I was so busy thinking about how relieved I was that I had somehow gotten out of my blackmail for the night that until I sat down on my bed and pulled my journal out to tell it about my grand misadventure, I didn't realize that I didn't feel happy.
Oddly enough, I kind of felt guilty. Not about getting out of sex, I wouldn't feel guilty about that, but when I thought of the foul mood I had put him in by asking about his mother, I realized he was probably thinking about her after my question. I probably caused him to realize exactly how much he missed her, and I had probably made him sad.
As mean as Derek was to me, I didn't like thinking that I had made him sad. Angry, fine, but not sad. I knew sadness, especially over the thought of what you were missing out on by not having a mother, and I knew it wasn't a good feeling.
That was why it frustrated me that he had to be such an asshole all the time. If he would stop being a jerk long enough to talk to me like a human being, he might realize how much we had in common. It would be a strange friendship, with lots of sordid history that we would be best to avoid talking about too much, but I thought it might work.
But maybe I was wrong. Maybe Alex was right. He told me I spent too much time reading my mother's journals, looking through old photographs. He told me one time that I was too busy thinking about her life to go out and live my own. If he knew I had gone out with Derek Noble, that would surely solidify his belief.
But that wasn't how I thought about it.
I couldn't help if my mother and I were similar creatures. We even looked strangely alike, although she had blue eyes and I had green. We had a similar figure, the exact same auburn hair, the same straight, upturned nose, and stubby fingers. I got Alex's eyes, and apparently his ability to forget things he didn't want to remember, but that was about the end of our similarities. For the most part, I was my mother's daughter all the way. As for our personalities, I wasn't at all like her in matters of the heart, but that was probably because of how she was. If she wasn't crazy about someone, she didn't want to be with them.
As for me—I didn't want to be with anyone who could drive me crazy.
Chapter Three-
I didn’t hear from Derek for the rest of the weekend, which I wasn’t too upset about.
On Monday, I had to go to school and Alex had to go to work. I probably could’ve called Andy, but since the party I didn't feel right asking Andy for favors.
Normally I would have just walked to school, but on this particular morning it was raining and I didn't want to show up at school drenched. So, as I did quite often, I got up a little earlier and took Alex to work, then drove myself to school in Alex's car.
Derek was in my first class but he didn't pay much attention to me, merely glancing up at me as I sat down before turning his attention right back to the girl he had been talking to before I walked in.
I was hardly offended, if that had been his intention.
I went through my next few classes never once thinking of Derek, just talking to Stephanie in one class, Andy in the next, and before I knew it, it was time for lunch.
I was buying lunch but when I went for my money, I realized that I left it in the car, so I told Andy I would find him when I got back and I went outside
to get my cash.
It wasn't raining anymore, and actually hadn't been for a while. I probably could have walked to school, but it truly had looked like it was going to rain all day.
When I saw Alex's car I frowned a little, thinking it looked like there was something on the window, but too far away to be able to tell what it was. It didn't look like bird poop, because it looked red... maybe it was just a reflection.
I hastened over to the car, and saw that in red marker, someone had written "whore" in capital letters across the driver seat window. I was so busy looking at the windows that I didn't realize until a moment later that my car for some reason looked shorter.
When I looked down at the tires, I saw that the left front driver side tire was flat... I backed up, noticing that the back tire was flat, too...
I could feel the anger coursing through my veins when I realized that all four tires were flat, and not like I ran over glass; all four tires had multiple vicious gashes in them.
Alex's tires.
That I would have to pay to replace.
I felt like I might burst into tears, but rather than do that I decided to go inside and take my fury out on the culprit.
I stormed back into the lunch room, growing angrier with each step. I quickly scanned the room, locating Derek, and made my way to his table, digging my nails into my own palms with the anger that I could practically feel seething from my pores.
Without saying anything else, I stopped at the head of his table and demanded, "Did you do that to my car?"
If he had been mad at me before, he saw by my expression that I had just won the anger match. "What are you talking about?" he asked me.
"Don't play stupid," I spat angrily. "Are you the one that did that to my car?" I asked, my voice actually breaking.
"Nicole, I have no idea what—”