Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(54)
Chapter 27
“YOUR LEOTARD is ugly.”
I looked down at the little girl standing next to me. She came up to right above my elbow, but I was pretty sure that a solid foot of that was hair. The rest of her was covered in a sea of pale blue ruffles, so I wasn’t sure how she had any room to talk about what was ugly.
Still, being mean to kids is never okay, so I made myself put on a smile. “That’s not very nice,” I told her, but the little girl shrugged.
“It’s very true.”
In front of us, another girl about the same age as this devil spawn standing next to me was practicing her “dance” on the stage. It mostly seemed to consist of some awkward shuffling and a few waves, and every now and again she’d glance down to where her mom was doing a much more enthusiastic version of the same dance in the front row.
I sighed and shifted my baton to my other hand. Normally the Little Miss Pine Grove portion of rehearsal was over by the time we got in, but Sara was running late today, so we were stuck waiting for the younger girls to finish. Which apparently also meant we were stuck getting harassed by second-graders.
“It’s the sleeves,” the girl next to me said, looking me up and down. There was something weird about the way she talked, and when she opened her mouth to yawn, I realized she was wearing those little fake teeth they use to cover a missing tooth or two.
Seriously, pageants were the weirdest.
“Well, I like the sleeves,” I told her, tugging at the material in question. I’d used Leigh-Anne’s old majorette uniform, a sparkly green number that was a little too big for me. Aunt Jewel had sewn on some sleeves for me to give it “a little flair.” Apparently, to Aunt Jewel, “a little flair” meant a metric ton of sequins and fake jewels, so every time I threw the baton, my arms clattered.
“You shouldn’t like them,” the little girl told me, “because they’re ugly.”
“Okay, thanks, got it,” I replied through clenched teeth.
“Get lost, Lullaby League,” Abi said, sauntering up, and the little girl stuck her tongue out at us before heading down the aisle toward the front of the stage.
Abi’s gaze slid over me. She was wearing a simple black dress, since her talent was playing the piano. Looking at her, I wished I hadn’t begged my mom to let me quit lessons when I was twelve, because piano seemed like a totally unembarrassing talent. A thin gold chain winked around her neck, and when Abi noticed me looking, she grinned, lifting the necklace up. “Isn’t it pretty? It’s from Spencer.”
That name made me want to shudder—a reminder that we might have been wrong about David’s visions, that we couldn’t change the future. And if that was true, what was the point of all of this?
Abi misread my expression, clearly, because she scowled at me, letting the necklace drop back to her chest. “Okay, Harper, enough with the judge-y face. Just because you’re boyfriend-less for the first time in, like, ever, it doesn’t mean you can’t be happy for other people.”
“I am,” I said, and the words might have been convincing had I not seen Bee walk in. She was practically running—worrying about being late, I guess—and while it’s not like she was wearing a sign that said, “I was making out with Ryan!” I couldn’t help but remember them locked together in the closet. She looked . . . suspiciously glowy.
Abi glanced over at Bee, and when her gaze swung back to me, both eyebrows were lifted. “Where were you at lunch today?” she asked.
I’d hid out in the library like a weirdo because I hadn’t wanted to face Bee or Ryan yet. I’d thought about hiding in the temporary newspaper lab, but when I’d walked past, David had been in there with Chie and Michael. As I’d sat on the floor in the back stacks of the library, I’d reminded myself that a few months ago, I would’ve died before being one of those people who hid during lunch. Lunch was primo socializing time, after all, but with Bee and Ryan being . . . Bee and Ryan, and me and David being not Me and David, I hadn’t known what else to do.
It was an icky feeling.
Bee’s eyes met mine across the auditorium, and her smile faded. This was ridiculous, not talking to her in the middle of everything that was going on, but I . . . couldn’t. I still didn’t know what to say. I had no right to be jealous, not of Bee for being with Ryan, and not of Ryan for taking Bee away from me. Abi was right; just because I was alone, that didn’t mean everyone else had to be, too.
Turning away, Bee headed for the little stairway that led to the backstage area, undoubtedly to change, and I breathed a little sigh of relief.
One that, unfortunately, Abi saw. “So y’all are fighting?” she asked. “That’s what Amanda thinks. Is it about Ryan? Amanda said she saw Bee getting a ride home with Ryan after school yesterday, and—”
“Oh, shut up, Abigail,” I heard myself say. “I try to do nice things for you, like save you from a dude who will ruin your life, and all I got for my time was a ruined pair of shoes and a dress that still smells like beer, and now you’re with him anyway, and you’re giving me crap, so honestly, why do I bother? Why do I bother with anything?”
I hadn’t realized that my voice was getting so loud, but from the way Abi blinked at me, I thought maybe I’d gotten close to shouty on that last bit. But I felt shouty. All I ever did was try to help, try to make things better, and it seemed like I was failing all over the place. Sure, I’d gotten through the first trials, but I was wearing a leotard in the rec center, I had no boyfriend, things with me and my best friend were intensely weird, and I’d been insulted by a munchkin wearing fake teeth.