Rock Bottom Girl(118)
Essentially, I’d stooped to Amie Jo’s level and now I was covered in mean girl cooties. Really, the only upside to the whole mess was that Amie Jo now gave me a wide berth at school. I’d bitten back, and she had to inflict her damage from a safer distance now.
I headed in the direction of my locker, accepting a high-five from Marcus Smith, whose reputation as a booger eater originated from second-grade Amie Jo after he took the swing she wanted during recess. I ignored the pointed giggles from Mindy Leigh and Leah, starters on the field hockey team and Homecoming princesses.
Today, my locker was covered in prayer requests from the Culpepper Emmanuel Lutheran Church’s youth group asking that I would recognize the wrongness of my ways. And that I would start practicing abstinence.
I sighed.
“At least they stopped with the diapers,” Vicky observed, tearing off one of the requests.
“I wish I was done with this place. No one is ever going to see me as me. I’m either going to be the biblically smited pregnant whore or the vindictive, unhinged badass.”
“I feel like you’re probably somewhere in the middle,” she mused.
“New game plan,” I decided. “I’m just going to fade into the background. Become a wallflower. I’ll become a Zen master and I won’t respond to Amie Jo’s provocation.”
Vicky’s eyebrows winged up skeptically. “Can you put the monster back in the closet after you’ve let it out?”
“Nothing is going to get to me,” I promised.
“Huh. Looks like nothing is coming this way.”
I glanced over my shoulder in the direction Vicky was staring, and there he was.
Jake Freaking Weston.
His leather jacket slung over one shoulder, jeans worn through at the knee. Scarred motorcycle boots.
His walk was more of a strut.
I hadn’t seen him since right before Homecoming. Hadn’t talked to him since he’d stuffed that stupid note in my locker. Hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him what a shithead he was. And now that I was a Zen master, I’d never have that chance.
I was cool. Cucumber cool. Ice cube cool. Vinyl seat in February cool.
“Hey, Mars,” he said with a jut of his chin.
I hated how my heart got louder in my ears. The guy kissed me, didn’t ask me to Homecoming, and then told me he wasn’t “into pregnant chicks.” What more did the dumbass have to do to prove he wasn’t worthy of my medium amount of awesomeness? Flip off a horse and buggy?
I felt stupid for expecting more from him.
“Hey, Vic,” Jake said.
“Well, would you look at the time? I need to go stand across the hall,” Vicky said, pointing at the lockers on the opposite wall. She pointed at her own eyes and then at Jake. “I’ll be watching,” she hissed.
He seemed more amused than perturbed by the vague threat.
He waited until Vicky crossed the hall before turning back to me.
“Heard you were pretty badass at Homecoming,” he said.
I grunted, not willing to waste words on him.
“Got any plans Saturday?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Okay, I could waste a few words on the jerk.
His eyebrows winged up. “Pretty sure I’m serious. Why? You already have a date?”
My cool thawed. Then boiled.
“You listen to me, Jake Weston.” I jabbed him in the chest with my finger. “I’m not some girl who likes being walked on. You don’t get to make out with me and then be an ass. You had your chance with me and blew it. So just strut your ass out of my way.”
“It’s more of an amble.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You think you’re so cute and so charming. That doesn’t make up for how you treat girls.”
He blinked. “I think I’m missing something.”
I cut him off with a slash of my hand. “Don’t talk to me ever again.”
“Our class has 102 people in it. Odds are our paths will cross again. Like seven times a day,” he pointed out.
But I was immune to his funny guy, bad boy charm.
“From now on, we’re complete strangers. I hope you and Amie Jo will be very happy together.”
“I feel like I need a translator,” he confessed.
With a snarl, I slammed my locker shut and stormed down the hall.
Graduation couldn’t come soon enough.
70
Marley
Riding high on our victory, the Barn Owls descended on the girls’ locker room. Garment bags with Homecoming dresses hung from lockers, and steam billowed from the showers. Laughter and excited chatter filled the room, bouncing off concrete block and metal.
I showered as quickly as humanly possible, grateful that I’d thought ahead and shaved all of the body parts that required shaving this morning. I pulled on my navy halter dress in the privacy of a bathroom stall. As close as we all were now, I still didn’t need a bunch of perky teenage girls seeing my mostly naked body.
Back in my office, I dumped my cosmetics out on my desk.
“I’m here to do your hair,” Morgan E. said, reporting for duty.
She was already dressed in a suit with a sparkly blue bow tie and was wielding dry shampoo and hair spray.