» Eve's point of view «
Joe Reyes...
I wanted to punch the guy till he was cross-eyed and developed a nose similar to Voldemort's. How many more times was I going to have to tell him I wasn't interested in dating him? I wasn't interested in dating anyone! I was perfectly happy being alone and to me, feelings were a thing as abstract as Chinese characters. The only people I loved were my family. And honestly, that only went as far as missing them when they weren't around.
Hugo was the complete opposite of me. He had dived into a relationship with two guys and I could see it made him (and them) really happy, but I could also see how much pressure was on them. However, it wasn't any of my business, so I didn't say anything. All Hugo could use was my support, which I happily gave to him.
I couldn't see why Joe was interested in me. I was a rude girl, incapable of showing emotions and, as Hugo liked to put it, a damn ninja. I was sneaky and secretive and quite frankly, no one should trust me, because I lived for the gossip. I wish I had dirt on Joe, but the only thing I knew about him was that he had mediocre grades, a normal, functioning family and good friends—nothing special—and apparently, a crush on me. If only the latter was not a reality.
The first thing I asked Joe when he sat down in front of me—after snapping at him and getting threatened to be exposed, of course—was, "How did you know? How did you find out? There is no way you could have known."
"You forget I pay attention to you, Eve."
Ugh, I hated the way he said my name. I hated the way he was smirking at me. I hated the way his dark irises were staring at me like I was supposed to be falling for him, for whatever unrealistic reason. I hated his bony, wringing hands. I hated the power he had over me.
"You know I'm DukeCockroach by paying attention to me? Well, damn, you should become a private eye and solve murders!"
He didn't even fucking reply to what I said. With a sparkle in his eyes, he said, "I've never seen you so... livid."
Barf.
"Joe, you need to sit down and take a fucking chill pill. You can't just blackmail a girl into dating you."
"I can do whatever the hell I want."
Sadly, with the stuff he had on me, that was true.
"You can't like me so much that you'd go this far." There had to be something wrong with his mind. Was me saying no to him for two years straight not obvious enough for him? How could he think there was still a chance I'd say yes?
He simply shrugged.
"Have you ever heard of asexuality?"
He shrugged again. "I don't believe it exists."
Someone had better give me something to rip or it would be his head that'd be ripped off. What an ignorant asshole!
"Okay, it seems we can't come to an agreement," I said, gritting my teeth to keep myself from doing something I'd regret. "Please elaborate, Joe. How did you find out?"
"You're always on your phone, laughing to yourself, and you have this... little smile on your face, when people mention a joke you made up. But at the same time, you say that you don't follow DukeCockroach and that you have no idea what everyone is talking about. I knew I was right, when you weren't at school last Monday, which was the day DukeCockroach said she'd be doing an interview."
"That doesn't prove anything," I growled.
"But you're here."
Fuck. For a stupid guy who couldn't spell to save his life, he had a good point. If I had just been an innocent girl who had no idea what the texts were about, I wouldn't have shown up and Joe would have spread the name of a girl who was not actually DukeCockroach.
"Okay, well, I don't know how many more times you want me to say no, but I am not interested and never will be. I'll be leaving now."
"You have to come here again next week if you don't want the whole school to know who you really are."
"What's the point?" It wouldn't be an actual date. I'd come solely because he was forcing me to.
He just smiled and I scoffed, before stomping out of the musty café. He was right about one thing—however the moron even knew the word. I was indeed livid. How did he even dare do this to me?
I completely forgot I had asked Hugo to come, but he came home only minutes after I did, along with Dylan and Floyd. Not able to discuss what happened in Ginger Salamander in front of our parents, they focused on why Dylan had stayed over last night instead. Mainly because Mom and Dad were giving Dylan's—or should I say Hugo's—clothes some very curious looks.
Dylan started explaining what happened and he'd barely finished talking, when Mom combusted. "I am pretty sure he can't do that! Isn't that illegal, Kurt?"
Dad shrugged. "I don't know the law."
She rolled her eyes at her husband with an annoyed huff. "We should go to the police for this! I don't think he's allowed to kick his kid out of the house just because of his sexuality. It's fine if you stay here in the meanwhile, Dylan!" She reached out to pull Dylan in for a hug and he looked surprised to be receiving it. His eyes were as round as saucers. "Although, Hugo doesn't have a very big bed."
"Or can he stay your place, Floyd?" Dad asked.
"Uhh..." He bit his nails. "I'm... not sure."
"Dylan can stay here, Dad," Hugo said quickly. "I'll just grab the airbed if it gets impractical."
Uhh... what exactly was going on here? Floyd looked like he regretted kicking a puppy and Hugo looked like someone was about to find out he'd given that puppy another kick. And why couldn't Dylan just sleep at Floyd's?
No, Eve, it's none of your business.
I had to stop being so nosy. It's what got me in my current mess in the first place. No more digging into people's secrets and posting them on the internet for the whole world to see.
"Yes, I'll go grab it!" Mom said, leaving the room to run for the attic right away. I gestured at my brother and his boyfriends to go up to his room so we could talk about the jerk that was blackmailing me.
Hugo closed his door behind him and immediately said, "So?"
"He wants me to come back next week, but that's not going to happen. I'm going to Mr. Hanson first thing next week and he's going to fix this. Hopefully."
"Hopefully," Floyd repeated and he suddenly held his phone out to me. I raised an eyebrow in question, but he said, "Just look."
I took it and slowly, a triumphant smile formed on my face, after seeing the clear picture of Joe smirking at me across the table in the Ginger Salamander. "Floyd, you genius!"
"I don't think Mr. Hanson will have any trouble taking measures now!"
"Oh my God, thank you so much!" I immediately emailed myself the photos and forwarded them to Mr. Hanson with the message that Joe was the culprit. He was in deep shit now. It didn't take Mr. Hanson long to respond. I was expected to come to his office during lunch on Monday and this would all be fixed.
Yet, it proved to be more difficult than I thought.
First of all, there was my friends. Clearly, it was odd that I kept going to the principal's office when I never really did anything wrong. At least, not anything that would make teachers send me to the principal. I told them there was just some kind of project, which made them frown in suspicion. I mean, who the hell would do a project with the principal and what the hell kind of project would that even be? But thankfully, they let it go.
When I got to Mr. Hanson's office, he told me to explain what happened while I was at the café, so I relayed every single little thing I could remember. I wasn't leaving anything out. I even told him it was my brother's boyfriend who'd made the picture, to assure him I had back-up while I was there.
"Okay, okay, so far so good. I don't understand why he'd go through such great lengths to achieve a goal such as this, but nevertheless, we won't question the boy's motivation and deal with the problem itself. I'm sure his parents will be utterly thrilled to hear what he's been doing."
I couldn't help but snicker, and Mr. Hanson gave me the tiniest smile, before thoughtfully tapping his fingers on his desk.
"So what are we going to do now?" I asked.
"I will call him to my office without telling him why so that he doesn't have time to spread your identity. That should do it."
I nodded slowly. That sounded like a good idea.
Unfortunately, it wasn't. The guy was much smarter than I gave him credit for. During the first period after lunch, Mr. Hanson called through the speaker, "Can Joseph Reyes please come to my office as soon as possible?" Joe knew exactly what he was called to the principal for, and during the walk to the office, he had all the time he needed to text someone. It spread like a wildfire.
Only twenty seconds after Joe had left the classroom, people around me started muttering to each other, and I immediately leaned to the side to ask my friend, Leslie, what was going on. I had a bad feeling about the hushed whispers filling the silence of the classroom.
Leslie leaned towards the girl next to her to repeat the question, but I already heard what it was before she got the answer. The guy beside me whispered to his friend, "DukeCockroach is in our school!"
Shit, shit, shit. Three thousand times shit!
I instantly felt like I couldn't breathe anymore, my lungs constricting with fear so badly I was sure I would die, but then I realized... he hadn't said my name. He just said DukeCockroach was in our school. Not, "Eve Bridges is DukeCockroach."
I felt my phone vibrate and I brought it up to my face, knowing the teacher was too busy telling other students to stop talking, and my heart sank yet again. It was another message from an unknown number, but I knew exactly whose number that was.
'Thats the first strike Eve'
Fuck you, Joe... Just fuck you! Get a giant cactus and shove it up your own ass and use sand as lube while you're at it!
"Eve?"
I looked up from my phone to stare at Leslie.
"What's wrong? You look... really pale."
"Yeah, I'm fine." I pushed myself up and raised my hand. "Miss Brown, may I go to the toilet?"
She sighed, but she let me go and I left the classroom to sprint to the principal's office with my heart in my throat. I almost fell as I rounded a corner too fast and I bumped into two people, but when I finally got to the right hallway, I burst through that door like a bull ready for a fight. Joe was sitting across from Mr. Hanson with a smug look on his face.
"Eve?" said Mr Hanson.
"He told the school!" I snarled. "They don't know it's me, but they know all the tweets are about our school!"
Mr. Hanson surprised me when he swore under his breath. He stood up behind his desk, towering above Joe, and glared down at the boy, who was suddenly cowering in his seat.
"I can personally arrange that you'll be charged with harassment, young man, but I'll start with calling your parents. It is also inevitable that you will be expelled for this." He picked up his desk phone and pointed his finger down at Joe's trembling form. "You better tell me their phone number, because I'm too tired of your sh— I'm too lazy to look it up on my computer."
Joe rattled off one of his parents' number and as Mr. Hanson waited for them to answer, I left the office. This time, it was me with a smug look on my face.
But when I'd returned to my classroom, evading my friends' questions (by saying that I might be getting sick and that that was why I was looking pale and leaving the room for a long period of time), I slowly started to realize that there were going to be... drastic changes now that everyone knew DukeCockroach went to this school. The game with Joe had ended on a tie. 1-1. He had his losses, but sadly, he also had his wins.
Not only could I no longer post things about friends, there would also be serious consequences to the things I'd already posted. And deleting them was pointless when everyone had already read them.
Everyone would know about the girl that got pregnant and had a miscarriage when she was sixteen. Everyone would know about that one guy that had smashed another guy's car in, which had resulted in the pieces of glass mysteriously ending up all over the parking lot for a week. Everyone would know that there was a girl going around dating guys just to tick them off her list to be able to say she's slept with every guy in school.
But most importantly, everyone would think of that tweet that said a teacher was dating a student, combine it with the rumor that had been going on a few months, and there you have it. Olivia and Mr. Rosenberg were public knowledge.
Shit.