A Whole New Crowd(46)

An ugly laugh ripped from me. Mandy looked up. Amber seemed to hold still. All eyes were on me again. “This is a joke. You’re a joke.”
“Taryn.”
I ignored the teacher again. I said, “People like you will hurt people. You’ll go through life with this entitled attitude. You’ll walk over people, step on them, do whatever it is that will hurt others, and you won’t care. You might say you’re sorry if you’re called on it, but you won’t be sorry. You’ll keep going and keep hurting people. I’ve seen people like you all my life.” I felt sick. “It’s people like you who get to the top and you don’t look down. You don’t look at the trail of bodies left behind you.” I turned to Mandy now. Her eyes enlarged and she bit her lip, but she didn’t turn away. A small modicum of respect came back for her with that. She was going to face whatever I had to say. I frowned. I wasn’t going to mince my words because of it. “You’re one of those people who take it. You let people like her win because you don’t say a word. She should’ve been your friend during that time. She wasn’t. She chose the girl who hurt you, who,” I snorted, “I’m sure will be your friend by the end of the week. What you accept is what you’ll always be given. Stop accepting their crumbs.”
Amber glanced around. She’d been smirking, but it faded when she saw others had the same anger as me.
“I hurt people.” She looked back at me so I finished, “But I hurt people like you and your friends.”
The room was silent and the air was heavy. One second.
Two.
Three.
No one had her back. She fled the room.
This would be a problem. I just called out one of the top people. Mandy started to get up. My mouth fell open. She was going to the door. No, no, no. She couldn’t…
She reached for the handle, but paused and looked back. She didn’t say a word and then left.
No one talked in the room after they left. Even the teacher was silent. Amber was at the top, and I called her out, disgracing my own sister in the moment. Fuck me. Great job, Taryn. Sighing, I frowned. I couldn’t take it back, and it was how I felt. I slid down in my chair, knowing there would be repercussions. There were always consequences when people like Amber were humiliated. They didn’t change. They just fought back.
Then I remembered—Tray ran this school. He was one of those at the top too. Oh hell.
*

I didn’t have long before I started feeling some of the repercussions. Jennica glared at me when I left first period. Grant and Samuel glared too. They cast a glance at the girls to make sure they had noticed. When they were positive they’d been noticed, they dropped the glares and went back to their conversation.
When I walked up to my locker before my last class, a girl was writing ‘whore’ in permanent maker.
I grabbed the pen from her hand and threw it. “Fetch.”
She started to retort, but I opened my locker, grabbed my book, and left before she got one word out.
I felt attention everywhere I went. People were watching me. I wasn’t dumb. I knew they were going to wait and see what happened, but when I got to my last class, I stopped in the doorway and wanted to groan. I always thought I had study hall during this period, so I decided to go to health instead. I was surprised when I saw who else was in this class. Tray.
He was at a table by himself, lounging back in his chair. As I stared at him, unsure what to do, conversations hushed around the room, and he looked up. His eyes were narrowed when they landed on me. I groaned on the inside. The anger was there, but it was banked.
The teacher saw me too. “Miss Matthews, you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence. I see someone took it upon themselves to let you know that we are, in fact, not study hall and that you are, in fact, supposed to be here.”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Good. Take a seat. I see an empty one by Mr. Helms.”
I glanced at Helms and saw a look of disgust pass over him. He stood. “I’ll sit with Tray.”
He was gathering his books when Tray stopped him. “She can sit with me.”
Oh joy.
Helms froze. He looked at Tray, read something on his face, and sat back down.
I met Tray’s eyes again. Yeah…no. “I can sit on the floor.”
“Oh no.” Tray kicked out the empty chair beside him. “Sit with me. Really.”
As soon as I sat down, the class started, but I couldn’t pay attention to the teacher. I doubted anyone was. His entire body was rigid. I stole a few glances his way, but was met with a cold, even stare back. I could feel the tension in his body. Jace’s warning to stay away from Tray came to me again. Shit. I should always listen to Jace. He never lied to me.