“Something that would really piss her off,” interrupts Chase.
“No, guys, really I think—”
“It has to be worse than what she did to Amelia’s car,” interrupts Noah.
“But I’d rather—” I say.
“We should break into her house!” Annalisa suggests.
“And put hair remover into her shampoo bottle!”
We all look at Charlotte.
“Really, Charlie? We just suggested breaking and entering, and the worst you can think of is hair remover in the shampoo?” Chase jokes.
“Sorry, I’m not good at this revenge thing,” Charlotte admits shyly.
“Hey, hair remover in the shampoo bottle is pretty diabolical.” Noah defends Charlotte’s idea. “I mean, can you just picture Kaitlyn’s face when all of her hair falls out?”
“We are not breaking and entering. As much as I hate her, I don’t want to break the law,” I assert, finally getting a word in. “Guys, I don’t want—”
“Whose house are we not breaking into?” Mason interrupts as he arrives at the table with Aiden.
I instantly perk up when I see them. If they’re here, that means I’m not too late to call this off.
“We were just talking about how to get back at Kaitlyn and Ryan, which Aiden was supposed to tell us about,” Charlotte says while Mason takes his usual seat on my left, and Aiden sits on his left.
“Why is Aiden in charge of revenge?” Noah protests. “Why can’t I ever be in charge of revenge?”
The table erupts into laughter at Noah’s suggestion, still too excited about this to pay attention to my protests.
“Noah, honey, you’re way too sweet to be the mastermind of a revenge plan,” Annalisa explains.
“Fine. I won’t be in charge. But we should come up with a plan together. We should have, like, a group vote! It’s only fair!”
“No, guys. I don’t—”
I’m interrupted again by everyone talking together at once, all throwing out suggestions and ideas.
“Guys!” The conversation stops and we all look at Aiden, waiting for him to continue. When I look at him, his observant eyes are trained on me, as if he can read my mind and personally feel my frustration.
“Amelia’s been trying to say something.”
“To be honest, I’m really just sick of all of this. I don’t want revenge. Think about it. I get her back. She gets me back. It’s a never-ending cycle. Someone has to be the bigger person and end it somewhere.”
The table erupts, everyone protesting and talking at once. The only person not saying anything is Aiden.
“You can’t just let her get away with what she did!”
“That’d be letting them win!”
“We have to do something!”
“At least let me break her nose!”
“They deserve to pay!”
“Guys! I’m touched. Really. But I don’t want to start a never-ending war. Ryan already hates Aiden, Kaitlyn despises me. Together they make a ruthless team without boundaries. I don’t want to have to be constantly looking out for the knife they plan to shove in my back. Can we please just be the bigger people and drop it before I’m the target of even more torment?” I plead, disclosing at least half of the truth.