Blind Ambition | ✓

18 | All Too Well

A full week had gone by since homecoming, and Chris was right - someone had done something more stupid and more dramatic over the weekend for everyone to talk about, taking the heat and the sideways glances off of me. Everyone except Kaia.

I'd feel her glare across the hallway, frigid like the air in the dead of winter on the back of my neck. The look she had given me in the library had glazed over and turned to stone. After all, people don't need to be ghosts to haunt you. All they need is your guilt and a clean line of sight.

I didn't even know why I felt so guilty, I just knew it knotted up inside me and squeezed at all my organs until I felt sick. Kaia sat behind me in our AP Lit class, and just like she had been doing all week, she made sure to shoot me a seething glare as I sat down at my desk.

"Alright, I'm sure you're all sick of talking about The Great Gatsby by now," Dr. Fontanella looked at us over the tops of her tortoise-shell glasses. "But seeing as you should have finished up the book over the weekend, hopefully we can make this discussion our last one before your papers are due and we move on to Wuthering Heights."

I'd barely been able to finish the book over the weekend between the game, the afterparty for the game, studying for a Calculus exam that I had earlier today, and showing face at my parents country club for brunch on Sunday morning. I probably read the last four chapters on the toilet.

"In what way does Jay Gatsby's character influence culture and society now?"

I didn't raise my hand, but Dr. Fontanella gave me an endearing look as she gestured to me. "Dallas?"

I tapped my pen on my notebook as I orchestrated my response. "Well, on the most basic level, he has what people still want now - wealth and status. He's also flashy and dramatic. People love drama, even if they don't want to admit it. They're drawn to it. I think even if Gatsby existed in our day and age, he'd be a similarly polarizing figure. Maybe even Kardashian-esque."

The last bit garnered a few giggles from other girls in class, and I let a self satisfied grin work it's way onto my face.

"I disagree."

I whipped my head around to see Kaia with her hand raised, glaring at me.

I scoffed under my breath and turned back around. "Of course you do."

"In what way do you disagree, Kaia?" Dr. Fontanella asked, either unaware or uninterested in my disgruntled response.

"Well just because someone has a nice car, and throws big parties, and flashes his money at every opportunity he gets doesn't mean he's likable or someone that people aspire to be. Materialism and status only get you so far - you can still be a miserable, unliked person even with all of that. Nobody showed up to Gatsby's funeral."

I thought of that old school circus act, where there was a guy pinned to a target, and someone else would throw knives at him, but through some combination of luck, skill, and complete lack of sanity, never actually hit him. I was the guy on the target, but Kaia, armed with words as sharp as knives, was purposely trying to nail me in the head.

I sucked in a breath and turned back around. "Only because Daisy's scumbag husband made sure to spread false rumors to ruin Gatsby's image. Sounds like something Us Weekly would do. Regular people love to tear down those above them. Makes them feel less inferior."

I had knives too, and an arm with an average 88% pass accuracy.

"Then maybe he should have just kepit in his pants and not pinned after a married woman just because he thought he deserved her more than her husband did." Kaia fired back hard and fast at first, but she paused for a moment and inhaled. The little veins on her forehead pulsed.