Try To Change Me

Chapter 33

Like a hunting dog after a fox, Carissa's feet had carried her directly to her prey. She repeated her question.

"Do you want to know what I think?"

Ebony and Phitz had spun around the first time she had spoken, startled out of their wits, but now both had calmed down and stood in silence. Phitz had his thick arms folded across his chest, a bushy eyebrow raised as he stared flatly at Carrie. He let out a deep sigh as she spoke again, shaking his head. 

"Not really, Carrie."

But she didn't hear him - her gaze was fixed on the smaller girl. Ebony's arms were wrapped around her stomach, her breathing deliberately slow and steady, and her chin set at an angle that made it look like she really wanted her hang her head but was fighting the instinct.

"What about you, freak?" Carissa demanded, stepping closer. She was well-versed in intimidation tactics, and when Ebony stepped back instinctively, she laughed. "I didn't think so."

She walked past her, deliberately slamming into the girl's shoulder and strutted towards the fast-food resturant, a self-satisfied smirk etched in place. She was almost to far away to hear when Ebony spoke. 

"What do you think?"

Carissa froze. Very slowly, she swivelled on one heel to face the girl again. Her hands had fallen into fists at her side, her chin raised uncomfortably high to make a point, and her burning glare fixed on on Carrie's face. 

"Excuse me?" she demanded, the words dripping acidically from her tongue. 

Ebony flinched, but didn't look away. "I said what do you think?"

She laughed coldly,  rolling her hips as she sauntered back towards the other girl. "I think that you are an unloveable, undesirable, unimportant coward. I think that you get a kick out of being noticed by people like me and Austen. I think that you'll do anything for attention. But I know..."

Phitz snapped. "Carrie!" He grabbed her arm, pulling her back and putting a few inches between the shaking Ebony and her antagoniser. 

"Let go of me, you jerk," she shook her arm free, "the brat asked for it."

Before he could reply, Ebony spoke. Her voice was so quiet, so flat, that he took an immediate step away. "Let her finish, Eric."

Carrie straightened her shirt, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She met Ebony's stare, ignoring the tears that welled in the bottom of the girl's eyes. "I know that no matter where you go," she shuffled forward and the girl flinched back, finally letting her eyes fall. Ebony's arms returned to her waist, hugging as if to shield. "no matter who you're with," the girl was growing considerably paler but Carissa carried on relentlessly. "No matter what you do, you will never amount to anything because you are a waste of space and I'm not the only one who wishes..." Some part of Carrie knew she should stop talking, that she was crossing a line, but it was the part buried beneath the fear and anxiety of the day, her rage at whoever had interrupted her afternoon and a strange certainty that Ebony was to blame. So she didn't pull her punches, didn't shy away from her words, but rather leant forward to whisper them directly in the other girl's face. "...that you didn't exist."

Phitz had never been so sure that he disliked Carissa than in that minute. For the entire time he had known her, she had always simpered and pouted and gotten her way, and most things she said turned his stomach somehow, but he had never seen her be as much of a bitch as right that second. But for some reason, his jaw wouldn't work. For the first time in his life, he was frozen in place and unable to leap to the defence of his friend. He could have blamed it on the fact that she was a girl, or the fact that what she was saying was so ridiculous that he was stunned, but the truth was quite different: he wasn't feeling nauseous.