Ella's Twisted Senior Year(45)

I sit on the bed, watching Ethan work his graphic design magic. He sketches out my idea, making it look professional and hip because he’s insanely more talented than I am. Even his normally chicken scratch handwriting becomes a cutesy font on the screen. In under thirty minutes, he’s turned my rough draft sketches into a professional looking T-shirt design.

“I wonder if anyone would actually buy this,” I say, leaning on my hands. “I mean, I’m buying one for sure, but that’s because it’s my awesome idea. I think I’ll sleep in it every night.”

“I like those satin pajamas a lot better,” he says. My thoughts get all tripped up when he flashes me a wink. “But you’d be surprised. People buy all kinds of stuff.” He adds a finishing touch to the title of the image and then leans back to admire his work. “Besides, since we took her name off the original design and changed it to say ‘human girl’, this shirt kind of works for anyone. People all over the country could order one to represent the mega bitch in their lives.”

“Awesome. I wish selling cupcakes were as easy as uploading them online,” I say with a frown.

Ethan’s brow creases and I can tell he’s thinking of something. “Well you need a website for starters. Then people can order them online and you can bake them. I’m telling you, the internet is the key to being successful in business these days.”

I shake my head. “I can’t get a website until I have my own kitchen. Besides, there’s all kinds of health code regulations for business kitchens. I can’t do that out of your house, or even my own apartment after college.” I sink my face in my hands, staring at the floor. It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea of working for yourself, starting a bakery and making people’s confectionary dreams come true, one vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting at a time. But in reality, that’s going to be even harder than surviving a tornado attack while sitting next to your mortal enemy.

“Ella, no frowning,” Ethan says. He rolls his desk chair across the floor and wraps me in a hug. “We can have a career crisis freak out after we graduate. Right now let’s bask in the glory of ruining Kennedy Price. Would you like to click the final button?”

He motions to his computer, where the mouse hand hovers over the button that says List Item for Sale. I only feel a little bit like a terrible person as I reach over and click the button, making the shirt go live for purchase on Ethan’s web store. I mean, we did leave her name out of it, after all.

For all anyone knows, this is just a generic T-shirt for generic bitches.

“Hey, you know you’ll be keeping any money this earns, right?” Ethan nudges me with his knee.

“What? No, it’s your drawing.”

“But it’s your idea. The shirts earn about five bucks each, so any sales are yours.” His eyes light up. “Maybe you’ll get enough money to buy your prom dress.”

I snort out a laugh. “That would be the ultimate irony . . . ugh, I kind of feel bad about this.”

He puts the graphics tablet back into its protective case and joins me on his bed. “She told everyone my thing is small. She deserves payback.”

I nod. “And she called me a slut-nado. This is deserved. I just feel a little bad for stooping to her level.”

Ethan’s phone dings. “You just sold your first shirt, Ella Lockhart.” His eyes sparkle with mischief. “Do you still feel bad?”

I take the phone and look at the notification email. “How’d they see it that fast?”

“All new designs are posted to all of my social media sites, remember?”

I bite my lower lip. His phone dings two more times while it’s still in my hand. Two more shirt sales. I can almost imagine Kennedy’s fury when she sees the new shirt design. Maybe it’ll finally be the tipping point to make her realize what a selfishly rude person she is. Maybe it’ll change her life and make her access the part of her brain that isn’t a belittling bully. Or, even more likely, it’ll just fuel the war that’s started between us, giving her more motivation to unleash all of the ammo in her arsenal. Does she have more embarrassing texts from Ethan to share with the world? Or—god forbid—pictures?

There are too many unknowns in the world of combat with Kennedy Price. The only thing I know for sure is that our new T-shirt demonstrates exactly the kind of person our enemy is at heart. I glance back at Ethan’s computer screen, admiring the stock photo of our design on a navy blue T-shirt. My cupcake baking days might be on hiatus, but that doesn’t mean I have to stop inventing recipes.



The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Recipe



Ingredients needed:

1 heaping cup selfish bitch

5 cups jealousy

2? cup narcissism

17 years spoiled (preferably rotten)

1 bottle blonde hair die

2 mediocre boobs in desperate need of a push-up bra

A pinch of social media

1 human girl



Directions: Mix ingredients with human girl. Add a heavy dose of self-importance and entitlement before serving to your enemies.





Chapter 25





The recipe for a Crazy Ex-girlfriend sells fifty more shirts overnight. By Monday, one hundred and fifteen people have bought one, and Ella has already made a list of all the baking supplies she’ll buy with her earnings. She acts like she doesn’t want to go to prom but I’ve seen her admiring the photo of her prom dress on more than one occasion. It leaves me stuck in the middle of wanting to drag her out to prom just so she can wear the dress and also wanting to blow it off because I don’t really want to go