“… It was random?”
“Have you seen—”
“So sad.”
I straighten and set my laptop on the table in front of me. Before I can open it, Dixie comes marching into the room in her kick-ass boots, Quinn hovering like a planet orbiting her cooler cousin.
“Hey, Harper,” Dixie says, sliding into her seat opposite me. Quinn takes another seat at the table as usual. The teacher clears her throat, and Dixie lowers her voice to a whisper. “I know you don’t like gossip, but you might want to check the blog.”
Everleigh comes flouncing in just as the bell chimes softly. I’ve only been here a few months, but I’m already used to the posh bell. I’d probably jump out of my skin if the harsh, jangling of the Faulkner bell sounded instead.
“I’m not late,” Everleigh says, a challenge in her voice.
The teacher sighs and waves Everleigh to her seat. She’s a Dolce girl, so even the teachers won’t give her much shit.
“We were looking for you this morning,” Everleigh says, stopping at our table to address Dixie. “Gloria has tea.”
“Spill.”
“I can’t,” Everleigh says, rolling her eyes at the teacher, who clears her throat loudly. “Gloria will tell you in dance. It’s about Royal.”
She slips back to the table with the other populars, though Duke is missing. I wonder if Royal was worse off than we realized. I mean, the guy stopped breathing. He didn’t say a word once we got in the car. Suddenly, my stomach knots. Maybe he wasn’t the one who called Gloria. Maybe Duke or Baron called to tell her he was in the hospital. He could have gotten pneumonia or some infection from inhaling all that dirty water. Hell, he could have brain damage or… I know fuck-all about drowning, but I know it can’t be healthy to come as close to dying as he did.
I shouldn’t care. I should be fucking happy. I pushed him off that bridge on purpose. He deserved it.
But my heart seizes at the thought of anything happening to him. I didn’t let myself think about it too much this weekend. After the harrowing ordeal, I slept through the Friday night fight, so I had to play poker all night on Saturday to make up for it. Then I slept all day Sunday and did homework at the laundromat in the evening. Which means I spent as little time as possible awake and dwelling on my thoughts or considering what would’ve happened if Royal had held onto me just a few seconds longer. We’d both be dead right now.
What would’ve happened if I hadn’t grabbed his shirt? If I wasn’t strong enough to hold onto him and pull him up? If I had to choose between letting him go and getting to shore alive, or holding on and dying? What would have happened if Baron didn’t know how to do resuscitate him? If I got him to shore, and we had to wait for paramedics to arrive, would it have been too late by the time they got there and trundled down the bank with a stretcher for quarter of a mile? Would we have had to sit there and wait helplessly, watching him die?
I shiver at the thought, wrapping my arms around myself and trying to focus. Thinking about what could have been is pointless. I’m not the sort to dwell on shit I can’t control. Even so… I’m not a killer. I know exactly how precious life is. Yeah, I hate Royal, and he did and said some fucked up shit to me, and I was pissed at him. But nothing he’s done was as bad as what I did. I could have fucking killed him.
I almost did.
I remember Colt telling me I attacked everything with brute force instead of being patient and letting things work themselves out. That’s exactly what I did. I wanted revenge on Royal, so I did something reckless and dangerous, and he almost died. I could have plotted revenge and taken my time, waiting until the moment was right and delivering a soul-crushing blow, the way the Dolces do. They held onto that video for months.
Instead, I went in with all the stealth of a sledgehammer. I wanted to escape, and I knew we could both swim to shore, so I jumped off a fucking bridge.
I’m startled out of my head by the little OnlyWords app popping up in the corner of my screen, the black box with boxy green letters blinking at me.
WHGossipGrrl: Did u read the blog?
BadApple: no sry ill check now
WHGossipGrrl: i’m sorry : (
BadApple: y?
WHGossipGrrl: Txt me after u read it
BadApple: k
I make sure the teacher isn’t roaming the room before surreptitiously searching for the blog. My stomach is knotted with dread now that she apologized. The last thing I need is more bullshit coming my way. But I seem to be the target of way too many of her blogs, which is why I avoid the thing in the first place. Surely she has better things to blog about than a dramatic wardrobe change, even if it does involve her favorite magnet for gossip. I haven’t done anything else noteworthy lately, unless…
My heart flips, and I nearly choke as I shoot her a look. Does she know what I did to Royal?
The entire school will string me up and crucify me if they find out I almost killed their king. I’m lucky the twins were there and relieved enough that I saved his life to punish me for being the one who risked it to begin with.
My hands shake as I click on the link to her latest blog.