Текст книги "Lovely Vicious"
Автор книги: Sara Wolf
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
-3-
3 Years
10 Weeks
1 Day
I quickly find out two things about East Summit High;
1. Avery might be the most popular, but Kayla is widely regarded as the prettiest.
2. Every boy in school has had at least five wet dreams about her.
This means that Kayla didn’t have to earn her popularity by groveling to Avery like everybody else. She simply showed up, grew a pair of fabulous knockers and had a face to die for, and Avery recruited her into her friend group solely based on how pretty she is, and how spineless. And I say that with the utmost respect. Kayla is, comparatively, spineless. But she isn’t stupid. This means that Kayla might actually like being popular, or she might actually like Avery. I’m willing to bet it’s the first more than the second, because who honestly likes contract slavery other than two-hundred-year-old racists and the raunchy BDSM crowd? No one.
Kayla invites me over to consume cookies and interpret the giant stack of World History homework she can’t quite seem to grasp, which is understandable – grasping the true glory of Genghis Khan is a little difficult to do when he’s not here himself, shooting fletched arrows into your ass.
“Hello, spawn!” I coo at Kayla’s baby brother as he waddles into her room. He burps at me.
“It looks like you guys speak the same language,” Kayla quips.
“Where was that sass when Jack was making you cry at Avery’s party?”
“Uh, hello? He’s my crush? I’m not going to sass him.”
“Flash ‘em the sass before you flash ‘em the ass.”
“What kind of saying is that?” She laughs.
“Grandma-saying. She’s the head of the motorcycle gang at her nursing home.”
I amuse myself for a few minutes by showing her brother how to blow spit bubbles. Kayla’s still a little beat up over the fact Jack kissed me, for real this time, and I’ve spent the past hour assuring her it was nothing, but she still won’t believe me.
“Everybody’s saying you looked shocked. Like, a good shocked. And what the hell is that?” She points at my hand. I hold up the snakeskin-patterned wallet.
“Oh this? I just, uh, picked it up.”
“It looks like something from a corny cowboy movie.”
Her brother squeals and pulls my hair. I blacklist him.
“Hey, don’t call my wallet corny. Do you have a snakeskin wallet? No. Even if you did, yours would be uncool, whereas mine was both free and satisfying, by which I mean I stole it from my nemesis’ butt pocket while he was macking on me.”
“You stole Jack Hunter’s wallet?” Kayla’s eyes bug out. I wave it in front of her with a smirk.
“What, you think I’d go down without a fight? Wanna see what’s inside?”
Her curiosity wars visibly with her crush, but curiosity kills all types of cats, including people. She scoots next to me. I peel it open and expect some sort of unholy glow to come from within like in cartoons, but all that comes out is a piece of lint and the smell of pine. Inside is Jack’s ID – him glaring at the camera intensely.
“He’s so hot,” Kayla sighs. “He even takes good ID photos.”
“That’s a sure sign of being an alien. Or plastic surgery. Possibly both.”
“Look at the age!”
I peer at the age stamped on the ID and frown. March 20th, 1989. There’s no way he’s that old.
“That’s not his birthday,” Kayla insists. “It’s January 9th, 1994.”
I give her a long, meaningful look and she flushes. Fake ID – fine. We all gotta buy booze and get into clubs somehow. It’s pretty standard. I rifle through the rest of the wallet – five bucks cash, some change, a library card because he’s a nerd, some receipts for chicken and milk and measuring tape. Pretty basic high school kid stuff, but surprisingly tame coming from the wallet of a guy who talks like an Einstein clone and looks like an underwear ad. I was expecting loads of condoms and maybe a line of molly.
Kayla’s brother screams in my ear for candy. I tell him the plants in the yard need watering and he immediately trundles towards the kitchen spewing spit bubbles.
“Look!” Kayla grabs something from the wallet. It’s a stack of business cards. Or, at least I think they’re business cards. But they don’t actually have any business addresses on them, so they can’t be business cards. They’re a deep black with a single red stripe on the bottom, with the same name and same phone number in dangerously svelte red text;
Jaden 894-354-3310
“Jaden must’ve really liked Jack to give him this many cards,” Kayla muses. She’s so dense sometimes.
“They’re his, Kayla. He’s passing them out. That’s why he has so many.”
Her mouth makes a little ‘o’. “But…but his name isn’t Jaden.”
“It’s a pseudonym.”
“Why would he need one?”
“It’s probably for a job.”
She nods. I bite my lip and torture my brain into thinking more clearly. I take a single business card and put the rest back, handing the wallet to her.
“Here. You can do the honors of returning that. He’s probably stressing its gone – this is your chance to tip the scales in your favor. Even if the scales are made of misogynism and the bones of small infants.”
She takes it, beaming. “Thanks!”
“Is Avery still mad at you for leaving the party?” I ask.
“Oh, no. I mean, Avery never really gets mad mad, you know? She sort of just, doesn’t talk to you. Or look at you. Or acknowledge you exist.”
“Ah, yes. Perfectly reasonable.”
“I was supposed to, um, talk to Wren. You know, student council president guy.”
“Your student council prez goes to boozers? Consider me impressed.”
“He’s cool like that, but at the same time he’s also intimidating. Like, really intimidating. He’s going to MIT and he doesn’t look anywhere at you except your eyes. No lips, no boobs, not even your eyelashes. Just. Your. Eyes.”
She stares at me as if demonstrating, wide-eyed and unrelenting, and I shudder.
“Alright, alright. I get the picture. Mega creep.”
“Yeah, but like, a socially accepted mega creep. It’s weird. He’s friends with everybody. And I mean everybody. He watched an entire season of Naruto just so he could talk to the anime club kids.”
I whistle. “He’s certainly impressive. Hellbent. Also possibly from actual hell.”
“Anyway, Avery wanted me to, um, talk to him.”
“Just talk?”
Kayla nods a little too hard for my liking. “She wants more funds for the French club. She’s president of that. She’s trying to set up a trip to France for them or something.”
“So you talking to him would get you funds? Are you that good at talking?”
“Just, you know. I’m nice. I can get things from people.”
“You’re pretty.”
“But I’m also nice! And I’m smart! Okay, maybe not in World History, but who even cares about stupid plagues anyway? We have vaccines now! I’m really good at home ec and Mrs. Gregory said I have a natural talent for geometry, okay? I’m a lot of things besides pretty so don’t just say that like everyone else!”
Her chest is heaving, and her face is a little red. I put my hands up in surrender.
“Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re a lot of things besides pretty. I just meant…I just meant –”
“You just meant what? I know I’m pretty, okay? I know that! That’s all anyone talks about! But I’m not pretty enough, I guess, because you’re the one Jack Hunter kissed and not me!”
She shouts the last sentence. It hangs in the air like icicles, cold and jagged.
“I didn’t – I’m sorry –”
“I don’t wanna talk about it anymore,” she murmurs. “I have to watch Gerald, so if you could just leave, that’d be great.”
I feel all the air punch out of me at once.
“Oh. R-Right. Sure.”
I grab my backpack and books, shuffling them away. Kayla gets up and goes into the kitchen, wiping dirt off her brother’s face and scolding him for trying to eat daisies. I want to say bye, or apologize again, but there’s a thick curtain of awkward closing on the stage that is our tenuous friendship. I want to say a lot of things to her. I want to thank her for being the first person to really invite me over to their house, to talk to me, to eat lunch with me. But those words get stuck in my throat, the gratitude I have for her dammed up by shame.
As I leave and start my car, I mentally kick myself. Of course she gets told she’s pretty. She gets it all the time. Pretty girls like her are sick of hearing it. I was insensitive to even say it – but how could someone like me understand what pretty girls experience?
Ugly girl.
Jack kissing me – was it really such a huge deal for her? Maybe I underestimated her feelings for him. She must really like him if she’s that upset. Hell, if I still believed in love and had someone I liked and they kissed my sort-of-friend, I’d be mad at that friend too.
She has every right to hate me.
Mom texts me, asking me to buy sponges and some blueberries on the way home. I’m feeling terrible about what I said – so terrible I grab a bar of chocolate. Or three. When I get home I sneak into Mom’s bathroom and count her pills – she’s down two. That’s good. That means she took them. I can breathe easier, and maybe get a solid night’s sleep.
“There’s a package for you from your father,” Mom says. She’s up and baking muffins – hence the blueberries. It’s a good sign. No, scratch that; it’s the best sign I’ve seen in a while.
“Thanks.” I smile. Forced smile. Always a little forced. It won’t be a real smile until she’s really better.
But I don’t remember what better looks like, anymore.
The package is wrapped in brown paper and on my bed. The box inside reads Chanel. Dad married a rich programmer from New York – they’ve got two-year-old twin girls, and a boy on the way. I’ve never met them, but just knowing I have stepsiblings wigs me out. I see them on Facebook through the pictures Dad posts, but it’s like they aren’t real. It’s like they’re photoshopped Loch Ness monsters and the University of Whatever is going to prove the hoax by showing me the beam of light in the background is wavy or something.
They’re real.
Sometimes I wish they weren’t.
And that’s horrible, so I stop wishing that. Or at least I try to.
Inside the box is a beautiful chiffon blouse. It’s light and fluffy and with dozens of frills, expertly tailored to my measurements. Dad’s new wife wheedled them out of me two summers ago when I visited. She’s nice enough, but it’s things like this that remind me she just wants me to like her. She thinks gifts of expensive name brands are all it takes to woo a high school girl.
She’s half right. A blouse like this would woo any girl. Any girl who isn’t ugly. But before I can fold it carefully and put it in my closet to never touch again, I stop and consider this one. If I wore this, would I be prettier? Will it make me prettier? Maybe if I put this on, I can be pretty, and understand a smidgen of what Kayla’s problems are, what she feels. Maybe I can understand her better.
I pull my shirt off and slip the blouse over my head. It’s so cool and airy, and the ruffles bounce with my every step. I can see my angry red stretch marks on my stomach through the gauzy fabric, but they don’t bug me as much for some reason. I smile at myself in the mirror – I look different. Prettier.
Maybe Nameless was wrong. Maybe I am pretty.
The door to my room opens just then, and I’m frozen in the headlights that are Mom’s eyes. She looks me up and down, and immediately shakes her head.
“Oh, honey, that doesn’t suit you at all.”
The air punches out of me again, but this time in a deeper way. A more final way. Mom opens the door wider, totally oblivious to how deep the wound is.
“The muffins are ready. Come down and have some.”
“Awesome. One sec. Just, uh, let me change out of this stupid thing.”
When she’s gone I can’t look at myself in the mirror without flinching. The ruffles seem to droop idiotically. The color is an eyesore, especially on me. It’s not my thing. Being pretty is not my thing and I was stupid for testing the logical facts and practical boundaries. There are rules. And the number one rule is don’t try to be someone you’re not. I’m myself, no matter how ugly that is, and trying to be someone prettier is stupid, a waste of energy. I won’t do that ever again, no matter how much I want to. It’s not worth it. I will never be anything but ugly. And I’ve come to terms with that. I’ve made my peace with that.
I stuff the blouse in the box and chuck it in the closet.
-4-
3 Years
12 Weeks
4 Days
For approximately two weeks I debate the validity of ruining Jack Hunter’s life slash reputation slash all future prospects with women. Or men. Just love in general, really. Guys like him shouldn’t get to be happy. He ruins a girl’s happiness at least once per hour. On Wednesday, someone left him a love letter tucked between the wipers of his black sedan. He tore it off without a second glance and ripped it in two. A distant wail could be heard as a well-dressed, beautiful blonde girl from drama club had her heart shattered and smeared all over the pavement. She’d been watching for his reaction, and now she had to watch the pieces of her carefully-crafted letterfeelings whisk across the parking lot. I chased the pieces around, grabbing as many as I could, and comforted her for three hours in a stairwell while she cried on me. I pieced the letter back together. It was full of Shakespearian references and a particularly well thought out passage in which she drew comparisons between Jack and Romeo. I informed her she was right – Romeo’s manic mental illness and pigheaded refusal to acknowledge another person’s feelings are mirrored exactly in Jack. She thanked me for that keen assessment by calling me a bitch and storming off.
Dramaclub Wailer was just the first. In two weeks of stealthily following Jack around campus, I count four love confessions, each more creative than the last. The girl who runs the morning announcements says Jack’s won a prize from the announcement committee, and to come to the PA room after school to get it. She does this every. Single. Day. And yet every day Jack never goes near the PA room – he doesn’t even walk in the same hall as it. He takes a route that leads him around it and makes him almost late for fourth period. I sneak a peek at the PA room after school for a few days; sure enough, announcement girl waits in that room for thirty minutes every day before finally locking up and going home with a defeated look on her face. A girl in art club is working on a marble statue of him (it’s definitely him, everyone knows that) complete with resplendent Greek posture and a perfectly replicated face. She’s left the crotch area blank and goes red if anyone asks her about it, but she’s diligently chipped away at it since Freshmen year, and she’s now a Senior. Another girl writes poetry and leaves it in his locker, and another girl in culinary class is drawing up plans to make him a three-tier cake for his birthday in January.
Through all this, Jack is impervious. He reportedly dropped out of art class so he wouldn’t have to see the statue in the studio. With an expression of utter boredom, he cleans out the dozens of new poem scraps that appear in his locker every day. It’s like he’s numb to whatever a girl does to get his attention. No one dares to call his name out loud in the hall. He doesn’t have any guy friends – he keeps to himself at lunch and during recess he’s in the library.
At first I stayed far away from Jack to quell the rumors, and to maybe-hopefully get Kayla to forget the fact he kissed me. But there are so many rumors now; it’s just one irritating slurry. ‘They’re going out’ is the usual one, the most out-there one is that he’s my pimp and I’m addicted to lean, and my favorite is the one where I’m his long-lost half-sister and we’re doing the incest and doing it hard. None of them are helping my relationship with Kayla, of course, but today she sat at my table and we ate together. In total silence. Which isn’t exactly a step in the right direction, but it’s a step nonetheless. She only started sitting with me after she returned Jack’s wallet to him, which I watched in on. It went much smoother than their first encounter – she handed it over and he actually nodded at her! A positive signal! I don’t see his lips form the words ‘I’m sorry’, though, so technically he still hasn’t swallowed his pride and technically I am not regrettably still at war with him.
Kayla’s smile lasted for hours after that exchange. It’s incredible how much control he has over her emotions, and how little he cares. Any guy in school would kill to make her smile like that. And his indifference towards her only makes me hate him more. No one should pour their entire heart onto another person without even an acknowledgement.
I open the door to the library. Frigid air mixed with the pulpy smell of old books greets me. The librarian eyes my purple streaks but doesn’t say anything. She’s seen worse. I meander down the aisles, looking up and down for him. Finally, I find him in the romance section, leafing through a book with a beefy guy on the cover. I feel my eyebrows shoot up.
“You could do the fair maidens of the school a favor and inform them you’re gay,” I say.
“Didn’t you read the sign?” He asks coolly without looking up. “No harpies in the library.”
“If I was any fantasy animal I’d be a majestic unicorn, thank you, but I’ll forgive your transgressions. It takes keen eyesight to differentiate a harpy from a unicorn. Also, common sense.”
He looks up, blue eyes growing irritated. “I don’t have the patience for you right now.”
“Listen to yourself! ‘I don’t have the patience for you’,” I mock in a deep voice. “You sound like my freaking Mom! Like a parent! Like a really old, decrepit man. You’re what, seventeen? Start acting like it.”
“They’re spreading rumors about us. It’d be best for you to keep your distance.”
“Aha! I’ve already thought of that! But let’s be realistic – this is high school. No amount of space between us is gonna stop the rumors from breeding like rabbits.”
“Your Freudian choice of metaphor is getting ridiculous, now. If you want me, just come out and say it. Get it over with so I can shoot you down.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Nope. Not happening. You aren’t my type, first off –”
“I’m everyone’s type,” He says, tiredly.
“– And second off, have you even seen that marble statue? It’s incredible. You should at least give her a chance, okay? Someone with that much talent has to be cool.”
He snaps the book closed and picks up another one. “No.”
“You have to agree it’s an incredible piece of art, creepy stalkerish qualities attached to it or no.”
“You’re the only stalker I see here,” He sighs.
“And what about that girl in the PA room? She might not be as pretty as drama club girl –”
“Who?”
“Windshield love note girl.”
“Ah.”
“ – But she’s so cute! And short! And she has huge boobs! And she’s got tenacity! But mostly huge boobs! That’s a thing with guys last time I checked! Boooobs!” I make a cupping motion around my significantly flatter chest. “And if she has tenacity she’ll be able to put up with your arrogant bullshit longer! It’s a perfect match!”
He snorts. “You don’t know anything about me, let alone enough to matchmake me with some pathetic girls.”
“Stop saying they’re pathetic! They’re nice, okay? You just haven’t given them a chance –”
He moves so fast I barely have to blink and he’s looming over me, arms on either side of me and that same deadly-cool look in his eyes I saw when he was talking to Evans. A strange pressure threatens to collapse my lungs, but I stay strong. For Kayla. For the sake of the war. I’m strong and I can’t let him see anything otherwise.
“All they do is grovel,” He snarls. “I am a thing to them, not a person. They worship me because they don’t know me.”
“Yeah, but you keep it that way – everybody thinks you’re intimidating and hard to approach, just how you like it. You don’t make any effort to be nice, or make friends. It’s easier to be worshipped by people than it is to be friends with them.”
“What the hell do you know?”
“I don’t know anything – except that you’re here, in the library, reading corny-ass romance books.” I gesture around me. He holds my gaze, like he’s looking for something inside me, and then backs off. He puts the book back and takes out a few, piling them on his arm.
“These aren’t for me.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“I have a friend who enjoys them,” he says, voice now softer. “But she can’t get out a lot. So I bring them to her.”
“Oh. Well. That’s nice of you. Also kind of weird, since you seem to intensely dislike all women.”
“I don’t dislike them. I’m tired of them. There’s a difference.”
“Tired of them? You’re seventeen! Why do I have to keep reminding you of that? There are soooo many women you haven’t even met yet! Don’t act like you’re tired of the puss-puss, no guy is ever tired of the puss-puss.”
He shoots me a withering look, but for a split second I swear I hear him half-laugh, half-scoff quietly under his breath.
“You’re bizarre. And a moron. But I suppose it could be worse. You could be normal.”
“I could be normal,” I agree. “It could be even worse – I could like you.”
“True. I don’t like you, either. In fact, I despise you.”
“Can we maybe not talk about your gross little feelings for me?”
“Trust me, they are anything but little. And gross is an understatement – they cause instantaneous vomiting.”
“Oh good! That makes two of us. I threw up four times on my way to the library to ask you about this!”
I flash the black and red card between my fingers. Jack’s expression doesn’t change from one of utter boredom. I flash it again in front of his face, waving it back and forth a few times for good measure.
“Aren’t you the least bit concerned I have one of these?”
“I know you had it. I counted the cards when your friend returned my wallet.”
“How did you know I was the one who took it?”
“How else would Kayla get it?” He sneers. “She’s not the type to steal. You are.”
“I’d be insulted if I wasn’t rolling in five cubic tons of hot-ass self-confidence.”
“I have twenty-two cards, and there were twenty-one when she gave it back,” He ignores me.
“Are you OCD or something? You keep count of how many business cards you have in your wallet?”
“Can you just get on with threatening me?” He sighs. I treat him to a brief glare.
“I haven’t called the number on this card. Yet.”
“But you’ve memorized the number.”
“Of course,” I breeze on. “And if you have an ounce of brain in that thick head of yours, you’ll apologize to Kayla before I call it and leak to the campus cop whatever sordid drugs you deal as a side job.”
He scoffs. “Drugs. That’s what you think it is? You think I’m that predictable? I’m offended.”
“The people in juvie will certainly be offended by your holier-than-thou attitude. Offended enough to beat you up on the daily.”
“You poor girl,” He laughs, pinching the bridge of his nose like he has a headache. “You poor, naïve little girl. You talk a big game, about how much smarter you are and how you’re different from them. But at the end of the day, you’re just as oblivious as all the other girls.”
“Don’t patronize me!” I snarl. “I know you’re doing something illegal. If you don’t apologize to Kayla –”
“You’ll what? Out me? Go ahead. Call that number.” He leans in. “I dare you to.”
“Back the hell off,” I hiss up at his face. He narrows his icy-flint eyes, but doesn’t lean away.
“Do it.” He holds out his phone.
It’s a trap. I’m walking into the biggest trap in the world. Jack looks at me with a keen, almost hungry interest. He wants me to find out what this card means. By the time I do, I might’ve sprung the trap closed. But I want to know, too. The part of me that wants to know more is louder than the part of me that’s a prudent, tactical battle master. If I call this number, I’ll get a significantly huge amount of blackmail material. In theory. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like he’s rigged a bomb to the number or anything. It could be nothing at all, a huge dud, but I won’t know until I try.
I dial slowly, and raise it to my ear. There’s a ring. And another ring. Jack isn’t moving. He’s barely blinking. I’m barely breathing – anticipation heavy on my chest.
“Hello, Madison speaking,” A pleasant woman’s voice chirps. “How may I help you?”
“Uh, hi, I’m –”
“Looking for a rose,” Jack says lowly.
“Looking for a rose.”
There’s a brief pause. “One moment while I bring out the books. May I ask your name?”
I look to Jack again, but he just shakes his head.
“Isi – Isabelle.”
“Alright Isabelle, and who are you calling after?”
“Um…”
“The name on the card you were given?”
“Oh. Jaden.”
If this is a drug request line or something, it’s the weirdest one ever. There’s a tapping noise as the woman types on a keyboard. Jack’s eyes are scanning over my shoulder, watching people walk by, but I can tell he’s still fully tuned in to the conversation I’m having.
“And is this your first time with the Rose Club, Isabelle?”
“Y-Yes? Yes.” Club? What kind of Club –
“Alright, thank you so much for choosing to book with us, Isabelle. Jaden’s one of our most popular escorts, so I’m afraid there’s a bit of a wait. The soonest opening I have is on December 4th, at 12:30 pm, in Columbus. In addition I’m obligated to mention to any and all customers his fees are considerably higher than those of our other escorts –”
I scrabble for the button to cancel the call and end up fumbling the phone onto the floor. It slides beneath a shelf and disappears. Before I can bend to pick it up, Jack hefts off the shelf and picks it up in one fell swoop.
“I set my phone to record that call. I now have you and the operator’s conversation on tape. If you tell anyone what you know about that card, I will counter with this recording and say you were a customer. Is that clear?”
I swallow so hard I swear I hear my throat crack.
“I said, is that clear?” He hardens his voice. I don’t dignify him with a nod. I’m gone before he has the chance to form another imperious sentence. It was a trap. And I fell for it.
***
I am getting my shit kicked in.
I say that admiringly about Jack Hunter, even if I hate his guts. He’s pulling out all the stops, hitting hard and heavy and never relenting. I would be wounded, my pride shattered, and completely defeated if I was anyone but me. Thankfully, I’m Isis Blake, and word on the block is she’s a pretty rad girl who is never defeated. Nameless couldn’t do it. I sure as hell won’t let some random pretty boy do it. The only one who’s worthy of defeating me is me!
Feeling mildly more pumped, I blast my radio louder at a stoplight. My brain’s working overtime. I make a list in my head.
1. Jack has a girl. He brings her romance novels. She can’t get out a lot. Maybe she has overprotective parents or something? More investigation is necessary. The girl could be the key factor in winning the war – he seems to care about her, mildly more than he cares about himself, anyway. I need to find out who she is.
2. Jack is an escort. It’s like something out of a stupid drama on TV, but I heard the lady on the other line. If she was a hoax, she was a very good one. Something in my gut tells me she wasn’t – Jack’s good at this mind game stuff, but not that good. He couldn’t have set up an entire fake telephone line and hired a fake lady to convince me he’s an escort, and even if he did, what would he gain from it? Why would convincing me he’s an escort prove helpful to him? It wouldn’t. So that means it has to be true. If it’s true, then I can’t use it, since he has the recording to use against me. It kills me that I can’t say anything – revealing he has a part-time job as an escort would be the ultimate retaliation for him stealing my first kiss. But I don’t wanna get dragged down with him. So I’ll just have to find other ways to make him regret ever touching me, or insulting Kayla.
Since Jack is such a piece of shit good, and I’ve never quite faced this good an enemy before, I need answers, information, and tactics. And I need them fast. So I’m going to the one person who might know something about Jack.
Wren volunteers on Saturdays at the local food bank. I know this because every time Mrs. Gregory sees his face on the morning announcements she feels the need to list each one of his accomplishments, starting with how often he volunteers and where. I park and get out, mincing through the crowd of single moms with screaming kids and the half-homeless. A guy looks me up and down and whistles ‘Ay mami’ but he smells like booze and pee and that makes sense – only people with severely impaired judgment would think I’m pretty enough to whistle at. Wren’s at the front of the line, but behind the tables, stocking cans of corn and tuna. He talks with the other volunteers and coordinates them with a brisk, clear efficiency. He has blonde hair, perfectly slicked back. His glasses make him look older than he is. He isn’t handsome like Jack, but he’s terribly cute. I sidle up beside him.
“Your mom should’ve just named you Chicken.”
Wren looks up, hazel eyes confused. “Excuse me?”
“You know, it’s a more common name than Wren. Plus people wouldn’t be bugging you about how to spell it all the time. If you’re gonna name your kid after a bird, at least have the courtesy to make it a bird people can spell.”
“It has four letters,” He says.
“Those little paper fortune teller hand doohickeys have four things, too, but do you even know how complicated that shit can get?”
“I’m sorry,” Wren squints at me. “Do I know you? Oh, wait. I do know you. The new girl. Isis Blake.”
“The one and only!” I smile.
“July 1st, 1994. Blood type O positive. You previously lived in Good Falls, Florida, with your aunt. You’re allergic to strawberries.”
I’m shocked, but I keep my smile. “How do you know so – ”
“I’ve read your school record. I volunteer in the office.” He stacks another can on top of the small pyramid of tuna.
“Ah. Right. That makes less creepy sense!”
“Is there something I can do for you?” He grins, locking eyes with mine, and it’s then I’m subjected to his fabled stare. He doesn’t move his gaze in the slightest, boring a hole deep into my head. I look away, but when I look back he’s still staring with that same pleasant smile on his face. I clear my throat.
“As you know, I’m at casual war with Jack Hunter –”
