The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1)(8)
He winks at me. “Come on. We both know you’re gonna fly the coop and be working on the International Space Station way sooner than any of us are anticipating. You’re too intelligent to wind up stuck here in Raleigh, working at the observatory. Your brother, on the other hand, possesses an average intelligence. He’s our insurance policy. If he gets taken away, who the hell’s gonna look after us when we’re old?”
“Dad.” I’m deadpan, my voice muted to a whisper. “That’s really messed up. Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Please tell me that you’re not trying to grow a beard.”
He thrusts out his jaw, rubbing a hand over the dark whiskers that are jutting out of his face. “Huh? You don’t like it? Simon and I have a bet. Whoever has the most impressive, manliest beard by the end of the month wins a hundred bucks.”
“I’ll give you a hundred bucks right now if you get in the bathroom and shave that off. I’m serious. Beards are for hot fitness models on Instagram, not middle-aged architects.”
His eyebrows rise in unison. “First, you’d better save your money. That Nova’s gonna need a gearbox eventually and that shit ain’t cheap. Second, beards are for carpenters and rugged naval captains. Everybody knows this. Third, I could be a fitness model on Instagram. I run marathons. I have abs on top of my abs. And last but not least, dearest daughter…middle-aged? How old do you think I am?”
I smirk wickedly. “From the crow’s feet and all that salt and pepper in your hair, I’m gonna say sixty-seven.”
Dad’s face is a mask of mock outrage. “Witch. Get up. Now, before I pay your brother to come in here and fart all over you. And if you’re not up, dressed, fed and out of the door in the next forty-five minutes, I’m gonna start uploading your baby pictures onto your precious Instagram, and I’m gonna tag all of your friends. Sixty fucking seven. Jesus Christ.”
He spins around and leaves, running back down the stairs, heavy footed and making enough noise to wake the dead, so he doesn’t see my expression of abject panic. He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t fucking dare upload my embarrassing baby photos. Dad’s reckless, though, and tends to follow through on his threats. Unluckily for me, he’s nowhere near sixty-seven; my parents were practically kids themselves when they had me, and he won’t be celebrating his fortieth birthday for another six months, which means he definitely has his own Insta account and he knows perfectly well how to use it.
Reluctantly, I drag myself out of bed and haul ass into the bathroom. My father could have threatened me with many things, but having him tag my ‘friends’ in embarrassing photos of me online? Yeah, that’s not something I can afford to even joke about.
Dad really shouldn’t have mentioned anything about the Nova’s transmission. The engine sounds rough and throaty the entire way across town, and I begin to worry that it’s gonna quit on me about a mile from school. Miraculously, it makes it, but I’m still gripping the steering wheel, praying under my breath that it doesn’t stall out in front of the entire Roughnecks cheerleading squad as I drive all the way to the back of the school parking lot.
I ignore the hard, unwelcoming eyes that follow me as I pass by the building’s entrance; I barely even notice them staring anymore, though the girls I used to hang around with, girls I’ve known since I was seven-years-old, don’t seem to care if I respond to their mean-girl act either way.
It’s started to rain as I jump out of the Nova, grab my backpack from the backseat and hurry across the lot, avoiding the puddles of standing water as I go. It’s still fifteen minutes to the bell, which means there are plenty of other students loitering outside, sitting on the trunks of their cars, rough-housing and gossiping with one another. This is the perfect time to arrive—amongst all of the other students hunched against the cold, laughing and shouting, I’m almost invisible. Anonymous. It’s easy enough to slip through the clustered groups of my peers without drawing too much attention.
There’s no avoiding the girls, though.
Melody, Zen, Halliday, and, of course, Kacey. Once upon a time, I knew all of their secrets, and they knew mine. When my world combusted into a fiery ball of shit nine months ago, they were pretty quick to make sure everyone knew every single one of my secrets, while stupidly or otherwise, I clamped my mouth shut and kept theirs. I can’t even count how many hours I’ve spent lying in bed at night, imagining their faces if some of their skeletons were to come to life and leap out of their closets. It’d be so fucking satisfying to watch them scramble, to see them frantically trying to hold the pieces of their lives together after all the pain and suffering they visited on me.
But…
I don’t do it. I like to tell myself those bitches will get what’s coming to them. Karma will show up on their doorsteps one day, and they’ll pay the price for their actions, but honestly, the simple, quiet, sad truth is that I don’t want them to suffer. I miss my friends. The dumb practical jokes we used to play on each other. The sleepovers, and the silly traditions we used to share. I miss the late-night laughter, and swooning over boys, and…fuck. I miss being part of a ride-or-die group of friends who would do anything for each other.
I suppose now, in hindsight, it’s stupid to miss that. As it turns out, I never really had it. I thought I did. I would have bet money on the girls having my back. In the end, they are the ones who betrayed me the hardest, though.