Don't Scream (Complete)

Chapter 37

Jonah Whitley

"What happened back there?" 

Jonah and Ponnie were standing a short distance away from the house, up the road. 

Ponnie stood opposite Jonah, shaking slightly, a tear tracing its way down her cheek. Her wrists were stinging from where Scott had grabbed her. Her camera was nowhere to be found. Possibly, she'd dropped it somewhere back at the party. 

Ponnie shook her head, remaining mute. 

"Ponnie, what happened? Why did he grab you like that?" Jonah spluttered. 

A thought suddenly occurred to him. "That day, when I saw fingernail marks on your forearm. Was that Scott too?" 

Ponnie hesitated, then nodded meekly. 

Jonah remembered on the day he'd found fingernail marks embedded in Ponnie's forearm. He remembered how she'd looked up the corridor at Cassidy and Scott and shrunk away. Ponnie hadn't shrunk away because she'd seen Cassidy. She'd shrunk away because she'd seen Scott. 

"Why did he do that? Why did he hurt you?" Jonah asked. 

"Because he likes me," Ponnie murmured. 

For a moment, everything was silent. The tension was evident in the air. 

"Scott...Scott likes you?" Jonah spluttered, hardly daring to believe it. "But he's got a girlfriend!" 

Ponnie shook her head. "On the day I gave my seat up to Cassidy, before I met up with her, Scott came up to me. He confessed to me that he had feelings for me because I was the only girl who didn't throw herself at him. He told me it was a simple crush, but he'd developed a stronger love for me after weeks of sitting next to me in class and realizing that I never seemed to cast glances at him or stare at him. He said it had been a long time since any girl played hard to get with him, so he fell for me." 

"That day, I told him that the reason I didn't throw myself at him was because I didn't have any feelings for him in the first place. I never had any feelings for him. I barely took any notice of him. He got mad and he grabbed my arm when I tried to walk away. He wouldn't let me go. He kept shouting, talking about how I had to see sense, how he and I would be perfect together. Eventually, he let me go. But not before leaving a mark on my forearm." 

"So you went to see Cassidy," Jonah said, piecing the story together. 

"After finding out about Scott's feelings, I decided to give up my seat to Cassidy in the hope that Scott would fall for Cassidy and that he wouldn't have to bother me again. But he came up to me again after class. He told me that giving up my seat to Cassidy wouldn't work. He told me that he had no feelings for Cassidy, that he'd only agreed to date her so she'd stop bugging me to give up my seat." 

"So you turned him down over and over, did you?" Jonah asked. 

Ponnie nodded, not looking Jonah in the eye. 

"But he was persistent, wasn't he? He found out you were invited to Valerie's party, so he showed up and brought Cassidy along to make you jealous," Jonah said. 

"I swear, Jonah, I have no feelings for him," Ponnie said, wiping tears from her eyes, looking angry with herself for breaking down. "I...I only have feelings for you." 

Jonah stopped. It was hard enough to process the information that Scott Riverson would ever have taken notice of meek, socially awkward Ponnie in her old-fashioned clothes and hipster glasses. But he had. And after years of having everything he wanted, being denied Ponnie as a girlfriend had broken Scott. 

But it was the revelation that Ponnie had turned down Scott because she'd been interested in him, Jonah, that shocked Jonah even more. 

Jonah had indeed had a suspicion that Ponnie liked him. He liked her too. After all they'd been through together, her being his single greatest friend he'd ever had in his entire life, he couldn't help loving her. She was the best thing that ever happened to him. 

The moment just felt right to Jonah. Ponnie had single-handedly sat through her torment being chased after by Scott without complaint, just so she wouldn't make Jonah worried. She'd rejected Scott for him. And Jonah wasn't going to sit down and let Ponnie's efforts go to waste. Leaning in - Jonah and Ponnie were about the same height either way - Jonah pressed his lips against hers and laced her hands with his, letting himself fall into bliss. 

* 

Cassidy Hoskins 

While Jonah enjoyed his first kiss with Ponnie, for Cassidy, it was much the opposite. 

She and Scott stood on opposite ends of Valerie's kitchen. Outside, in the living room, the DJ had put the music back on and the nerds had reverted back to gaming. Cassidy could vaguely hear Valerie cursing out loud about the scandal that had just happened and lamenting about a wasted $5 on wheat grass cake. 

"Want to tell me what happened out there?" Cassidy asked, looking at Scott, who refused to look at her. 

Scott finally looked up from his boots, putting his hands on the counter behind him, sighing. "I'm sorry, Cassidy. But Ponnie's the only one for me. I liked her for a while, because she was the only girl who didn't throw herself at me." 

"Unlike you, Cassidy. I'm not stupid. I know you and almost every other available girl in class wanted me as a boyfriend and you were all throwing yourselves at me, hoping I would take notice. You asked me why I accepted Sylvia's Friend Request on Facebook and not yours. That's because at the time, Jack told me he had a crush on Sylvia and that he would make a move soon, so I decided it was safe to accept Sylvia's Friend Request without leading her on and making her believe I was interested in her." 

"You accepted Sylvia's request and not mine, all because you knew Jack was interested in her?" Cassidy spluttered. 

"You're like every other girl in class, Cassidy," Scott spat maliciously. "All you care about is getting a hot boyfriend. I wasn't stupid. I saw the signs you gave me, trying to hint to me that you wanted me to be yours. I decided the best way to get Ponnie to be my girlfriend was if she was jealous of me. Because so far, she hadn't so much as glanced my way. At first, I thought I'd just pick any random girl in class to be my pretend-girlfriend, but I chose you. Why? So you'd stop being mean to Ponnie because she was hogging the seat next to me. I killed two birds with one stone." 

"You were the one who hurt Ponnie's arm, weren't you?" Cassidy accused. 

Scott nodded. "That was the day I confessed my feelings to her. I got mad, grabbed her arm, things got heated and out of control." 

Cassidy shook her head. "So all this? Our relationship, the kissing, the dates, the love...was it all just based on a lie? Was it all a pointless crusade to make Ponnie jealous and become your girlfriend? Because you've certainly achieved that, haven't you?" 

"I told you before Cassidy. For my entire life, every girl I wanted, I'd get. Ponnie was the first girl I met who didn't seem to throw herself at me. Of course, there were others, but Ponnie was the only I liked," Scott said. 

Scott looked at the hurt on Cassidy's face, but showed no remorse. "You must be feeling very heartbroken, Cassidy. But you know what? You deserve it. You're a heartless person, Cassidy. I've been to your house before, I've seen the way you treat your maid and chaffeur. You don't have any respect for anyone with a lower status than you." 

"Are you any different, Scott? You're just as spoiled as I am. Like me, you've got everything you ever wanted and when you didn't, it broke you!" Cassidy shouted, tears starting to trickle down her cheeks. 

"So I guess we're both perfect for each other, aren't we?" Scott said, with no humor in his voice. 

"Let's break up," Cassidy said, sniffing. 

Scott nodded. "Of course." 

Taking his hands off the countertop, Scott walked around and right past Cassidy without so much as a second glance, leaving the kitchen. Cassidy put her back up against the wall, looking up at the ceiling, her chest heaving as she put her hand over her eyes and wiped her tears in a futile effort to clean them. Despair came closing in.