Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #2)(4)

“He must think I’m some sort of creeper,” Mina mumbled under her breath.

“Um, yeah, he probably does,” Nan answered.

Mina was startled by her friend’s voice. She had become oblivious to Nan and hadn’t noticed when she came and sat on the desk next to her to stare out the window at Brody.

Nan took a sucker out of her mouth and pointed the sticky ball at her friend. “You, dear Mina, need to get a life.”

Mina’s eyes crossed as she took in the wet, red, candy ball on a stick. “Where did you get that?”

Nan rolled her eyes and pulled three more out of her purse. “I’m trying to lay off the cupcakes, too many dyes. So I switched vices. Want one?” She fanned the suckers and waved them enticingly in front of Mina.

“No thanks.”

“It wouldn’t solve your problem anyway!” Nan spoke with the sucker still in her mouth.

“What problem?” Mina asked, slightly confused.

“The one where you’re turning into a square.” She held up her pointer fingers and thumbs to create a square and looked through it at Mina.

“Compared to what? Are you saying I wasn’t one before?”

Nan turned her head to the side. “Well, you always were more of a triangle. But ever since the dance, you’ve been different.” She pointed a thumb at the aquatics building. “Is it because of Brody, that you’re so broody? Ha! I made a joke…get it?”

Mina turned back toward her desk and put her books into her new backpack. She paused as she remembered a similar backpack with safety pins holding it together. Her mind was flooded with images of Brody falling, her reaching out and grabbing his backpack and saving his life, and all of the days after. The onslaught of memories made Mina frustrated, so she violently tossed the books into her bag.

She needed to quit living in the past and start worrying about her future. Who knew how long before the Story gathered power and unleashed another fairy tale quest on her?

“Okay, I’m a square and I need a life. What do you, oh Wise One, suggest?” Mina tried to smile and play along.

Nan pulled out her iPhone and started typing. “Next weekend the hottest band is playing, and I am determined to get tickets to the show.”

Mina groaned aloud. “Don’t tell me it’s that band that sounds like screeching cats? What are they called? Um Royal Flush, King’s Council?”

Nan pouted. “They do not sound like screeching cats. And they’re called the Dead Prince Society. I’ll stand in line all night if I have to, but we are definitely going. And we definitely need to find you different clothes.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Mina looked down at her vintage striped shirt and grimaced at the obvious paint stain from her earlier art project. What others called thrift store, Mina’s mom called vintage. How could she have missed the stain? She furiously rubbed at the offending paint and it started to slowly chip off, but it was going to take a lot of chipping to get it all.

She’d thought she’d been doing better with her wardrobe. At least she no longer wore hoodie jackets, which had tended to be a bane to her on her last encounter with the Story, when it had tried to turn her into Red Riding Hood and made all of her clothes red. Still, it was tough to fit in and buy expensive clothes when her single mom, who cleaned houses for a living, supported her and her brother. So Mina chose to wear hand-me-down, garage-sale items and thrift store finds which weren’t all bad.

“Forget it, Mina. The shirt is a lost cause. It’s not worth salvaging.” Nan grabbed her hand, pulled her out of the chair. Mina sighed, picked up her backpack and followed her friend out into the hall of Kennedy High.

Most of the students had already left for the day, and only those who had detention or were involved in afterschool clubs and sports were on campus. Mina never minded staying late after school. It meant she was able to see Brody and avoid running into despicable Jared.

Mina had once believed Jared was dead, and had felt responsible for his death. A Fae wolf had jumped from a moving van onto Jared’s motorcycle while they were both speeding down a highway. Mina saw them crash and she believed there was no way they could have survived that wreck. She had been devastated and spent days crying over him. Now, since he obviously wasn’t dead, she wished he was. He was rude, obnoxious and a complete jerk.

The day that Jared had appeared in the school lunchroom, miraculously alive, would be forever burned into her memory. For a moment, when he’d surprised her and looked at her with such heat filled and intense eyes, one would have thought it was Mina who had almost died. She’d clutched the table for support and dug her nails into it so she wouldn’t run to him crying and blubbering loudly. He’d seen her slight movement and given just the slightest head shake “no”. He’d continued to stare right into her soul as he moved across the lunchroom to sit at a different table. Jared was rejecting her, to keep up with appearances of being a new student.

Mina’s heart had thudded. She’d heard her blood rushing in her ears as she’d tried to make sense of the intense emotions that had overtaken her at the sight of Jared and his immediate response to her. Excitement, happiness, joy, confusion, hurt, betrayal, sadness, all of those emotions had flushed across her face in a blink of an eye and she’d sat down hard on the chair. Nan had barely noticed as she had droned on and on about the new kid.