VA 2 - Blood Jewel (40 page)

“What would be the fun in that?”
she said in a daring tone.

“Please don’t, Payton.”

“Ugh!” she groaned. “Okay, I won’t
jack with him, but please know it goes against my better judgment
to not take advantage of him because I might not get another
opportunity anytime soon,” she said.

My best friend and my boyfriend
hated each other and it stressed me to no end. “Yes, I am totally
aware of how painful this must be for you. Maybe you should hook up
with the new guy and then the two of you could both kick Forbes
together while he’s down.”

“That almost sounds like a great
plan since he’s hot as hell, but you know he’s totally not my
type,” she said, like I should know better.

“You don’t even know him, so how
do you know his type?”

“Umm...the poor type and besides
that, I would never date a guy from Collinsville. You know that
much about me.”

Was she serious? “He’s not from
Collinsville anymore,” I argued.

She looked over at me with a raised
eyebrow. “Well, he was at one point and that tells me all I need to
know him. He’s not my kind of boyfriend material.”

“Wow, you really are a stuck up
bitch, Payton.”

“Uh...no. It means my parents
would have a total come apart if I brought a boy like that home
with me. That big ass tattoo covers his whole upper arm and that
would not fly with the parents because nothing less than a long
sleeve is going to hide that.”

“So what? A tattoo doesn’t make
him a bad person.”

“It speaks of his character,
Claire. Seriously, what kind of high school kid has tattoos like
that? He looks like he’s been in prison-maybe a prison for hot
convicts-but you know I don’t do the tattooed bad boy
thing.”

I couldn’t dare tell Payton I
thought his tattoo sleeve was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen
because she would think I was out of my mind. No one, including
her, would fathom that the perfect Claire Elizabeth Deveraux could
possibly find all that badness alluring. The problem was that I
wasn’t the perfect Claire everyone thought I was. Payton knew my
imperfections far better than anyone, but even she didn’t realize
how badly I wanted to bust out of the protective cocoon placed
around me.

3 The Untouchables

Jessie

Aside from Dane Wickham, I made no
friends by walking onto the East Franklin football team as its new
starting quarterback. Practice had been tense at best, but I wasn’t
there to make friends and I preferred knowing where I stood rather
than getting blindsided the way I had my whole life.

Today was my first day at East
Franklin. I woke up two hours before my alarm was set to go off and
began staring at my ceiling with a severe case of dread. On one
hand, I would rather have my ass whipped than transfer to EFHS with
that bunch of rich, snobby kids. On the other, it could quite
possibly be my only chance at avoiding the hopeless path destined
for my severely underprivileged life.

The droopy ceiling panels over my
bed were another reminder of how different I was from the rich kids
attending EFHS. I could guarantee that none of them were lying in
bed looking at a ceiling threatening to cave at any minute, so it
was very easy to refrain from misleading myself into believing I
would fit in with any of them.

I forced myself out of bed and went
to the kitchen to eat some breakfast while my grandmother, Rita,
drank a cup of strong black coffee and smoked an equally strong
cigarette at the dinky dining room table in her trailer’s tiny
kitchen. I didn’t bother to offer Rita anything to eat because I
recognized the look on her face-she was hung-over. She and her
buddies had partied here last night. I didn’t bother to look at the
clock, but it was well into the morning when I heard the slam of
car doors as they left to drive home wasted.

As I sat eating my breakfast, I
noticed several plastic bags filled with marijuana on the table, so
I knew what was coming. I ate in silence and avoided looking at the
dope on the table as I waited for Rita to give me orders. As I ate,
she alternated between slurping her steaming hot coffee and sucking
on her unfiltered Camel cigarette with her permanently puckered
mouth.

We had an understanding, she and I.
Speak only when necessary and our policy suited both of us just
fine, but this morning she found it necessary to speak to me. She
pointed toward the dope using her hand with the cigarette. “I want
you to sell these today. Charge extra because those rich kids can
afford to pay a little more.”

Dysfunctional didn’t begin to
describe my family dynamics. Other kids’ grandmothers did
grandmotherly things for them, whatever that might be, but mine
used me as her own personal infiltration into selling dope in
school just like my mother had me do before she died.

I didn’t want to do it, but it was
our agreement because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’d sell
her dope and she’d give me somewhere to live. I was a little
surprised she wanted me to sell on my first day at a new school-not
a smart move. “Don’t you think I should at least feel out the
situation out first? I mean, find out who’s in the market. What if
I asked a narc if he wanted some pot? I’d be up shit creek for sure
because I’m eighteen now.”

“I don’t care where you sell it,
just get me some money today if you want to keep staying here,” she
threatened.

When I finished eating, I washed my
dishes and put them away because we didn’t have the luxury of a
dishwasher like everyone else. I didn’t mind though. It wouldn’t
have felt right to have anything in my life that made it a little
easier, anyway.

I put Rita’s dope in my backpack
and then went to the bathroom to get a shower. It was incredible
how Rita’s Camels made everything reek. The stench from her strong
cigarettes was repulsive to me and I had been a smoker since I was
12. I tried to scrub it from my hair and skin because I didn’t want
to go to school smelling like Camel’s ass, but I knew it was
useless because I would still have the stench on my
clothes.

I put on a fitted black tee and a
new pair of stonewashed jeans because it was the best I had and all
I could afford with the little bit of money left from my last
paycheck after I paid for the work on my truck. Good thing worn out
jeans were in style since that was all I had to wear the rest of
the week.

I grabbed my dope filled backpack,
the same one I had used for the past two years, and Rita offered no
words of encouragement as I walked out the door to join a category
of hell known all to itself as high school.

I was self sufficient, but not
because I was bestowed with the motivation of being an
overachiever. I called it being genetically motivated, which meant
I didn’t have a single family member that gave a damn enough to do
anything for me. Earl, my boss at the garage, was the only person
in my life that had ever helped me with anything and he felt more
like family to me than the woman I was genetically tied
to.

As I got closer to East Franklin
High School, I dreaded the stares I’d get when the rich kids saw my
old truck parked next to their expensive Beamers and Benzes. They’d
probably see my ride and move their vehicles out of fear their
luxury cars might catch something from my old jalopy.

I really couldn’t care less about
what people thought of me, but it pissed me off when they thought
they were better than me, so I expected problems at this school. It
was overpopulated with doctors’ and lawyers’ kids after the school
board redistricted to send the trailer park kids on the South side
to Collinsville and replace them with kids from the neighborhoods
on the North side of Franklin. I’m not even sure that’s legal, but
it’s what they did five years ago when the new school was
built.

It was by accident alone that I
would be attending East Franklin since I was forced to move in with
Rita during the summer, and although I’m certain they wouldn’t have
a problem with releasing me, Collinsville High School refused to
take me back without tuition because we lived just within East
Franklin’s school district.

We didn’t have the money for
tuition and Rita wouldn’t part with it for me if she had a million
dollars. She made it very clear I was unwelcome and the only reason
she allowed me to stay was because I agreed to move her merchandise
for her. When I graduated, I would promptly be shown the door. The
feeling was mutual, so she didn’t have to worry about it hitting me
on the way out. She treated me just like my mom, Twyla, had my
entire life and I wasn’t plagued with wondering where my mom
learned her amazing parenting skills.

I shoved the thoughts of my mother
out of my mind and pulled into the parking lot of my new school. I
parked on the second row and turned off my truck’s deafening motor
in need of a new muffler. Come payday, I would have to come off the
wallet if Earl couldn’t find a decent used one at the
junkyard.

I didn’t want to admit it because I
saw it as weakness, but my nerves were rattled, so I lit a
cigarette before I was forced to enter the gates of my new personal
hell. While I sat in the refuge of my truck smoking a much needed
stress reliever, I watched the returning students around me as they
met up in the parking lot. As expected, they got out of anything
from tiny two-seater sports cars to gigantic sport utilities I
couldn’t afford to fill with gas.

My truck’s clock was busted, so I
looked at my watch and saw I had ten minutes until my official day
of torment started. I wondered if I had time to squeeze in one more
cigarette after I finished the one in my hand and as I took a long
drag, I watched a fancy white Lexus pull into the parking spot
behind me.

I watched my rearview mirror to see
what a high schooler driving a Lexus might look like and I wasn’t
shocked when I saw it was a couple of cheerleaders I’d seen during
football practice-one of them being Forbes Henderson’s
girlfriend.

The friend looked more like a
Barbie than the Mattel doll herself. She had long blond hair and a
pair of killer legs in a short denim skirt exaggerated by a pair of
tall wedge heels. As I wondered how she would get away with a skirt
that short on school grounds, she straightened it and gained a
little length, but not enough to pass inspection where I came from.
I was used to strict rules-it's how they kept the barbarians in
check.

Henderson’s girlfriend had on a
short, ivory floral dress with a long, peach-colored scarf around
her neck and a pair of weathered brown boots I assumed were made by
some designer I had never heard of. Damn. A chick in a dress with
boots was hot so it was too bad this one was taken, but because she
was his girlfriend, it let me know a little about who she was as a
person. She was with the enemy and therefore against me by
association.

With
the enemy or not, these girls weren’t like the ones I was used to
at my old school. Chicks like these were untouchable for someone
like me
and I could picture
the Barbie incarnate giving me the two finger salute over her
forehead in the shape of an L to remind me of my loser
status.

When I saw Henderson’s girl in my
rearview mirror walking toward my driver’s door, I tossed my
cigarette butt out the window and felt an overwhelming need to jack
with her. Okay. Maybe I just wanted to talk to her and see her up
close to convince myself she wasn’t all that. With perfect timing,
I swung my door open to prevent her from passing. This was going to
be fun.

4 Princess

Claire

We
pulled into the parking lot of the school and Payton parked behind
the sexy badass’ junked out truck. He was still sitting in his old
clunker and I thought I saw a cigarette in his hand, then he
confirmed my suspicion when I saw him raise it to his lips for a
drag and the tip glowed fiery orange.
Gross
.

“Why did you have to park behind
him
?” I huffed as I felt heat rise to my neck and
face.

“What’s your deal with
him
, Claire?” she asked, then looked at me and said,
“Your face is beet red. What is wrong with you? Are you
blushing?”

Getting out of the car at the same
time meant walking into school next to him and that wouldn’t make
Forbes happy. Payton didn’t understand the ruckus this would cause
because she didn’t have a boyfriend and it didn’t help matters that
she couldn’t stand Forbes. She thought I was weak and trying to
please him, but the truth was that I just didn’t feel like hearing
Forbes whine anymore.

“I want to avoid the need to
explain to Forbes why I’m walking into school with the guy he
hates. It will just start an unnecessary argument I don’t want to
have first thing this morning.”

“With the risk of repeating
myself, screw Forbes. I’m not parking in the back of the parking
lot and walking an extra mile to spare his insecure feelings and if
you have to explain that, then you should dump his ass.”

I knew she was right. I was a
poodle jumping through hoops to keep the peace and it was
ridiculous in addition to exhausting.