Very Bad Things (Briarwood Academy 1)

I nodded my head, thinking of that other time he’d taken a break from Lori. When he and I had been together in New York.

“Can I ask you a question, Nora?” he said, tapping his pencil against the table, like he was nervous.

“What?”

“Do you ever think about our night in New York?”

I turned red, some of it embarrassment, but most of it anger.

“I have. I mean, I felt guilty, because I went back to Lori. And I know I ignored you afterwards,” he said, staring down at his notebook. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to ever talk to me again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m sorry for being an asshole to you.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, finally letting what I’d wanted to say for months pour out of my mouth. “Yeah, you were. And what hurt the most was I thought we were friends. I was just a one-night stand for you,” I snapped at him. “And I do want you to sit somewhere else, please.”

He frowned as he stood. “I still want be your friend, Nora.”

He moved to another table and class started. When Mr. Foreman started lecturing about the importance of writing multiple paragraphs and supplying graphs and tables to support our answers, I zoned out, glad to not think about Drew.

After class, he walked with me to my locker. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” I said tersely, thinking about Leo and our “date” at the movies.

“Maybe we can go to that bookstore next to Portia’s you like?”

“How’d you know I go there?” I asked, cocking my head. It was always the nice ones who fooled you. Oh wait, he wasn’t nice.

He shrugged. “I saw you a couple of times.”

“You never said hi.”

“I was with Lori,” he said, looking away from me.

“Great, just great,” I said, glaring at him. “You were there with your girlfriend and checking me out at the same time.” I opened my locker, shoved my books inside and slammed it. “I’m sick to death of being second choice,” I muttered under my breath.

When would I be first?

Drew never got to reply because Sebastian walked up and put an arm around me. “Okay, we gotta talk about this hair color, ’cause I like this look on you, Buttercup.”

“Don’t call me that,” I said, feeling a pang at hearing Leo’s name for me.

“Wasn’t my name for you anyway,” he reminded me tartly, poking me on the shoulder with a pencil.

I poked him back. “Maybe you should call me Nora like everyone else?”

“Um, yeah, I think not. Not my style at all. How about Rosebud ? Oh, or Flame Brain?”

I shook my head because he really was fun. “My brain is not on fire.”

“Okay, what about Cherry or Towering Inferno?”

I snorted. “Are you saying I’m an Amazon? Because that’s been overdone.”

“Okay, okay, I can see you’re hard to please. Wait, I think I have one since you don’t like my nicknames. How about girlfriend?” he asked suggestively, making a face at me.

“Now, I know you’re joking.”

“What? I’m serious all the time. Do you have a boyfriend I don’t know about, ’cause if you do, I’m gonna challenge him to a duel . . . with pistols at dawn or swords . . . or whatever the fuck they do here in Texas.” He flicked his eyes at Drew.

“We mostly fight with our fists in Texas, Mr. LA,” I said, pointing down at his loafers. He and I needed to go shopping. “And wear cowboy boots while we do it.”

“Easy peasy. I know Kung Fu, you know,” he said, jumping into a karate stance and chopping his hands around.

I chuckled and my eyes lingered over to Drew who appeared grim as he watched our banter. I sighed. “Sebastian, this is Drew. He’s super smart and a basketball player. Drew, this is Sebastian. He’s wicked funny and plays football. Now bond,” I said, having a gut feeling these two would hit it off.

They eyed each other warily and must have decided the other was cool, because they started talking sports. I said my goodbyes and headed out to my car at twelve fifteen in the afternoon, leaving them to the mercy of BA.

“Even after all that has happened to me, I’ve never given up wishing on stars.”

–Nora Blakely

SOMETIMES, YOU JUST need a badass theme song to get you through the day. All the superheroes have them. Even the Power Rangers have a hardcore guitar anthem. So, I may not be Wonder Woman with her invisible plane, but I have been called brilliant before. In fact, I have a collection of theme songs for different days, depending on what was going on in my life, and tonight my theme song was “Perfect” by Pink. I blasted it in my car, listening to her sing about a girl who’d been mistreated and misunderstood.

It was Saturday night and Emma Eason’s party, but first I was swinging by Club Vita to pick up Sebastian and Mila. Sebastian and I had eaten lunch together every day at school this week, and I’d told him all about my passion for sewing and how I planned to wear one of my creations. Tonight I was wearing last year’s Dior black prom dress, or at least part of the dress, since I’d chopped off the long skirt and the sleeves. Now it was strapless and super short. I’d worn my hair braided and twirled up low in the back with loose curls hanging down the sides. I’d put on more make-up than usual, too, coating my eyes in dark liner and smoky eye shadow. On my lips I’d worn the deep red color that matched my hair. Did I look trashy? I shrugged. Who cared. Tonight’s goal was to get drunk and get fucked.