Felix Ever After(10)

I’m not in the mood. Really, really not in the mood. Ezra squeezes my hand.

Declan clearly isn’t over what happened yesterday. He sits a little taller in his seat. “You know, Ms. Brody—”

“Jill.”

“Yes. Right. I think it’s unfair. They get to waltz in whenever they want, and there are no repercussions? What about everyone else who makes a point to get into class on time? To hand in their work on time?” You’d think that he would decide he made his point and finally shut up, but no—he keeps going. “It’s especially unfair if we’re applying to the same schools and scholarships.”

“Yeah,” Ezra says sarcastically, “and what about the assholes who should mind their own fucking business? It’s not fair that we have to deal with their bullshit, either!”

This gets a few scattered laughs. Jill clearly doesn’t know what to do, so she just lets us off with a warning, which leaves Declan glaring at me and Ezra as she continues her morning lecture.

I pull out my phone, under the table, and open my Instagram. I click on each and every single one of the photos that’d been in the gallery, and I delete all the pictures. I was hoping that, with each press of the trash can, I’d feel a little less sick, but it doesn’t help. If anything, I’m pissed at myself for not doing this sooner—before someone somehow got into my account and stole them.

I zone out. Acrylic is my favorite medium, but there’s no way I can concentrate, not right now. I stare around the classroom at all the students. Nasira pops bubble gum and stares forward with glazed-over eyes beside Austin, who texts beneath the table. Tyler flat-out sleeps with his head in his arms, and across the room, Elliott and Harper whisper to each other, Harper sneaking a look at me over her shoulder before turning to face forward again. There’re dozens of others who could’ve put up the gallery, but I can’t help but start to wonder if the asshole is in this room. My gaze lands on Declan. He catches me looking and rolls his eyes. His friend James leans closer to me.

“Hey,” he says, “so your name’s really—?”

He deadnames me. He might as well have punched me in the gut. Ezra tries to stand up, and I think he might actually walk over and hit James, so I grab his arm and shake my head at him. Not worth it. Ezra would get kicked out of St. Catherine’s for the school’s zero-tolerance policy on violence.

James snorts and turns back to the front. Declan just keeps staring at me. That sneer still on his face.

Declan. Declan fucking Keane.

Is it just a coincidence? The day after he calls me a fraud, there’s a gallery with my old photos, my old name? Would it really be that surprising, if he and his shitty friends figured out how to hack my social media accounts, printed out my pictures, and hung my photos up in the lobby?

Jill lets us get started on our projects for the day. Ezra and I choose spots next to each other at a wall, canvas already stretched and prepped.

“It was Declan,” I whisper to him.

His eyes snap to mine. “What? How do you know?”

“The way he was looking at me just now. And yesterday—he called me a fraud, remember?”

“Yeah, but—” Ezra pauses. He turns back to the canvas and starts—unsurprisingly—squeezing black out of a tube. I start squirting red, orange, and yellow blobs.

Ez lifts his brush. “I mean, it’s not like I’m defending him or anything, but that’s not really proof, is it? What if it isn’t him?”

I know Ezra’s right—but I can’t explain this feeling I’ve got deep in my chest, wedged in there right next to the pain, which has become a dull ache—an ache I’m not sure will ever leave, not even twenty years from now, maybe not ever. Declan Keane did this. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

“It’s him,” I say firmly. “I know it is. Who else would do something like that?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know, but—”

I can already sense what he’s going to say. Maybe I’m just fixating on Declan because I need a place to put all this anger building in me. I know that’s what he’s thinking, so I cut him off.

“It was him,” I say again.

“Okay,” Ezra says. It pisses me off, that he sounds like he’s trying to soothe a kid throwing a tantrum. “Okay. Say it was him. What do you want to do?” He glances around. “Tell Jill? Go to the dean?”

“No,” I tell him. “Fuck that. Declan Keane? They’d call his dad, let him off with a warning maybe, but they wouldn’t do shit to him. No, I’m not going to tell the dean.”

Jill comes around the corner. She strolls behind us serenely as she looks over our shoulders to observe our work, which is nonexistent.

“Less chatting, more painting,” she says with a smile.

When she moves on, Ezra glances at me.

“So what’re you going to do?” he asks.

Isn’t it obvious? “I’m going to fucking destroy him. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Ezra shrugs, smirk twitching on his face. “Well, whether it was Declan or not, I wouldn’t mind seeing that.” He starts a sketch with the black paint, brushstrokes loose. “What’s the plan?”





Four