Obsessed(67)

Blood drained from my face. It felt like someone had poured ice cold water down my spine. All good feeling vanished in a blink of an eye. I stiffened and looked up at the giggling bitches. Michelle flipped her hair behind her shoulder and glimpsed at me, that smug smile suddenly gnawing through an anger that had laid dormant for months. The edges of my vision blurred, and that horrid fogginess set in.

She turned her back to me, and giggled again. And it was that fucking giggle – that claws-on-a-chalkboard giggle – that made my insides SNAP!

I threw the cupcake at her head, grateful that it hit, otherwise it’d have been embarrassing as fuck. Her hand flew to the back of her skull, and she looked down at the scattered remains of the cupcake before her face darkened and her mouth dropped. “Crazy bitch,” she hissed.

I dropped my books on the floor and approached her. “Say it again. I dare you.”

“Say what?” she retorted, smug attitude present. “That you fucked your brother? The whole school knows you sucked his cock–”

I grabbed at her hair and pulled. Hard. She shrilled at the top of her lungs, falling against me. I didn’t let her go. With my fist buried at the base of her skull, I tightened my hold and swung her around. She screamed louder, in a panicked way, and it was glorious. Like music to my ears.

Her friends screamed around me, telling me to let her go. And then they intervened, grabbing at me from both sides, one by the arm and the other around my own hair. Pain shot up my skull and in my arm where pink acrylic nails dug into my flesh, drawing blood. I still didn’t let Michelle go. They would have to try their fucking hardest to take me down.

“Let her go, you sick bitch,” one of them demanded. “Just fucking do it!”

“Go fuck yourselves, you ugly cunts,” I growled back.

They grunted, hurting me even more, and that only made me want to fight back harder. I pulled so hard, tearing apart the strands of straw-like hair from Michelle’s head. She scratched at me, pushed at me, and her friends did the same, but I didn’t care. The pain I felt was worth it so long as I was inflicting it on the stupid bitch that thought she could hurt me with her tongue.

“That’ll teach you to open your ugly mouth next time,” I gritted at her just as a whistle sounded out.

Teachers descended on us, breaking the four of us apart. The other girls panted, fake tears falling down their eyes, gaining the quick sympathy of those around them as they played victim. Meanwhile, I glared, my anger thick and unrepressed, a dark smile flitting along my lips as I watched Michelle pull out loose hair from her face with horrified eyes.

Obviously, I received no sympathy from anyone.

I was the crazy brother-fucker after all.

*

“Given what you started this morning, Miss Wright, I’m technically allowed to expel you,” Principal Caul told me solemnly, clasping her hands over her desk as she looked at me severely. She was a tiny woman with fiery red hair that fit her fiery shit temper she was known for.

And I was about to get expelled. I didn’t know whether to feel panicked or amused by the whole thing. That hysteria from when Aston left had returned, and I was bouncy and energetic, close to laughing even. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and it was a remarkable feeling. Like being alive. I savoured it before the remorse hit.

“But,” she continued, looking harder at me in thought, “I know what that girl said, and I know it’s also your birthday, and that you’ve lost your father during the summer just before school started. I would feel unjust to kick you out this late in the school year. It would put you in a difficult situation.”

My arms were crossed as she spoke. My eyes moved to the clock hanging on the wall above her head. “Don’t single me out,” I muttered lifelessly. “Treat me the way you would to any other student. I’m not going to skate through life being pitied because my father’s dead and it’s my birthday.”

“Where would you go?” she asked, frowning. “You’d be travelling to the other side of town for high school.”

I shrugged. “I’ve got a bus pass. I’ll make it.”

“That’s if they accept you.”

“Then I’ll drop out of school if they don’t.”

She froze, and then shook her head. “You can’t be serious, Elise.”

“Why would I not be?”

“You have decent grades. English and Arts are your strengths. Despite your actions this morning, you’ve been present and you’re handing in your assignments. You’re going to graduate with a nice average at this rate.”

“Then why this talk about expelling me in the first place?”