Game (Gentry Boys, #3)(50)
On the day it happened, the Emblem High guidance counselor had pulled me into her office again right after lunch. Her name was Miss Stiraks and her family was an Emblem legacy, just like us Gentrys, but not really like us at all. We were the shit eaters, the bottom feeders. There was no one like us.
“Chasyn,” she sighed, pursing her lips together and wrinkling the thick bristles sprouting from her chin. “If you get on track now then college might still be a possibility.”
I stared at her facial hair. What she said didn’t even register with me. College? Who the f*ck was she kidding?
“Here,” she said, handing me a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers and graphs. “Your test scores show what kind of potential you have if only you would pull yourself together and stop raising hell with your brothers.”
I folded the paper carefully in half. “Thanks, Miss Stiraks,” I said, not thankful at all. “I’ll take this piece of paper home and show it to my folks. Yeah, we’ll all talk about it over dinner and then have a frank and open discussion about my future.”
Miss Stiraks sighed. She knew what my father was. She knew nothing so idyllic as a Gentry family dinner was on the horizon. And there sure as shit wasn’t going to be any discussion about college or my future. She didn’t really give a damn anyway. Emily Stiraks was doing what the state of Arizona paid her to do.
I was in a bad mood when I left her office. After shoving the paper Miss Stiraks had given me in the nearest trashcan I decided to make a break for it and head out of the east exit.
As I rounded the corner I almost mowed down Saylor McCann. Her face was red and her big green eyes were full of pain. Over the last few hours I’d kind of forgotten about her. But this morning she was on my mind a lot because I had a story to tell.
I’d been thinking about getting into Saylor’s pants for a while, because she was cute and because she’d once said something that pissed me the f*ck off. The powers that be had tried to push me into the honors track, where Saylor McCann and all the people like her lived. She sat next to me in pre-calculus while I did my level best to make sure no one in that room learned anything except how goddamn amusing I was. Saylor ignored me until one day as the bell rang she turned in my direction and in the most disdainful way possible said, “What the hell do you get out of it, Chase? Acting like you’re dumber than you are?”
The other night as Creed, Cord and I were camping out in the desert I brought up an idea that had been stewing ever since then. I could tell just by watching her that she’d never been touched. We made a game out of Saylor McCann’s virginity and I had every intention of winning. Cord won though. I was home the next afternoon when he tackled me out back and dragged me behind the trailer to give out all the dirty details. Creed found us less than a minute later. I knew Cord wasn’t lying because he would never lie to us. He was laughing at first but the longer he talked the quieter his voice became. Finally he kicked at a rock in the dirt and sighed.
“Hey, this stays between us, okay? It’s done. No reason to let every busybody in Emblem know.”
Creed shrugged. We both knew that Cord was really only addressing me because Creedence barely found a reason to grunt out a sentence here and there. But I didn’t promise anything. Cord only assumed I had. And because I was still annoyed as hell about being bested, I told an audience in the smoke-filled depths of the first floor boys’ room. Then I whispered the dirt into the ears of a few girls who liked to hear about shit like that. And finally I promptly forgot about it all, until I saw Saylor’s face. She clenched her fists and glared up at me.
“I hate you,” she choked out. “I hate all three of you.”
“Saylor,” I started to say but she ran into the girls’ bathroom.
I stood there for a minute, staring at the closed door and feeling more than a little rotten. When I felt someone watching me I turned around. It was her skinny nerd of a cousin, Brayden.
“She in there?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
Brayden nodded and took two steps in my direction. It surprised me when he threw a punch. It was a crappy effort that barely grazed my chin but I didn’t retaliate. He stood there, glaring at me and breathing heavily. Then he pushed me hard against the wall.
“Fucking Gentrys,” he spat and followed his cousin into the bathroom.
Well, after that upsetting turn of events I gave myself the rest of the day off. I headed for an abandoned shed about a half mile from the derelict hole I called home. The boys and I hung out there a lot even though the rusted tin roof was one tough wind away from blowing clean off and the place was hot as hell’s armpit most of the year. We headed there when being in the same room with Benton got to be too much and it was where we hid things we didn’t want him to find, like the stash of good stuff our cousin Deck gave us last time he was on leave from the Marines.
I got stoned off my ass and laid down in the dirt. I didn’t want college. I just wanted to grab my boys and get the hell out of this shithole. I would have been gone tomorrow but Cord said we needed to finish high school first. We had less than two years left. Just two more miserable years.
I was still halfway baked when Cordero tore off the tin door and went at me in a rage. He dragged me outside and shoved my face in the nearest creosote bush as he started pounding on me.
For a moment I didn’t remember why. Cord didn’t usually go ape shit like that but I figured he was pissed because I’d used up the rest of the stash. “Jesus, we’ll get more!” I yelled and tried to push him off my chest. He responded with a right hook to my jaw. It was nothing like Brayden’s weak punch. I saw stars, a whole galaxy of them. Then I realized Creedence was there too and he was trying to pull Cord away.