Gilded Cage

Chapter 13

The very next morning, Zac's gut-wrenching post had reached the eyeballs of pretty much every student and faculty member on campus. Their responses ranged from unabashed intrigue to outcries of complete and utter disgust. Trick became Public Enemy No. 1. Like bees to honey, my classmates buzzed around Zac throughout second hour.

It felt like a scene from a satirical comedy. Everyone was playing dumb. Pretending not to know how bad Trick's bullying had been. They grossly overcompensated by blustering on and on about how much they hated Trick's guts. Zac played along, of course, shamelessly soaking up their sympathetic gazes and words of admiration like a desert basking in a rainstorm.

I thought of Dr. Williams. Not a single one of them had afforded her this much attention or care after Brit's racist texts exploded on Sassy. The discrepancy made my chest feel a bit heavy.

After second hour ended, quite a few freshmen and sophomore girls were waiting outside of Tilton's classroom for Zac. They used the scandal as an excuse to approach him, offering their condolences while twirling their hair and touching his biceps flirtatiously. Shaking my head at them, partly in amusement, partly in disapproval, I headed towards the music building for concert orchestra. I passed by more students huddled in the hallways. They seemed reluctant to go to class. Bits and pieces from their conversations started floating in and out of my ears.

"Fuckin' Patrick Hayes!" exclaimed a junior cellist named Diana Warren. "I swear, if it wasn't for his mom's endowments to the school—that sociopath would be in juvie by now!"

"I know, right? Patrick should have been expelled years ago," a senior flutist, Hailey-Anne Parker, said with a disgusted eye roll. "He's the equivalent of human garb—"

They paused as they noticed me walk by. I smiled tritely.

"No need to stop on my account, girls," I reassured them. "Trust me, I'm not happy about sharing DNA with him, either."

They laughed awkwardly. I left without another word. Girls like Diana and Hailey-Anne were the least of my concerns at the moment. I was more worried about Trick. On good days, my half-brother had the self-control of a five-year-old, and today was his first day back on campus under very hostile circumstances. He was bound to do something stupid.

After I got home yesterday, I told him to ignore my text and warned him about the new anonymous post on Sassy. The idiot decided to come to school, anyway. Trick had been out for blood, but his rage against Zac quickly shriveled up once he realized the entire school had turned against him. It seemed the turning tide of public opinion was the only way to drown out Trick's monstrous tendencies.

As luck would have it, I ran into Trick on the way to class. He pulled me into an empty corridor. My half-brother was pissed that he couldn't go after Zac without catching more heat from our peers, so he decided to take it out on me instead. He shoved me against a brick wall. I shoved him back. We proceeded to cuss each other out before he stormed away in a huff.

My shoulder still a bit tender in third hour, but I took it all in stride. Trick had never really been on the receiving end of this much harassment before. The sisterly side of me tried to summon up a microscopic ounce of empathy for him, but it never came. I was a petty bitch. A stronger and much more cynical emotion took over. I felt completely justified in watching him suffer under the weight of everyone's scrutiny. I enjoyed it, actually.

His nasty behavior towards me and his other victims had mellowed over the years, but this sudden trial by peers seemed a fitting retribution for a dickhead like him. It wasn't like admin was going to be handing out retroactive consequences at this point. Thanks to his mom and her sizable contributions to the school, Trick had rarely been disciplined for the bulk of his past wrongdoings. Aside from detentions, which were mere slaps on the wrist, really, Principal Pratt had only suspended him a whopping total of two times, once in sixth grade and another in seventh, over countless skirmishes with Zac and the other kids he had tormented.