My mouth twitches, half in grimace and half in grin.
If I’d wanted to, I could’ve done any number of things to Zack Brooks, something like spiking his food or drink with steroids and reporting him. But that’s not my game here. I don’t want to bring myself down to their level. Does it make things harder? Sure. When I sat down and made those rules though, I was serious.
Let them hang themselves with their own rope.
If they didn’t fuck with me, if they stopped fucking with me, then nothing bad would happen to them.
Coach Hannah glances from her screen and up to me, my arms in the air, my tight polyester shell riding slightly up. She turns to her assistant coach, and I see them whisper briefly. In the stand, Principal Collins has her gray brows raised, her mouth slightly agape. And as we finish our cheer, I glance over my shoulder and see the varsity football coach—Buck Rolands—calling Zack off the field.
Zack jogs over, pulling off his shiny black helmet, his brows crinkled, his big, muscular body made to look even larger with all the pads he’s wearing. He pauses next to his coach and glances down at the video on the phone screen.
His face goes shock-white before he glances over at me and meets my eyes. I smile, but it’s not a pretty smile. No, it’s one of those fuck you smiles that the Idols have given me countless times in the past year and a half.
What goes around comes around, I think as Principal Collins makes her way down the steps, and the crowd begins to buzz with gossip. I’ve sent the same video to every member of staff. It wasn’t hard to get their numbers. Actually, because this is a boarding school, every student is given an emergency list of the staff’s personal cell numbers in case of an accident or emergency during off-hours. Using it for a non-emergency is strict grounds for suspension, but I have that covered: I used a burner phone.
Remember those imperative items that I just had to shop for?
Yeah, well, that was on the list.
A hushed argument is carried out between Principal Collins, Vice Principal Castor, Coach Rolands, and, a few moments later, Zack’s mother, Robin. All I’ve ever seen or heard about that woman is that she’s nice to a fault. I used to wonder, back at LBMS, how she ever created such a monster as Zack Brooks. I hear his father and grandfather are real pieces of work, but Robin was never anything but nice to me, even when her son was bullying me to the point of suicide.
The look on Zack’s face as she watches that video … it almost hurts me.
I toyed with this for a while, wondering if it broke rules two and three: No friendly fire and No innocent bystanders. But … all I did was reveal the truth.
Briefly, I close my eyes. I don’t need to see the video to know that it says.
There’s Zack, telling me to kill myself and filming it. He sent me the video, too, all those years ago, emailed it to me, so I could watch it over and over again. I never told anyone. Not once. But I still had it, buried under years of other emails.
It’s followed by his voice, from just a few days ago. When I made that bet, I didn’t think about the name and face of the girl who would die. I’m sorry. A hundred times over, I’m sorry. But I did it: I made that bet to get you to kill yourself, and I came at you relentlessly. There is no such thing as forgiveness for me.
Let’s see how this zero tolerance bullying policy works.
Zack’s face falls as his mother turns to him, looking at her son like she doesn’t even recognize him. His helmet falls from his fingers, and within minutes—minutes—phones all across the stadium are pinging with the link to the video. Students share it with each other, leaning their heads together and whispering. Parents see it. It’s out there, and it can’t be taken back.
My heart is racing so fast that I feel dizzy, and everyone is looking at me now.
“May I use the restroom?” I ask Coach Hannah, and she blinks stupidly at me. There’s pity and sympathy in her gaze now, but I don’t care. She nods, and I push past the other girls, heading for the long, dark tunnel that leads from the locker rooms to the field.
As soon as I’m hidden in its shadowy depths, I lean my back against the wall, my breath coming in panting gasps.
When I hear footsteps, I don’t expect to see Zack storming down the hall, his face dark and drawn in. He sees me and pauses close, too close, so close that I can see the pain in his eyes. I expect, like Zayd, for him to throw his hurt back in my face.
