Pretty Bad Things [Sample]

Pretty Bad Things : My Street Cred is Dead

Chapter Three: My Street Cred is Dead

The best thing about tutoring Harvey?

I had no clue when, or where, I would be doing it, so I didn’t really have an answer. Not that I thought there were any good things about having to tutor him.

I waited an entire week dreading having to ask Harvey about it. I mean, what girl in her right mind would walk up to him and start a conversation? I wasn’t a complete idiot. It was probably an invitation to get gangbanged.

I wasn’t really sure what getting gangbanged meant, since I had only heard Nick make a joke about it once. I had made a note to Google it, soon. In the meantime it sounded horrid enough for the occasion.

I wasn’t ready to get my face beat in either, though. I needed my face if I was planning to use it in college to at least get one boyfriend. That’s the thing, adults respect you for not having a relationship until you’re older, but once you start nearing adulthood they start feeling bad for you. Which is horrible because you already feel pretty bad for yourself and don’t need everyone else thinking there’s something wrong with you.

So, I spent most of Tuesday night pacing like an idiot in my room, with Nick watching me eat candy bars.

I had this horrible habit of eating when I was stressed or worried about something. I could stuff anything in my mouth when I was having a bad day.  That night was no different, and I think Nick finally realized that if he didn’t stop me soon I would have exploded.

“You’ve been walking around for, like, an hour. Do you finally want to tell me what’s wrong?” Nick asked. He was casually stretched out on my comforter, chewing on a candy bar himself.  Nick had been my best friend since I could remember. In fact, at one point I’d even had a massive crush on him. It was, thankfully, short-lived and when he’d finally come out our freshman year of high school I hadn’t even batted an eyelash. It was kind of difficult to ignore your best friend checking out the same guys you were, so I had already known he was gay, maybe even before he did.

“Are you sure you really want to know?” I asked him dramatically.

Nick knew I had a tendency of overdramatizing things, so he just rolled his eyes and kept staring at me.

“Livvie, just say it!” he finally ordered, after I’d held out for longer than usual.

“I have to tutor Harvey Lockwell,” I said as quickly as I could, then closed my eyes, waiting for Nick to freak out.

Instead, the silence went on for the longest time, so I had to open my eyes again after it became unbearable. Nick was looking at me with his mouth open, making his pretty eyes widen in the process. Nick was too pretty, prettier than me. No wonder I’d had that short-lived crush, I thought as I watched him process what I had just said.

“You. Lucky. Bitch,” he finally said, draping a hand over his heart. The action made me giggle, so I swatted him in the arm.

“Not even! I kind of, sort of, maybe forgot to find out when and where, so now I have to ask Harvey,” I informed him, wringing my hands close to my chest.

“Oh,” was all Nick said in response. I could tell his mind was racing, thinking of ways to help me solve my problem. That was the best part about Nick—he always tried to help me out of my embarrassing situations. I had a lot of embarrassing situations happen to me. I was an embarrassment magnet.

“Now I have to ask him, but—”

“Oh,” Nick said again, cutting in. I hadn’t needed to finish my thought; even Nick knew that Harvey was trouble.