The Queen B* and the Homecoming King (20 page)

“You interfered with what has now become a criminal investigation.”

I pulled out my phone and pressed the record button. If I heard him correctly, I may have found my next blog post. “You said what has
now
become a criminal investigation. Was it not one before?”

His eyes narrowed, and his voice grew
steely. “Put your phone away, Ms. Wyndham.”

“Why? Scared I’ll find out the truth and broadcast it?”

“You are becoming a major pain in my side.”

I gave him that fake sweet smile again. “You saw what I did to your predecessor, Mr. Lee. Would you expect anything less?”

“You have no respect for authority.”

“On the contrary, I do, but only if they deserve respect.” I nodded toward the screen.
“Richard Wang’s locker was defiled with hate messages two days ago. Under the state’s malicious harassment laws, that’s a felony offense. Tell me, when did local enforcement become involved? Was it the day of the incident? Or was it only after my blog post brought it to the police department’s attention?”

Principal Lee eyed my phone and said nothing. He was already exercising his right to remain
silent, it seemed.

“The school has security cameras throughout the grounds. And as you can see, it was very easy to identify the culprit from the footage.”

“Which you somehow illegally obtained.”

“Illegally? How so?”

“That footage is from a secure network,” he said, pointing to the screen.

“Obviously not that secure if my source could easily obtain access to it.”

He leaned back in his chair,
his fingers steepled in front of his mouth like an evil villain from a spy movie. “Ah, yes, your anonymous source. Is this the same one as before?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” I pointed back to the screen. “Was the footage turned over to the local law enforcement at the time of the incident? And if so, were they unable to catch the person because they were lazy? Or incompetent?” I
waved my phone in front of me. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Law enforcement currently has the footage,” he replied in a clipped manner.

“And when did they receive it?”

“I don’t have to answer that.”

“Come now, Mr. Lee, you have no idea what a pain in your ass I can really be.”

“Watch your language.” He grabbed the edge of the desk and pulled his chair forward until his elbows rested on
the top, and he leaned toward me. “Why are you insisting on making trouble for yourself?”

“Because if you’d done your job in the first place, I wouldn’t have to do it for you.” I nodded at the screen again. “I started
The Eastline Spy
three years ago to expose the wrongs within this school. And though I applauded your attempt to form a student-run committee to combat bullying in the hallways,
I suspect you didn’t do anything more than ask the custodian to remove the paint from Richard’s locker. You just wanted to sweep this incident under the rug and forget about it. You made no effort to catch the person behind it.

“I just proved how easy it would’ve been to find out who did it,” I continued. “What did
you
do?”

Again, I was answered by stony silence and a glare that indicated every
single one of my assumptions was probably correct.

I rose from my chair. “I’m glad the police are involved, Mr. Lee, but I don’t know if Richard will want to press charges against Kelsey or not. It’s his call. In the meantime, I’d hate to be late for class.”

“I’m counting down the days until you graduate.”

“That makes two of us.” I stepped out of his office and gave Mrs. Davis a little wave
before I ventured into the hallway. A mixture of victory and disillusionment waged inside me. I’d gotten the culprit. I’d exposed her. And in doing so, I’d also exposed the continuing hypocrisy of the administration.

But it all left me unsettled. I’d originally started my blog to tattle on the student body and report their faults. Now, it was becoming more of a medium for reform. Yes, I was
still calling people out, but with every name I withheld, I hoped that something good would come out of it. I sincerely hoped someone else would take over my blog once I graduated because someone needed to look out for the students at Eastline.

***

When I arrived at fourth period, Brett was lowering himself into his seat and waving off Sanchez.

“Dude, I’m just trying to help,” his friend said.

“I’m fine,” Brett snapped.

I stopped a few feet away. Brett was PMSing in a major way, and growing up in a house full of women, I knew better than step into his zone without having a game plan in place.

Sanchez turned around and gave me a shrug before retreating to his seat.

Brett’s scowl didn’t lighten as I sat down beside him. I expected him to message me about whatever had pissed him off,
but instead he sulked through class, his arms crossed over his chest, his laptop still nestled in his backpack.

The second the bell rang, he grabbed his bag and his crutches. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t you want to have lunch with your friends?” He’d been out of school for almost a week. Surely, he’d want to catch up with them.

“No, I want to go home.” He slipped his backpack on in one fluid motion
and bolted from his chair. “My ankle is killing me so much that I’m actually looking forward to the meds.”

If it was purely that, I’d believe him. But I suspected there was something more than the throbbing in his ankle that had him wanting to hightail it out of school like a freshman with a band of wedgie-pulling bullies after him. I waited until we were out of the parking lot in his oversized
gas-guzzler before I asked what was wrong.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

The growl in his voice indicated he was anything but fine.

Perturbed? Maybe.

On edge? Definitely.

Ready to bite someone’s head off if they kept pressing the issue? Absolutely.

Too bad he was dealing with the Queen B*.

“I don’t believe you,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road.

“I’m sorry,” he replied in the most unapologetic
tone imaginable.

I rolled my eyes and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe his leg was hurting him, and that was why he was acting like a sullen three-year-old. Maybe he was exhausted from his first day back and having to rush from class to class on crutches. Maybe he was tired of everyone asking how he was doing. I was trying to put myself in his position to explain his change in behavior,
yet I wanted to smack him at the same time.

He’d opened the door the moment I parked his 4Runner and was out before I turned the engine off.

I chased after him and blocked him from entering his house. “Brett, I know something’s bothering you. Talk to me.”

He sighed and slumped on to his crutches. “Lexi, please. I’m tired, I’m sore, and I have a ton of work to catch up on.”

I so wanted to believe
him. After all, this was Brett, the eternally optimistic guy who’d never failed. Yet, both my heart and gut told me not to give him a free pass. He might not have wanted to talk about it now, but I wasn’t going to let this conversation drop.

“I’ll walk over tomorrow so I don’t have to worry about my Prius.”

“Fine.” He awkwardly got around me, shimmying his crutches along the narrow edge of the
porch. “See you tomorrow.”

He slammed the door behind him.

Yep. He was definitely PMSing about something.

I tucked his keys into my pocket. It wasn’t as though he’d be able to use them for the next few weeks anyway. Then I got in my car and drove the two blocks home.

Only to find a second drama queen standing in my driveway.

Chapter Seventeen

Morgan didn’t move from her spot as I pulled into the garage. At first, I had to do a double take. She was sporting a new rockabilly look with a halter-top dress and full petticoat. She was like a long-haired Marilyn Monroe. If I hadn’t seen her with the platinum-blond hair over the weekend, I wouldn’t have recognized her. Thankfully, I knew her tattoos. She leaned against
her car, her skirt almost as wide as the trunk, and waited for me to get out.

For a moment, neither one of us said anything. We just eyed each other as though we expected someone to launch into some kind of freak ninja attack. Then she pushed off her car. “Can we talk?”

Relief flooded my veins from those three words. After almost two weeks without my best friend, I was more than ready to talk.
“Come inside.”

I grabbed a couple bottles of water from the fridge and sat down on the couch in the living room.

Morgan didn’t take the bottle I offered her. Instead, she paced in front of me like a toy that had been wound up too tight and was in super hyper mode. Finally, she stopped and looked at me. Her face morphed from anger to fear to sadness and back again in a matter of seconds. “I’m
still pissed off at you.”

“I figured,” I said quietly, not wanting to add any more fuel to her ire.

“Why did you do it, Alexis? Why did you go out with him?”

“I needed someone to make Brett jealous. Gavin had been hitting on me the whole time you were chasing after him. He even gave me his number.”

“
He
gave
you
his number?” Morgan’s face went blank as though she’d just swallowed the red pill
and her perception of reality had just been altered.

“Yeah. Said he wanted to hang out and talk philosophy. Of course, I thought he was the biggest douche I’d ever met. But after I thought you’d moved on with him, he actually became the perfect guy to get back at Brett. I thought if I went out on one date with him, I’d show Brett I was over him.” I took a drink of water and added, “Stupid me.”

Morgan sat down on the edge of the coffee table. “So you weren’t flirting with him behind my back the whole time?”

“Hell no! No interest in him at all. In fact, I wondered what you saw in him.” When I caught her wincing, I softened the blow. “I know I broke the girl code, and I’m sorry, but I was in such a jealous rage after catching Brett and Summer kissing—”

“Hold on, time out.” Morgan made
a T with her hands and looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “You caught them kissing, but you’re going out with him now?”

“Summer set the whole thing up to screw with my head.”

“Big surprise there.” Morgan took the bottle of water and twisted off the top.

“I wasn’t thinking straight when I called Gavin. I made several
huge
mistakes that day that I swear I’ll never make again.”

She stared
into the bottle, not taking a sip. “So Richard was telling the truth. I mean, about what he did to you.”

“Yeah.” I took another sip of water and tried to shake off the chills from that night. If Brett hadn’t shown up, I would’ve become another date-rape statistic. I cracked a joke to alleviate some of the heaviness that had filtered into our conversation. “I’m staying away from beer pong for
the foreseeable future.”

Normally, Morgan would’ve laughed, but she hunched her shoulders and drew into herself. It was like what Richard described. She almost curled up into a little ball.

I reached out and took her hand, refusing to let go even after she jumped from the contact. “What really happened on your date with Gavin?”

“I already told you.” She shook me off and resumed her pacing.
“He treated me to a cheap dinner before we went back to his room for some of the most boring sex I’ve ever had.”

I didn’t miss the way her voice broke at the end, or the way her gaze became pained and distant. She froze, giving me her profile, and seemed to hold her breath.

“Is that all, Morgan?”

A choked sob broke free, and my heart ached for my best friend. I sometimes hated when my suspicions
were right—especially at times like these. I stood up and wrapped my arms around her in a hug, letting her cry until her emotions had poured out from her eyes. And once she seemed to reach that moment of catharsis, I led her back to the couch and handed her a box of tissues.

Black lines from mascara and liquid eyeliner streaked her face, but she didn’t seem to care as she smeared them with a
swipe of the tissue. Her breath shook as she gulped in air, but with each one, she grew more and more centered. “Alexis, I need to tell someone. I’m just so ashamed and embarrassed, I…”

Morgan had never associated the words
shame
and
embarrassment
with sex, and the ache in my chest deepened until my own eyes burned with tears. I reached for her hand again. “I’m listening.”

This time, she didn’t
shake me off. Instead, she squeezed it so hard, my fingers went numb. “That happened like I said. And when it was over I decided to leave because there was no reason to stay, especially since the sex was so blah. I mean, I’ve had much better. So much better.”

She rolled her eyes in a show of bravado, but when she looked back at me, it all faded, leaving behind the scared teenage girl I barely
recognized as my best friend. She tried to speak, but her voice cracked until she looked down at the soggy, makeup-stained tissue disintegrating in her hand.