“You’ll never believe this,” I grinned, almost making Tyler jump as I came up next to him as he looked for something in his locker. “You’re going to love me for this, I just know it. Are you ready to hear what I have to tell you?”
Tyler gave me a look that told me he thought I was insane, but I still just couldn’t stop smiling at him. I was actually really excited for him, since he had wanted to date Henry ever since he had seen him all those months before…
“What happened to your arm?” he asked before I could say anything, his eyes widening at the gauze.
“That’s not important right now,” I waved away, still smiling like a complete idiot even though my injured arm had been pointed out. “I’m taking medication for it and the gauze makes it no big deal at all. But anyway, I have amazing news for you!”
“Okay,” he nodded. “Go ahead and tell me then.”
“I got you a date with Henry!” I whispered, looking around to make sure that no one would be listening in to our conversation. “He says he’s thinking about breaking up with his boyfriend and I told him that I had a friend who would probably love to go out with him. So what do you think?”
Tyler stared down at me for a moment, not saying a word to me as I waited for his response. It wasn’t like I was expecting him to act like a girl or anything by acting super excited, but I thought I would at least get some kind of reaction from him.
“Really?” he asked after he had swallowed. “You’re being serious?”
“Completely serious!”
“Okay,” he nodded, finally smiling now. “You can tell him that I’d definitely like to go out on a date with him.”
This was amazing. At least something was working out for somebody! With everything else that was going wrong in my life, this was actually making me feel a little bit better about it all.
But I spoke too soon. When I saw Jack, I nearly fell over even though I had been standing still. A girl was wrapped around his arm, and it made me sick to my stomach. Other people in the hallway were staring at him, confused by the girl that was hanging all over him. Word that we had broken up hadn’t gotten around school yet, but now I was sure that it would.
“Well this is déjà vu,” Tyler snorted flatly, turning back toward his locker and placing a text book in. “Jack used to walk around with a different girl on his arm almost every week before you came here.”
I made a face. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m sorry, Ivy,” Tyler sighed, shaking his head. “I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better.”
Suddenly, something clicked in my head. I smiled like an idiot, not believing I hadn’t thought of this sooner.
“Hey,” I started, placing my hand on his arm suggestively. “There is a way you can make me feel better. I have an idea.”
Tyler blinked down at my hand on his arm. “Are you on some type of medication for your arm that I should know about?”
“No, but I’d be forever in your debt if you do me a favor,” I smiled sweetly, not even removing my hand from his arm when I saw that Jack had now noticed the two of us. “I think we should date.”
“Didn’t you just tell me that you’re going to set up a date between Henry and me?” Tyler asked me in confusion, staring down at my creepy smile as if he had no idea what to do. “You tell me something like that, and then you say that we should go and date. Do you have two personalities or something or are the medications you’re taking doing something to your head?”
“I’m fine,” I assured, now wrapping my arm around his just like the girl with Jack was.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” he swallowed now, not about to look back to see if Jack was watching us, which he was. “I mean… Jack’s still my friend. And after everything that happened with Emma last year…”
“Don’t you get it?” I grinned now, excited over the fact that I might actually piss Jack off even more than I already had. “If you do this, it’ll protect your secret. No one will know that you’re actually gay, and then it’ll definitely make Jack jealous. Come on, Tyler. It’ll be fun.”
He still didn’t look so sure. “I don’t know…”
I literally would have gotten on my hands and knees if I had to. He was the only person I could do this with without having them get any feelings for me, since he wasn’t even attracted to girls. The only problem would be if I started liking him, but Tyler was way too good of a friend of mine for that to happen…
“Please?” I begged, feeling a little bad for pressuring him into something like this. “We’ll just pretend to date; it won’t be anything serious. You’ll get to actually date Henry, and then Jack will be angry.”
“Fine,” he finally gave in.
“Great! Thank you so much!” I exclaimed now as the bell rang, signaling us that we had to now get to second period. Without even warning him, I jumped up onto my toes and pressed my lips to his. I knew that Jack was watching us, and this made me smile into the kiss and even after that when I told Tyler bye.
I ignored the stares I was getting from kissing Tyler as I made my way to my next class. People could think what they wanted; it was what I wanted anyway. I knew that Jack saw the kiss, which was what I wanted even more. He was going to know what it felt like to be jealous and angry.
“So,” Eli started once I sat down in my desk next to him. “Word on the street is that you’re dating Tyler.”
I stared at him with wide eyes. “How did you find out so quickly?”
Eli shrugged, showing me his phone that he held in his hand. “Courtney saw you two lip-locking and texted me literally a second before you walked in.”
I didn’t know if I was imagining it or not, but Eli almost looked… angry, which wasn’t something that I was expecting. Sure, he was angry when I started dating Jack, but that was because he didn’t want a poor girl moving in on the Lost Boys… But now we seemed to have been friends and my family wasn’t even that poor anymore since Eli had been paying so much to live with us.
“We’re not really dating,” I shrugged, sure that I could trust Eli, since I had said that he was my friend and all. “I just kissed him because Jack was there with some other girl all over him. Tyler and I are just… pretending to date.”
I thought that this would make Eli less angry, but it definitely didn’t. His eyebrows didn’t unfurrow, and he didn’t smirk like I expected him to.
“Why would you go to Tyler?” Eli questioned, and I felt my breath get caught in my throat at his question. I couldn’t tell him Tyler’s reason… He’d never trust me again if I did! “Why would you go to Tyler and not me?”
“You live in my house, Eli,” I shrugged, looking to the front of the room even though I knew I wasn’t going to be able to learn anything with Eli sitting right next to me. “Everyone knows that you live in my house. What would people think if they found out that two people living under the same roof were dating?”
“Who cares what other people think?” Eli sneered, and I bit the inside of my lip at his question. “Oh, wait. You do. Actually, you only really care about what Jack thinks of you. So just stop beating around the bush and get back together with him.”
I bit down on my lip even harder, so distracted by what he was saying that I couldn’t even tell if I tasted blood or not. What he was saying was right; I really only cared what Jack thought about me. I didn’t want to care about anything about him at all, but… I just couldn’t help myself.
“Olivia Morgan to Headmistress Bistro’s office, please,” a voice suddenly read out over the speaker. “Olivia Morgan to Headmistress Bistro’s office, please.”
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as Eli looked over at me in concern. I heard my classmates chatting and giggling, wondering what I could have done that would cause me to be called up to the headmistress’s office.
I wasn’t able to walk very far when someone suddenly blocked my path. My eyebrows furrowed at them, but it wasn’t like I was surprised to see them. I knew I was going to have to deal with them sometime today whether I liked it or not.
“Excuse me, Stephanie,” I tried coldly, but she wouldn’t move a muscle to get out of my way. “I need to get by. Headmistress Bistro needs to see me.”
She snickered. “No, she doesn’t need to see you. She’s actually at a meeting today, so she’s not even here.”
“But… I heard that she needed me over the speaker,” I swallowed, having a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well. “Everyone else heard it, too.”
“I guess I sounded pretty convincing, didn’t I?” she giggled, and I didn’t let it show that I was actually scared. She was such a quiet and small girl, and yet she had caused so much damage all around her.
“I’m going back to class,” I informed her snidely, turning around and back toward the classroom before starting back in that direction. I only took a few steps away before her hand clamped down on my arm, right over the gauze that was covering my burns.
I let out a shout as she turned me back around toward her, and I quickly tore my arm from her grasp, which caused the gauze to come undone and slip onto the floor, revealing my red arm to her. She smirked at it, and all I did was stand there and glare.
“So it left a mark, huh?” she asked cockily. “Good. I was hoping that it would.”
“It isn’t permanent,” I snapped, just so she’d know that she wasn’t going to haunt me for the rest of my life. “It’ll go away eventually and then it’ll be like you didn’t even exist at all.”
When she cocked her head to the side and smiled, it made her look like one of those creepy dolls from movies that were going to kill you. I took a step back, gulping and wishing that I had someone there with me so I wouldn’t have been alone.
“Maybe I’ll do some permanent damage next,” she informed me as she took a step menacing forward. “Permanent damage that would last the rest of your life… if you were to even live through them.”
I gulped, hoping that if I were to scream, someone would run out and save me. I didn’t know what Stephanie could do while we were in the school, but I wasn’t about to underestimate her. She had already fooled me and the entire school before.
“I think it would be a smart idea if you just walked away,” a new voice suddenly advised the girl in front of me, and I jumped in surprise when I saw that Eli was right behind me. “You’re a smart girl, Stephanie. You’re crazy, but you’re smart. You know doing anything at school wouldn’t be the smart thing to do.”
“How did you get out of class?” I nearly gasped as he took a step in front of me and pushed me so that I was now behind him and he was guarding me from the crazy girl in front of us.
“Lost Boy, remember?” he reminded, jabbing his thumb into his chest as he looked back at me. “I can do whatever I want.”
I made a face. “Oh, yeah. How could I forget?”
“Just walk away, Stephanie,” Eli now repeated now, his arms over his chest. “You’re smart. You know that’s the smart thing to do.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be smart, Eli,” she smiled wickedly, and I honestly was a little afraid of this look that I wasn’t use to on her face. “Revenge is so much better than being smart. And being smart makes revenge so much easier.”
“Look,” I finally snapped, stepping out from behind Eli, who looked like he was going to grab me and pull me back behind him. “I’m sorry about your father, but it was his own choice to take his life, not Eli’s or his father’s. You can’t go blaming it on them just because Eli can be selfish sometimes.”
“Hey,” Eli defended, but I only glanced back at him for a second to glare at him.
“The point is that he didn’t know your father was going to commit suicide if he lost his job,” I continued now. “I’m sure he never would have made his dad fire yours if he knew it was going to drive him to something as horrible as taking his own life.”
“Well…”
“Eli!”
“I’m kidding,” he muttered, but I didn’t turn around to glare at him like I usually would. I didn’t take my eyes off of Stephanie, because I had a feeling that I’d regret it if I did. “I’m not that cruel of a person.”
“You did just joke about it,” I snapped, my eyes narrowing at him.
“You’re not helping with the situation here!”
“I think she’s said enough,” Stephanie suddenly bellowed, cutting Eli’s and my bickering off before we could continue like we always did. “No matter what you say, Ivy, it’s not going to change how I feel. Eli Hunter and his dad killed my father and you can’t do anything that would make me feel any differently.”
“It’s called forgiving and forgetting,” I nearly barked, tired of this pipsqueak talking like she knew absolutely everything there was to know. “It’s called growing up. Eli and his father had nothing to with your dad’s death. You just need to accept it and move on.”
“Why didn’t you just expel her earlier in the year like you said you were going to, Eli?” Stephanie suddenly asked as she turned toward him, completely ignoring me now as if I wasn’t even there. "You were so intent on expelling her the second she did something wrong, but once she did, you didn’t do it.”
“I live in her house now,” Eli nearly growled, as if he didn’t like to be reminded of the past. “I couldn’t expel her after her family was nice enough to let me live there.”
“No, that’s not it,” Stephanie continued with a shake of her head. “You used to hate her, and she used to hate you. You two would glare at each other whenever you got anywhere near each other. Now you two talk all the time like you’re the best of friends. I’d just like to know what happened.”
In all honesty, I didn’t even know what happened myself. He had been nice to me when everything had been going on with Jack, but he had been acting differently toward me even before that…
“Things change,” he said now, and I couldn’t tell if he sounded like he was out of excuses or if it was just me.
“Are you in love with her, Eli?”
He stared at her with wide eyes, and I was hoping that it was because the question had caught him off guard, not because of the answer.
I took a step forward. “Are you in love with him?”
That question was completely uncalled for, and I didn’t even care what her answer would have been, but I just didn’t want to hear Eli answer what she had asked him. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it if the answer was yes.
“I was,” Stephanie shrugged, and my eyes nearly fell right out of their sockets. I was not expecting her to even answer that question, let alone say that she had been had been! “At least, I thought I was, at a time. It was last year, before my father died and before I realized that Eli Hunter is selfish, self-centered, and can’t love anyone but himself.”
Eli stared down at the ground, not even denying what she had said. I stared at him strangely for a moment before turning back toward the girl and saying, “And you’re just a crazy bitch. You’re in no position to judge anybody.”
Before I even realized it, I was on the ground and Stephanie was on top of me. She grabbed onto my hair with one of her hands while she used the other one to punch me as many times as she could in my face.
“What is going on here?” a new voice suddenly demanded before Eli could get her off of me, and I looked up to see Headmistress Bistro staring down at Stephanie and me as we continued to stay tangled on the ground at her feet.
“It… it was Ivy!” Stephanie suddenly burst into sobs, and I stared at her in complete and total shock. She had been the one on top of me, and I was the one with the bloody nose! “She suddenly attacked me and was going to get Eli to hurt me, too! All the rumors around town are true, Headmistress Bistro! She’s an uncontrollable liar!”
I was in such shock that I didn’t even say anything. My lips were covered in blood from my nose, and I knew I would taste it if I opened my mouth. I looked up at Eli, begging him to help me with my eyes.
“This bitch it lying,” Eli spat, pointing at Stephanie menacingly. “She’s the one that burned down my house because she thinks I’m the reason her dad committed suicide. She’s set out to kill my family and me, and I guess Ivy now since she just jumped her seconds before you got here.”
Headmistress Bistro looked like she didn’t know who to believe. Eli was a Lost Boy, but Stephanie was supposed to be Miss Priss. If I was Headmistress Bistro, I wouldn’t have known who to believe either.
“Ivy?” Headmistress Bistro suddenly asked, and it sounded really fuzzy to me. “Are you alright? Can you get up on your own?”
I didn’t even get to answer her, because I was suddenly being helped up onto my feet by Eli. I stumbled a little bit, which only caused Eli to hold onto me even tighter.
“She’s a dangerous person!” Stephanie now shouted.
Headmistress Bistro turned toward Miss Priss, her eyes in slits as she tried to think of what to say. Finally, after what felt like forever, she finally said, “Stephanie, you need to go to my office right now.”
“What?” she screeched, looking like she couldn’t believe it. “Why am I going to your office? Ivy’s the one that started it, not me! I didn’t burn Eli’s house down! I didn’t try to burn Ivy’s house down!”
I saw Eli smirk out of the corner of my eye as I continued to stay in his arms. “I never said anything about you trying to burn Ivy’s house down.”
The brunette girl’s eyes widened, and I knew that she had just sold herself out. Headmistress Bistro pointed toward her office, handing Eli a handkerchief before leading Stephanie in the direction of it.
“You okay?” he asked softly, pressing the white handkerchief to my lips gently before moving his way up to my nose.
“Yeah,” I croaked. “I’m fine, I guess.”
“Well, at least we got Stephanie out of our lives,” Eli tried to smile, but I didn’t feel like smiling with him when my face was covered in blood. He went back to frowning as he continued to dab at my blood. “Your nose isn’t broken either, luckily.”
“You sure?” I swallowed.
He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen broken noses before. I’ve given some. Your nose will be sore for a little while, but it isn’t broken.”
Well, I was relieved for that. I didn’t want to have to walk around with some sort of nose brace. I already had enough problems that I had to deal with.
I was just glad this happened before lunch. I didn’t think I would be able to sit with Chloe while Stephanie was right there as if nothing had ever happened. But now I was sure that Stephanie was going to get expelled, and possibly even put in juvie for arson. As long as she was out of our lives from now on, I was just a little bit happier.
“Let’s take you to the nurse, just in case,” Eli now whispered, even though he didn’t have to. Instead of making me walk like I thought he would, he picked me up and carried me bridal style all the way to the nurse’s office. I thought that he was going to leave me there and go back to class, but he didn’t.
He stayed right by my side, and it almost felt right.
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Who do you see as the antagonist(s) of this book? I guess you could say Stephanie, but she was really only the antagonist for about two chapters (and I guess the chapters when you didn't know who burned down Eli's house, too...)
So... this isn't too late... Well, it's not as late as my chapters usually have been lately. I'm trying to get back on track now that it's summer! :D
Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :)