After DC told me I fit the qualifications of someone he'd murder, I never wanted to speak to him again. So I probably shouldn't have blamed him for something he didn't do, against someone he couldn't stand. It sort of cheesed him off...
Okay, this i...
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I should have told DC immediately. At least it would have warned him, I realized this, of course. But what I did instead was go home and bury my head under my pillow until I could pretend that none of this was happening. And what I didn't do was go over to DC's house and knock on his door to tell him anything about incriminating him.
Best case scenario: this had all been a vivid dream that hadn't actually happened and Patrick never mentioned my name to Dorian Birch. Pinching myself proved that theory unlikely. Worst case scenario: Patrick tried to kill DC, found out the truth, told him my part in it, and then Patrick, DC, and Savannah all murdered me. Maybe they'd bond over the experience.
I was contemplating my ultimate demise with a queasy stomach at lunch when Lindsay leaned into the table and said, "He's staring at you again, Care."
Which was absolutely the last thing that I wanted to hear. Okay, well maybe not the last thing. But it was up there, anyway, because I knew who the "he" was in that sentence. And that could mean a lot of things, like maybe that he knew. Or, if he didn't know, then he still at least knew me. It meant that he hadn't fallen recently, bumped his head, developed amnesia, and forgotten I was his next door neighbor.
He was going to kill me and I was way too young to die.
Oh God.
My stomach knotted as my shoulders tensed, and Elyse was halfway out of her seat before I realized what was happening. But she plopped back down at the emergence of a group of basketball players walking through the cafeteria doors. Three of them, to be exact, with Patrick as the one in the middle. The lunchroom talk went down to a quiet buzzing as everyone seemed to realize at the same time what was happening.
Elyse's eyes widened, the blue of her gaze cutting at the corner to peak at me, from her spot beside me, before going back to the scene as it unfolded.
I was doing my best not to hyperventilate as the reality of the situation fell down around my shoulders.
Patrick Graywake was here to confront DC about what I'd blamed him for. There was no other way to interpret it. And any minute my lies were going to come fluttering around us all, like the falling stacks of a house of cards. I was so completely done for I couldn't even begin to process how cooked I was!
My panic overrode my natural instincts to hide and before I knew what I was doing, my legs had pushed me out of my seat. All I could envision in my head was Patrick and DC talking about me, both heads turning to find me in the lunch room, both realizing what a liar I was at the same time... And whether I could outrun them and where I would hide if I managed it.
I was closer to the doors.
Or, at least, I had been. It took me a moment to realize that I was walking away from my table and towards the onslaught of Seniors invading the Junior lunch, to Elyse's frantic whisper that I sit back down.
