It’s like he socked me in my stomach and I wince with the verbal impact.
Kyle eyes my reaction. “Did you think you were special with him on Friday night? I’ve seen this guy and his buddies work. Girls are like running faucets for them.”
A stupid part of me did feel special with Razor. Special in how he listened, special in the way he touched and treated me. A lump forms in my throat. I threw myself at him, and the boy who goes through girls like toilet paper rejected me. Like Kyle, Razor’s sole interest in me is for my brain. “The lies on Bragger, that’s from you, isn’t it?”
“I may have said a few things. Explained how Razor was bothering you and I was helping you out. The story took off from there. Consider it my gift to you for writing my papers.”
“Everyone is focused on me and him. That doesn’t feel like help. That feels like a threat.”
“I’m reminding you to stay away from Razor and I will continue to remind you of that every time I see you together. I am not the asshole here. He’s the threat, not me!”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“That’s not true!” Kyle rams his fist into the cinder-block wall. I stagger back, a scream teetering on the tip of my tongue. He turns his back to me and paces like he’s a caged tiger.
I should run. I should race down the stairs and out the building shouting “fire” the entire way, but it won’t solve my problem with Kyle. I’m trapped in this inferno.
Kyle shakes out his arms and it’s scary how fast he calms down. “Everyone thought of you as the freak, shy girl. Now you’re the girl I stuck up for. I already had two guys on the football team asking if I bagged you this summer because I stood up for you, and I told them no—that you weren’t that type of girl, that you were the type worth dating.”
“Am I supposed to thank you?” I clutch my folders tighter to my chest.
He gives me a “duh” expression. “Yeah. I built you up to them. Those two guys are thinking differently of you and it’s not as the school freak or the easy lay. They’re looking at you as the girl to take home to Mom.”
“Is that how it works?” Disgust swims through me. “Some closed-door boys’ club in a locker room and a girl’s reputation is forever set?”
Kyle shrugs. “I didn’t make the rules, I just play along.”
“You’re a pig.”
“I’m a pig that’s going to help get you on homecoming court if that’s what you want, or a date with one of my buddies. A real date. Flowers. Dinner. Respect. Stop being so negative and start looking at what we can do for each other. I have a paper due this semester on some book. 1980 something by George somebody.”
“Orwell. George Orwell and it’s 1984.” I roll my neck to stop the flood of information on him, like how he also wrote Animal Farm and he was born on June 25, 1903, and...
“Yeah, him.” Kyle interrupts my crazy train of thought. “Five pages. Double spaced. One-inch margins and, I’ve been thinking, you should throw in a few grammatical errors. If it’s too good, my teacher may not believe I wrote it.”
“If you’re that concerned, maybe you should write it yourself.”
“Could, but I’m not. Look, the rules of this game are easy—write my papers, stay away from the Terror and tell me what you want from this arrangement. As I said, it’ll be easier on both of us if we don’t consider this blackmail, but an agreement.”
The bells rings, and my head starts to throb. I don’t answer him because there is absolutely nothing he has that I could ever want—besides that picture banned from the universe. I pivot and slowly walk to my classroom. It’s hard to breathe as the walls close in.
RAZOR
THE BRAGGER MESSAGES are like taunts from a drunken frat boy begging to be punched:
Jenny @cutekitten · 30 s
Like she’s a catch. If Razor feels like playing, I’ll play with him. Bet he wasn’t coming on to her. Bet she was coming on to him and she struck out.
Kyle @koaltime · 10 s
Everyone back off @breanna212. Not her fault the Terror are terrorizing her. @cutekitten
Lauren @laurenrose · 10 s
@koaltime @cutekitten I saw her crying after math. She looked scared. Thank you for standing up to the Terror Kyle. The Terror suck.
“How the hell do you play football with these assholes?” I whisper to Chevy. He’s a great running back. Can read a defender like no one else. That is, when his coach will give him playing time. Being a kid of the Terror has stalked him onto the field.
“They’re not all like that,” he replies. They aren’t. Just like how all bikers aren’t criminals on parole.
Another round of messages involving Breanna, and the pencil in my hand snaps with a crack. Using those fast hands, Chevy swipes his cell off my desk and tucks it into the pocket of his jeans before the teacher can spot what’s set me off. The bell starting sixth period rings and it takes everything I have not to lose my shit.
People stare at me like I’m about to go nuclear bomb fallout. The guy in front of me scoots his desk forward. Yeah, asshole, I’m going to knock the hell out of you because someone else is putting lies on the internet.
He glances over his shoulder and I glare. On second thought, maybe I should beat him and every guy in this room senseless as a warning to mind their own business instead of expressing an opinion on someone else’s life. Piping in to join the masses because they’re grateful they aren’t the one being picked on. The kid in front of me with the overgelled hair turns red and mutters to his buddy next to him that I’m crazy.