But I didn’t have anything from that night, except the laptop.
“So? Where is it?”
I stared down at my phone and shook my head. “I swear. I swear we were together. You saw us hanging out at lunch last week. Some of you have seen us in the hallways.” I glanced over at Mateo and hoped he would say something. Both Maddie and he knew where I had gone.
As Maddie stood to come my defense, Mr. Avery—one of the Redwood teachers, who I believed was related to Blaise—walked through the cafeteria doors and cleared his throat, capturing the students’ attention.
“You’re right,” he said. He draped his arm around my shoulders in thenice as could be, caring teacherkind of way. “Vera doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s been under a lot of stress in my class lately.”
“But—”
Maddie and Piper both gave me a quizzical stare. I wasn’t in Mr. Avery’s class.
“I know today has been hard on you all, so finish up your lunch,” he said, grabbing my backpack and guiding me toward the exit of the cafeteria, his grip on my shoulder tightening, his fingers digging into my muscle. “I’ll bring Vera to the nurse.”
“Wh-what are you doing?” I asked, furrowing my brows once we stepped out of the cafeteria. I tried to stop because I wasn’t going to the nurse’s office, but he continued to push me along toward his classroom. “I’m not in your class.”
When we reached it, he guided me in and closed the door behind us. “You can’t say shit like that aloud to the entire school,” he said, clenching his sharp jaw and staring over my shoulder at the door’s window. “Bad people are trying to pin this on Blaise, and I doubt that he would want you to get involved.”
“Bad people?” I whispered, heart racing. “Like … like who?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “Let me figure this out. Stay under the radar.”
“No, I’m already part of this. I don’t want anything to happen to him.”
“Nothing will.”
“Nothing will?!” I asked, throwing my hands up into the air.
Usually, I didn’t talk back to any teacher or authority figure, but this wasn’t making any sense, and Blaise was in trouble. Even when they proved he hadn’t done it, his reputation at Redwood would be ruined.
“They’re trying to blame her death on him. The police want him in jail.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he repeated.
“How?”
I had so many questions. How would a teacher do anything about this? He didn’t have any power, especially not in Redwood Academy. The principal commanded everything here, and I didn’t want Blaise to go to prison for murder.
