Page 111 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
He looks around the room at the camera equipment, understanding my meaning. I’m asking him to trust me enough to share his story. To see that maybe by doing so, it might make a difference, even if neither of us knows how yet.
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
I smile a little.
“But before we do this, we need a plan to confront Nicole,” Reid says.
My smile immediately falls. I stand up and busy myself with attaching the camera to one of the tripods and checking the lighting and sound without responding.
The realization was thrilling at first, but now it’s settling in. Nicole hated me that much. Walked into the room that I thought was private and decided instead of confronting me then or even after, to film it. And not only that, but to play it for the entire school and half the town and take what was rightfully mine right out of my grasp.
It’s such a gross violation, a shiver runs across my skin.
“Clara.”
I almost knock over the camera as I spin to face him. “And do what? Humiliate her like she did to me? Like Legacy Lore is doing to all of you?”
His tone is icy. “To start.”
I entertain the fantasy a moment. I imagine unveiling her confession at the banquet. Hearing the town’s shocked gasps and maybe even laughter at her. Turning the tide away from me, only to pull her under.
It makes my stomach ache.
“That’s not who I am, Reid. I just wanted to know. And now that I do, I can move on.”
“Bullshit.”
I glare at him. But his gaze, bruised and swollen as it is, is unflinching.
It’s the same thing I just said to him knowing he’s hiding behind “fine,” and I hear his callout in a new way. My bad habit is to pretend, too. To let my features smooth and my emotions still. But I don’t want to do that with him anymore. I don’t want to do that with himeveragain.
“You can’t let her get away with this, Clara. She wasn’t chosen.Youwere. She stole Legacy from you.”
My heart races at the seriousness of his tone. The protectiveness in it. He’s right. She did. And I don’t even quite understand why. But I don’t want to be the messy, lost girl anymore. What I have here for my documentary about Legacy is something real. An investment in my future. If I come for Nicole without hard proof, I look petty and trapped in the past.
I say as much and he drops his hands, frustration plain on his face. “I get that. I do. But what if we get proof?”
“How would we do that? She’s not going to tell me anything.”
His good eye narrows and he sits up straighter. “True. But maybe she would tell me.”
“You?”
He swallows and won’t meet my eyes again when he says, “She likes me.”
The pink of his cheeks is too sweet to tease him about. But I can’t keep the irritation out of my voice when I say, “Oh, I know.” Because I’ve known that for a long time.
“We could do it at the banquet tonight,” he says significantly. “We can get her to confess it on camera, and all we do is hand it over toPrincipal West. Nothing public. Just evidence that she was the one who did this. It wouldn’t be doing anything other than telling the truth.”
I nod. I don’t like it, the idea of setting her up. But I don’t know if there are any appealing alternatives. I could confront her, but she could just lie. There’s no way she’s going to share it without prompting, knowing she could lose her scholarship for unsportsmanlike behavior.
But it also might come out another way. Now that Amaya’s screenshots have been revealed, that leaves Nicole and Reid as the final intro posts that Legacy Lore hasn’t followed up on.
“What exactly did the post say about Nicole again?”
We look it up quickly.
@LEGACY_LORE: Meet Nicole Kelly: This scholar and athlete is determined to win at all costs. That cutthroat ambition will get you far… or get you caught. More soon
