Wrath - 4 (6 page)

“There’s nothing to discuss.You told me you’d stopped. You told me you wouldn’t, with—
that
. And now I read …” Kaia laughed. “Are you going to believe some piece of trash you probably confiscated from one of your clueless freshmen? Just how gul ible are you?” Powel ’s skin turned slightly red, whether in anger or embarrassment, Kaia couldn’t be sure. She could put him out of his misery right now, confess to the dal iance with Reed, and suggest he find himself another student to play with—or maybe even pick on someone his own age. But Kaia wasn’t quite ready to finish things, and she
certainly
wasn’t going to let some loser with a printer and a grudge force her hand.

She got up and walked slowly to the door, as if to leave, then paused with her hand on the knob. “Do I real y need to defend myself?” Kaia asked. “Or can we stop this game and play another … ?”

Powel hopped off the desk, walked toward her, and then did something he’d never done before on school grounds. He touched her.

Placing his hand over hers on the doorknob, he turned the lock.

“We can table this for now,” he told her, his lips inches from the nape of her neck, his fingers digging into her skin. “You’re a smart girl, Kaia. You know better than to screw this up. Take this as a warning.”

He pul ed her roughly toward him, and she let him, hyperaware of the people in the hal way, just on the other side of the door. Only a few inches separated them from discovery, a thought that turned her on far more than Powel ’s hands roaming across her body.

Yes, Kaia was a smart girl, and she almost always knew better. She just never acted on it.

Where was the fun in that?

The whispers flew back and forth over Miranda’s head. No one thought to ask her what was true—most likely, no one thought of her at al .

Without Harper, I’m invisible,
she thought, pushing around the soggy food on her tray. She had no appetite. Not when Harper was at the center of an admiring crowd, soaking in the attention. Miranda had just given her more of what she loved the most. From across the room, Miranda couldn’t see the self-satisfied grin on Harper’s face, but knew it was there.

And she couldn’t hear the spin Harper would put on everything to cast herself in a good light—but she knew Harper would. A spotlight. It al seemed so obvious now, that this was how their feeble plot was doomed to end.

Teaming up with Beth, blandest of the bland, to take on Haven High’s dark queen? What had she been thinking?

Beth wasn’t as bad as Miranda had always thought, and was probably undeserving of al the hours she and Harper had put into mocking her behind her back. (Miranda had long ago perfected her Beth imitation, which never failed to send Harper into uncontrol able gales of laughter.) But “not that bad”? What good was that, when you were going up against someone who had It? Someone who could mold minds, bend wil s, make the world into exactly what she wanted it to be. Harper had It, and Beth didn’t. Neither did Miranda.

Together, they made one big, fat nothing, and Miranda was beginning to wonder if she might have been better off alone.

Spin control only took a smal portion of Harper’s attention, and she devoted the rest of it to watching Miranda, pathetical y slumped over a table on the other side of the cafeteria. They’d fought before; their friendship was built on fights. But this was different.

Miranda could never hold a grudge—and so Harper had never had to worry that, eventual y, al would be forgiven. She’d learned that lesson in sixth grade, when the two of them had their first huge fight while rehearsing their sixth-grade performance of
Macbeth
(suitably abridged for attention-deficit-disordered twelve-year-olds). It had started smal : an argument over who got to use the “real” (plastic) sword and who would be stuck wielding a wrapping-paper tube covered with aluminum foil.

Harper won, of course, bringing up the unassailable point that the whole show was named after her character. It seemed only logical that she, as the star, get the best of everything—lines, costumes, makeup, and, of course,
swords
. But Miranda had given in grudgingly, and only after hours of endless argument; by the time Harper final y took the stage, plastic sword in hand, she and Miranda hadn’t spoken for a week.

When the climactic scene arrived, Miranda had the first good line. “Turn, hel hound, turn!” she cried as Macduff, the one man destined to take down Macbeth.

Harper spun to face her chal enger. They stared at each other across the stage, readying themselves for the sword fight, gritting their teeth and narrowing their eyes as if the fate of the kingdom truly lay on their shoulders. Their teacher had been very specific: Cross “swords” three times, and then Miranda would slice off Harper’s head. In a manner of speaking, of course.

Miranda swung, Harper parried, jumped back, sliced her sword toward Miranda, who blocked the blow with her wrapping-paper tube and danced around the stage, taunting Harper under her breath.

And Harper, who’d been planning to lie down and deliver the greatest death scene Grace Elementary had ever seen, couldn’t bring herself to lose the fight—and, by definition, her dignity—in front of al those people. She swung wildly, and Miranda’s flimsy sword bent in two—at which point Miranda screeched in frustration and launched herself at Harper. The two of them stumbled to the ground, writhing and rol ing across the stage, pinching and poking, tickling and tugging hair … until their eyes met and, simultaneously, they burst into uncontrol able giggles.

Harper and Miranda had spent that weekend in an intense, forty-eight-hour catch-up session, sharing every detail of the painful hours they’d spent not speaking to each other.

“I was sooooo bored,” Miranda had complained.

“You were bored? I fel asleep standing up,” Harper countered.

“I had to play Jeopardy Home Edition al night with my parents.”

“I spel ed out the names of everyone I know in alphabet soup.”

“I missed you,” Miranda had confessed, laughing.

Even then, Harper had known better than to confess that she’d missed Miranda more.They’d laughed about it for years, and sometimes even now when Harper was being particularly bitchy, Miranda would cal her a “hel hound”; Harper always replied with her own favorite line: ‘Lay on, Macduff, and damn’d be he that first cries, “Hold, enough!’” It was the code of their friendship, and its meaning was simple. They would never turn into their characters; they would fight—but never to the death. They would always stop in time, just before landing the final blow.

But here she was, watching Miranda pick at her food, scared to go over to her, scared not to. If Harper stood over her pleading, “Lay on, Macduff”—meaning,
Yell at me, hit
me, hate me, and then, please, forgive me
—would it fix anything?

Not likely, Harper decided—not if Miranda had been behind the gossip flyer. That was a death blow. Harper may not have seen it coming, but she knew when it was time to lay down her sword and leave the stage.

“Okay girls, time for a vote:
13 Going On 30 or The Princess Bride
?”

As
13 Going On 30
won by general acclamation, Beth tried to wil herself to care. A few days ago, she would have said this was al she wanted—to be accepted back into the fold, to regress to the good ol’ days of sleepover parties and road trips to the mal , popcorn and girl talk.

“Beth, can you grab us another bag of Hershey’s Kisses?” Claire asked, and Beth traipsed upstairs, fighting against the suspicion that they’d start talking about her as soon as she was gone. They’d invited her, which was a step in the right direction—but no one seemed to particularly want her around.

“Have no fear, the chocolate’s here,” she said gamely, returning downstairs and pouring the Hershey’s Kisses into a bowl.

“Great, let’s stick in the movie,” Claire suggested. Beth couldn’t wait. As soon as the lights went out, she could drop the fake smile and stop trying to force perky conversation.

She could let her mind wander and try to figure out exactly how she was going to make it through to graduation.

“Before we watch, I want to ask Beth something,” one of the girls said eagerly. It was Leslie, the one Beth had come to think of as her replacement. Though had she ever been that timid and sal ow? Claire rol ed her eyes, but plopped down on the couch, defeated. “So … ,” the girl continued. “What was it like?”

“What was
what
like?”

“You know,” Abbie said.
“It.”

“You and Kane,” Leslie pressed, “what was it like when you …”

“What was it like to have a boyfriend?” Beth asked incredulously. Yes, when she’d been part of this group, they’d al been single—but almost two years had passed. Since then, surely at least one of them had—

“Sex,” Claire said harshly. “They want to know what it was like to have sex.” She scowled at Beth, as if daring her to respond.

“But I—” Beth had been embarrassed by her virginal status for so long that she’d almost forgotten what it could be like, to be part of a group where there was no pressure to be someone you weren’t or go somewhere you weren’t ready to go. For the first time al night, she smiled a real smile. “I haven’t,” she explained, feeling a surge of relief that she could say the words without worrying that anyone would judge her. She’d forgotten what it was like to have girl friends—
real
friends. “I mean, Kane and I never—and neither did Adam and I, so I’m stil a …”

“Virgin?” Claire snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“I
am,
” Beth insisted, trying to ignore her.

“But,Beth,” Abbie began hesitantly, “we’ve al heard … Kane said …”

“Kane’s lying,” Beth protested hotly. “Whatever he said, we never—”

“And
I
heard that you were the one who talked him into it,” Leslie said. “That he wanted to take it slow, but—not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she added hastily, catching sight of Beth’s expression.

“Leave her alone,” Claire decreed, and Beth felt a brief stab of gratitude. Very brief, as Claire continued, “Obviously, she doesn’t want to talk about it, not with
us
. No need to lie anymore, Beth. We’l just stop asking.”

Beth kept the smile frozen on her face as Claire popped in the movie and the lights went out. It was only then, under the cover of laughter and music and inane dialogue, that Beth was able to move. She crept over their sprawled bodies, and up the stairs to the guest bathroom. Once inside, the door shut and locked behind her, she sat down on the toilet seat, put her head in her hands, and let the tears leak out.

She was losing control.

There were so many people she needed to be. With Adam, the bitter, unforgiving ex; with Harper, the tough rival; with her family, the reliable caretaker. She’d thought that with her old friends she could relax and just be herself, but they didn’t want that. They wanted yet another Beth, a world weary refuge from the popular crowd who could give them the inside scoop on a world they’d never inhabit.

So many masks to wear, and none of them fit, not real y. She didn’t know who she was anymore—and she no longer had the energy to figure it out.

Harper was back. So much for skulking in the shadows and hiding under the covers. That wasn’t going to get her anything. It wasn’t going to get her Adam. And it wasn’t going to get her revenge.

So Friday night, she’d whipped out her cel phone and cal ed Kaia and Kane. It was time for a council of war, and these two were battle-tested.

“Nice to see you out of bed, Grace,” Kane commented as they settled into a booth in the back of Bourquin’s Coffee Shop.

“It’s even nicer to see me in it,” Harper quipped, “not that you’l ever know.”

Kane grinned, and Kaia set down a tray of frothy iced coffees.

“And the plan is … ?” she began, arching an eyebrow.

“I thought that was your department,” Harper joked—and then the smile faded from her face. After al , the last plan Kaia’d come up with had led to disaster. It had, ultimately, led them here.

“We al agree it was Beth?” Kane asked, delicately holding the notorious flyer between two fingers as if afraid to get his hands dirty.

“I stil say she couldn’t have done it alone,” Kaia pointed out.

“She’s very resourceful,” Harper put in quickly. She’d deal with Miranda—her own way, in her own time.

“You’re the one who always told me she was a waste of space,” Kane reminded her.

“And
you’re
the one who always told me I underestimated her,” Harper argued. “Obviously you were right.” Kane closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if inhaling her words. “Music to my ears. But you sound surprised—when are you going to learn that I’m always right?”

“So, Mr. Right,” Kaia said, leaning forward eagerly. “You know her best—how do we take her down?”

Silence fel over the table.

“If we had proof, we could just turn her in,” Harper mused. But there was no proof—and, besides, ratting her out to the authorities seemed such an inelegant solution. Why pass the buck to the administration when they could handle the problem themselves?