Chapter Twenty-Nine

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Whoever controls life must have heard my determination and decided to fuck with me. After leading me to believe I was going somewhere.

Three days ago -- when another assignment Mr. Shadler gave out was turned in by a quarter of the class -- the teacher had some of us move seats. I volunteered to switch with someone who formerly had a seat adjacent to Josh. This way, I can keep a closer eye on him. That's the first step.

The second step was creating fake profiles on social media and searching for him. Unfortunately, he has his Twitter profile set to private, and he denied my request to follow him. Also bad news, he only posted the stupid shit on Snapchat. His last thirteen posts were short videos Tik Tok would love.

Any chance of recording him whenever I had the chance was 50-50. Sometimes I got garbled nonsense, and other times I captured stuff unrelated to Shadler. According to Josh yesterday, his mom's a bitch because she wants him to get a job so he can a jump start on adulthood and make something of himself. 

I would love to have that 'bitch' of a mom. Just saying.

The irritation of the whole thing leads to me telling my friends about it at Jeremiah's house on Saturday. I wasn't gonna say anything about it, but the host's been asking me what's wrong. His reason is, and I quote, I "have resting serial killer face".

"Why are you trying to record someone at school?" Ikra asks, not wasting a second when I finish my story and stop moving my hands around while I was talking.

My legs pull into the open space of the high chair I'm sitting in. The tops of my feet rest against the low bar holding the wooden legs in place. "Did you not hear what I said?"

"I heard you imply how creepy you were acting." She gently runs her hand over the exposed tattoo. It's so 3D-looking; the artist even made the little bumps around the kitty stand out. "I mean, come on, stalking someone based on a hunch? Over petty revenge? That's just dumb."

"Yeah," Jeremiah agrees, slurping another Gogurt tube. "If he killed someone, that'd make more sense." He goes back to the fridge and pulls out two more tubes.

I nod. "Okay, I hear you."

Ikra stares at me. "You're not gonna blame anyone for some random murder," she orders me.

I measure an amount with my thumb and index finger. "Not even a little one?"

She shakes her head. "Not gonna happen. What's your proof behind this supposed sabotage?"

"Besides the recording, annoying smirks, and a glimpse of his tweets?"

"Yeah."

"Not much. But that's the problem," I say. I nab a coke from the fridge door before Jeremiah can object. Hopping back in the chair, I admit, "I'm not getting a lot and I know Josh is being the biggest dick."

Jeremiah interjects with, "Really? I think he's okay."

Rolling my eyes, I say, "You don't have classes with him. Different setting, bud."

"Don't you think you're going too far on what's not there?" Ikra suggests.

"No?" Chugging half the can, I add, "It's not like I'm gonna kidnap him and ask for ransom."

Jeremiah pipes up, "That your back up plan?"

The silence's a little awkward with the three of us.

"If Plans A through D fail."

"Oh my god," Ikra sighs. "I don't want to know what your other plans are."

Someone's phone rings. It's not mine, so I don't care. "Good, because I need two hours to think of them."

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