In the Last Chapter…
After a painful attempt to join the school choir, Robyn talks to Hunchback, whose real name is Jeremy. Through him, she finds out that Jordan is in trouble for having sex on school property, but Jeremy conducts an operation to infiltrate the office and remove the report – he seemingly trusts Robyn out the gate. Robyn takes a report on Kevin’s twin Quinn for good measure, although KEvin admits after that Quinn isn’t involved and that is a coincidence. Robyn and Kevin, unexpectedly, enter into a sappier more blurry friends-with-benefits arrangement. Meanwhile, Jordan does not take Robyn’s news well for whatever reason, and denies even knowing Jeremy. After he yells at her and nearly physically assaults her, Robyn swears off having any more sex with Jordan.
You know how sometimes, you can see clouds coming in and you’re not sure whether it’s going to rain or not? You look up and go, “hey, maybe it will, maybe it won’t.” But other times, you look up and see even a somewhat cloudy sky but you just know, “oh shit, a storm is coming.” It was safe to say that the storm was coming after my fight with Jordan, but in case I didn’t get the memo or something, the next time I was at my locker, life really wanted to push it in my face.
“Robyn.”
I turned away from my locker to see Jeremy, his face red with some kind of intense feeling. The shyness and the subservience that normally surrounded him like an aura was completely gone. He was staring a hole straight through my head.
He caught me completely off-guard. He hadn’t even said anything yet, but still, I stared at him with an intense nervousness building inside me. I thought about speaking, but… didn’t. Couldn’t. I just stared.
Jeremy just stared too, until he realized I wasn’t going to say anything. He was clenching his fists like an angry little troll, and moved his lips a little before speaking. “Jordan kicked me out of the group. He told me to thank you for that.”
My eye twitched. Fucking Jordan. Of course he couldn’t just let the situation go; he had to make things worse for me. “And what, you believe him?” I countered. “You’ve seen him.”
“I met you once, Robyn,” he told me. “And before that, I’ve seen how much of a bitch you can be.”
“Hey, watch it,” I barked, closing my locker door. “I have literally never done anything to you ever. I was nice to you the first time we met. How has Jordan been? You want to know why he was angry at me? It’s because I told him – I let him know I had a boundary. And he…” I was getting so upset my eyes were starting to water. I breathed a few times, wishing the stupid tears away. “He grabbed me by my neck. If you’re getting away from him, that’s just a good thing.”
“And he decided to punish me for that?” Jeremy asked skeptically.
“I… told him about the report we ripped up,” I replied, lowering my voice. “He asked how, I told him I met you, and he… denied he knew you.”
Jeremy broke eye contact for the first time, and sighed. “Yeah,” he admitted. “That sounds like what he’d do.”
“He was going to hit me, too,” I added, my voice starting to quiver. “I’ve had a fucking brutal day yesterday, and the last thing I need is you coming up to me, calling me a bitch when it’s Jordan being the problem. And, let’s be honest, he always has been. I… I made a mistake thinking he’d be a good guy for me. I…” Wow. It was like I was admitting this out loud for the first time. “I shouldn’t have tried to pursue my crush on him. I was even warned against it, but, I’m stupid. And I might be stupid, but I’m no fucking bitch, thank you very much.” He still hadn’t clued in that he owed me an apology.
Whether he clued in or not, he just huffed and looked off. “I guess, yeah, Jordan’s the problem here,” he conceded.
“You guess?!” I nearly yelled. “So what happens now? Are you going to go to his locker? Are you going to call him a bitch? Or was that only reserved for me?!”
Jeremy scowled but just kept looking away. He didn’t speak for a while. My anger was rising, but I needed to look past Jeremy’s apparent immaturity. He wasn’t the source of the problem – Jordan was. “Maybe we need to get back at him,” I finally suggested, evening my tone.
Jeremy looked back at me. “Get back at him?” he repeated. The words rung back in my head. I was suggesting we escalate things… and not just against anyone – against the guy that almost hit me the day prior. But also… who the fuck hits women? I was Robyn Cooper. No one hits this bitch. (And only I was allowed to call myself a bitch, thank you very much!)
Even though I was thinking very loudly, I didn’t say anything out loud. I merely shrugged. Slowly, Jeremy started nodding anyway. “For treating us both like crap. Yeah, okay. We could get back at him.”
“Yeah,” I breathed out loud, looking around. Miraculously, barely anyone was paying attention to us. I guess that old idea about “doing something in broad daylgiht so no one would notice” was true. “But what?”
Jeremy looked at me, then slowly smiled. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Ugh, he even talked like some anime protagonist or something. “Uh, no, it’s not.”
“We saved his ass by getting rid of that report. So what if… we put it back?”
My heart stopped. Shit, fuck. I just had my ass saved in a one-in-a-lifetime miracle, and now I could get dragged right back down to hell. “Well, hold on… didn’t you shred it?”
“I keep private pictures of the reports I shred, just in case,” he told me.
“That sounds like a huge liability,” I chuckled nervously.
He shrugged. “Only if people find out I do this, and then they have to bother to look, and in the state of Massachusetts, in order to look at the computer of a private citi-”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I huffed. “But, like… um…” I was beginning to panic. He had a copy of the report. “I-if you print out a picture you took, they’ll notice it’s a picture!”
Jeremy gave me a weird look. “Yeah, I’ll just retype it.”
Yeah, duh. It wasn’t an actual complaint. I just had to say something. “I just… don’t know about this. I have a bad feeling.”
“I get that, but… he hurt me too,” he reasoned. “You’re actually right – I can’t just stand back when he’s a dick to me. I have to do something. I have to… b-be a man.”
I started to roll my eyes, then squeezed them shut when I realized he was still looking at me. God, I hoped he didn’t notice… “Well… um…”
“It’s me getting my revenge. And it’s helping you too, by the way. I’m not asking permission, Robyn,” he told me, in a tone that unfortunately let me know he probably did see me roll my eyes. “I’m gonna go. See ya.”
By the time I opened my eyes again, he was gone. I exhaled nervously, looking around. Okay, well… there was the chance that it wasn’t even me he was caught with, or the person that made the report never knew it was me…
…But after my last encounter with the guy, I made Jordan himself aware, and made him angry at me. Fuck. I gave him the perfect ammo to take me down with him.
I opened my locker again. I was definitely going to be late for class. God damn, all this because I had a stupid crush on the future school shooter. Maybe I should have been smarter, like Kathy, and just settled for some mediocre shallow relationship.
***
When I got to English class, the first person I locked eyes with was Kevin. Immediately, I blushed and looked away. Fuck, what was I, fourteen? It wasn’t like anything major was happening between us. And plus, Kevin? Fucking Kevin Shen? Yeah, that’ll be the day. Part of me was mad that I would do something so cliche when I met his eyes, but… I had to admit… another part of me liked it. Luckily, I managed to avoid Jordan’s gaze altogether, which was honestly probably for the best. Maybe he wasn’t even looking at me. If he had any kind of human decency, in fact, he would look away.
The second person I locked eyes with made any butterflies flutter away immediately. Kathy’s eyes held something unmistakeable: grief. Not, like, grief for a dead family member or anything. No, this was something that mattered much more to a teenage girl that probably didn’t care that much for her family anyway:
“He fucking broke up with me.”
Woah, I didn’t see that one coming. Matthew was a lot of things, but he seemed genuinely invested in this relationship. I didn’t have to play up my reaction. “No fucking way! Oh my god, Kathy, I’m so sorry!” I touched her hand affectionately. “Oh, oh my God. Kathy, fuck him. Do you want me to come over after school? I don’t have plans. Fuck plans. I want to be there for you, girl.”
Kathy gave me a look that communicated something we both knew. I was not a big fan of Matthew since the beginning, and it looked like Kathy just wanted me to celebrate their breakup in a victory lap or whatever. I squeezed her hand and reassured her, “This is about you, Kathy. You’re hurting, and I want to be there for you.”
Eventually, she gave me a sad smile. “Okay, thanks,” she told me gently.
In a weird way, it was kind of nice. I hadn’t hung out with Kathy ever since I went on my little sleuthing hunt. Maybe taking a break from caring so much about the Hazelwood Underground would do me some good.
***
There was nothing in the world that couldn’t comfort a heartbroken girl quite like cookie dough ice cream and a friend, with a stupid Netflix movie on in the background for effect. The mood was somewhat lighthearted to start, but as the conversation got more and more about Matthew, Kathy got more and more upset. Eventually, it became clear that I needed to mute the movie and bring out the tissues for her.
“And, like, he would keep playing this bullshit game of hot and cold, y’know?” she sobbed between sniffles. “Like, ‘ohh, Kathy, I could get used to this, what if we spent the rest of our lives together,’ then wham, he would tell me I’m getting clingy or some bullshit.” She took out a tissue and blew heavily. “Like, he would tell me that he wasn’t even sure where he would be next year. It was like he wouldn’t actually say anything unless he thought it would get him what he wanted!”
I rolled my eyes in agreement. “Ugh, sounds like him,” I agreed. “He would pull that shit with me all the time too – just as a friend, I mean. I didn’t mean to… well, y’know. He would either try turning up the charm or go all, ‘hey, I dunno, I’m just being me’ or some shit as soon as-”
“Yes!!” Kathy exclaimed, sitting up. “Oh my God Robyn, I swear, he would say that exact shit to me! And he kept making bullshit excuses for things. Like, the breakup came out of buttfuck nowhere. Yesterday, he was supposed to introduce me to his friends, and suddenly, he was all like, ‘ohhh no, actually, I can’t.’”
“Ugh, the worst,” I sympathized, shaking my head.
“Right? And he tried to feed me some bullshit story about it too. He couldn’t just say ‘oh, maybe another day,’ he had to go and make this whole song and dance about how his friends were doing a lot of in-fighting and tearing the group apart and shit.”
Uh oh. Oh, no. Don’t do it, Kathy. Don’t pique my curiosity.
Kathy obliviously continued. “Like, it always had to be life or death for that guy. And he’s always so secretive! He’d keep doing this thing where he would be hanging out, and he’d look at his phone, like, he’d make a big show of pulling it out. Them, wham, ‘oh, I gotta go babe.’ Then he’d already be standing up leaving me here before I could even ask where he’s going! Talk about flaky.”
“Uh, yeah, totally,” I replied, over-enthusiastically nodding. “Um, the one about the friend group was the craziest part. Like, did you ever meet his friends…?”
Kathy’s face lit up with realization. “Oh my God Robyn, that’s such a good point,” she gasped. “He never even let me meet his friend group! Oh my God, what a red flag…”
I scratched the back of my neck. Okay, okay, okay. I didn’t need to know. I could disengage. I wanted to know about Jordan and that caused him to go psycho. I wanted to know about Jeremy and he was a weirdo. But… I wanted to know about Kevin… and that went pretty well… and plus, I was closer than ever to being in, and with the group imploding, there might have been a power vacuum…
“And now he’s broken up with me to ‘focus on other things in his life,’” Kathy groaned. “Like, just… be a man! Tell me the real reason! You know? I feel soooo strung along!”
“Yeah,” I replied, feeling a little distracted. Could it have been him? The General, under my nose this whole time…? Fuck, was that why I was getting nowhere? The entire time I was off talking to Kevin or whatever, he was dating Kathy, near me… oh my God, what if he dated Kathy just to spy on me?! He wanted to use my friend and spied on me? That would be crazy, if it was true… but I needed to make sure first. “Honestly, fuck him, Kathy. You deserve so much better.”
Kathy nodded, hugging a nearby pillow. “I just wish I was worth more to him. The whole time, it was like… he was seeing right through me. Like he was dating me because he was bored or something.” She chuckled. “Honestly, for a little bit there I was worried he was dating me to get to you or something.”
“Me?!” I asked in shock, but not for the reason she thought. Did Kathy see it too?
“It’s probably crazy… but I thought that for the longest time. I know you two were close before, and did stuff, so I thought maybe he thought you were playing hard to get and wanted more, but… ugh…” She buried her face in the pillow. I knew the last thing Matthew wanted was a committed relationship with me, but that opened up a new question. Why then would he, out of nowhere, want a committed relationship with Kathy, then break up with her right as Jordan blew up at me? “The craziest part is, I want him back,” she added in a quiet voice. “That probably makes me such a sucker.”
You and me both, Kathy. You and me both.
***
“I’m not gonna lie, you surprised me,” Matthew chuckled, walking over to my bed and sitting down. “After that whole… okay, you definitely heard about me and Kathy being splitsville. I woulda thought for sure that would make you hate my guts. But hey, here you are, actually playing it cool.”
I closed the door. Oh, I could play it cool, Matthew. I could play it cool. I cocked my head and pretended to think his words over. “Actually, that did kind of surprise me,” I murmured.
“What did?”
“Oh, y’know, you and her-”
“Breaking up? Oh, trust me, that was a whole thing. There were so many parts of that, and… look, I know you’re her friend. Maybe you’re even trying to find some shit out for her, but if I didn’t tell her…” He chuckled. “I’m not telling you. You know?”
“No, not even that,” I replied. I sat on the bed next to him. “Like, why you would even want to be with her in the first place at all. I mean, it was just so out of nowhere, right?”
“Out of nowhere?” he repeated, confused. “You literally introduced us, Robyn.”
“Yeah, but, why did you want to go for her?”
“Because she was cute? I don’t get the question,” Matthew replied.
“I feel like there’s something else there,” I told him. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it was like you had other intentions…”
I was staring at him. His expression only got more confused. “What, like, making you jealous?” he asked. “We were already having sex. I mean, I even stopped having sex with you to…” Something made him stop mid-sentence. He paused, then looked back into my eyes. “Oh.”
Oh. There was something. My eyes widened. My breathing quickened. This was it. “Am I making sense now?”
“Um… yeah.” He looked down, playing with his thumbs. “But, you know, it’s the type of thing that’s hard to talk about.”
Hard to talk about, my ass. He just didn’t want to talk about it. “Let me me a wild guess. If I’m right, we can just agree that we understand each other,” I told him, then took in a nervous breath. “Did it have something to do with Jordan?”
Matthew slowly looked up from his hands. His expression was blank for the longest time, then… a smile slowly formed on his face. He nodded. “Wow, you actually had it all figured out, huh?”
“I pieced it together, yeah,” I told him. Finally. Fucking finally. I found the General. Matthew was being straightforward with me. “I guess I kind of ruined it, in hindsight, didn’t I?”
Matthew shrugged, looking back at his hands. “I mean, I wasn’t exactly straight with you, so it was probably hard for you to know what even to do. If I told you it all from the beginning, things would have played out way different, I get it. Plus, you didn’t know at the time.”
“How much are you willing to tell me?” I asked breathlessly.
“Come on, Robyn. Let a guy have some secrets. I’m already telling you a lot more than I thought I would,” he admitted.
As true as that was… “How much does Kevin know?” I asked.
“Kevin Shen?” he asked. I smirked in response, and he smiled back. “Nah, take it from me Robyn: he acts informed. The guy’s clueless. It’s how I always stay a step ahead of him. He actually knows pretty dang little about what I was trying to do.”
My smile faded a little when he talked about Kevin like that, then at the last part of his sentence, my brow furrowed. “And what exactly were you trying to do?”
His smile remained. “Come on, Robyn,” he smugly chided me. “If you want it, I can totally make something happen. It’s gotta be low-key though…” His smile got bigger. “…and you’ve gotta prove to me right here and right now that you want it that bad.”
My eyes widened. “Here and now?!” I repeated.
“Oh come on, like you weren’t thinking about it,” he laughed. I moved my mouth to the side – I did tell Kevin pretty explicitly to tell the leader that I could be useful… and that I could leverage my reputation for being easy.
I blushed. Matthew wanted me to have sex with him to show how persuasive I could be? It was like talking to a mafia boss. I had to show him the goods… and I guess provide some services too. “I… may have considered it,” I admitted.
Matthew bit his lip. “Just like old times?”
I laughed. “It hasn’t even been that long,” I scoffed, then met his gaze. “But yes, like old times. Only now it’s got a slightly different meaning, huh?”
“I would say so,” he laughed. “Well, come on, show me what you’ve got.”
He reached into his pants, and only then did I consider the feud the others were going through. “But what about the others, will they be okay?”
“Let me handle that,” Matthew reassured me. “Trust me, things are gonna be as calm as possible.” He paused. “We good?”
I slowly broke into another smile. “Yeah,” I admitted. “We’re good.” If this was the way it had to happen, then I was ready to show him I was good for it. I’d already come so far – I was not about to back down at the final hurdle. I had more questions for the guy, but I could save those for when I was in. For now, I was ready to remind him why I was worth keeping around.
When he reached into his pants again, I gave him a playful smile. “Why don’t you let me handle that?” I asked cheekily. A few days ago I might have been more hesitant about whether he could keep a secret, but if he managed to pull this General shit right from under my nose and play the part of an oblivious dumbo the whole time, I had nothing to worry about.
Matthew gave his signature cocky laugh as I fished his cock out of his pants. Wow, he was throbbing already. “Somebody missed me,” I joked, then kissed the birthmark on his cock – y’know, for the ritual.
“Can you blame me?” he chuckled, then leaned his head back and moaned. I was stroking him, and I would never tell him this, but I was enjoying feeling him in my hands again, regardless of his insane power over the school. Fuck, I was stroking the most powerful guy in the school, and almost no one knew it except for us. Kevin knew, and maybe this would cause complications, but we were pretty clear we weren’t exclusive, let alone an item. Plus, he assured me that this would all be fine.
He brought his head back up again and lazily opened his eyes to see me maintaining eye contact with him the whole time. I was going to make this boy see stars. Satisfied with what my hands could do, I leaned in and gave his cock a few kisses, the dove in. I tasted him again, letting my tongue wrap around every inch of him as I could. I hummed on his cock, making him grunt and shiver. “Fuck, Robyn, your fucking mouth…”
Damn right. My mouth could go places, and hopefully Matthew would never forget that. I hummed on his cock, moving my mouth back and forth, only occasionally stopping to ensure my tongue danced across his most sensitive areas. Matthew was getting super into this, eventually leaning forward and gripping the back of my mouth. Fuck, I forgot how dominant he could be… His cock was jumping and throbbing in my mouth, as if it was moving on its own, reacting to my hums. Both of us wanted more, and we knew it.
“I- okay, one sec,” Matthew breathed, then chuckled. “God damn… gonna be honest, you’ll have to slow down if you want me to last, Robyn.”
I took his cock out of my mouth and smirked. “If you’re good to go a second time, I don’t mind you cumming in my mouth,” I told him seductively, taking my shirt off. “What do you say?” Before he could answer, my bra was already off. He stared at my hard nipples, exhaling in pleasure at the sight.
He raised an eyebrow, giving me another cocky smile. “Show me what those tits can do,” he practically ordered.
I felt myself shudder. I raised my eyebrows twice at him, smiling back and moving to the position. I grabbed his cock again, spitting on it for lubrication, then angled my breasts to him. Soon enough, we had found our rhythm. He was sliding his well-lubed cock up against my tits, and I was biting my lip, enjoying the feeling of his hard throbbing cock sliding right up against my body. Fuck, he was going to cum all over me, wasn’t he?
Sure enough, he emitted his little telltale grunts and gripped the bed. I knew what was up, but I didn’t dare stop. “Go ahead, Matthew,” I moaned. “Cum all over me.” Without saying a word, Matthew did just exactly that. The first spurt of his hot cum flew straight up past my face, then straight back down, splatting all over my exposed breasts. The second and third spurts flew almost as high, collecting on my boobs, and the dribbles that came afterward spilled down his shaft and decorated my breasts just as much as the others did. Matthew’s entire body was tensed up, then all of his tension released at once as he nearly fell backwards onto the bed.
“Holy fuck…” he moaned, his eyes fluttering open. “You’re gonna have ot give me a sec after that one.” His eyes trailed down to my breasts, which were, naturally, painted with his cum. “You are so fuckin’ hot…”
“Am I? Thanks, I never noticed,” I responded smugly. “How much time are you gonna need?” I added, getting up and rubbing his cum into my nipples to tease him. It felt slutty, but it also felt nice to rub his spunk into my exposed nipples, right there in front of him.
He sat there, mesmerized, just watching me. Wow, either he was super committed to the dumb sex-obsessed boy bit or my body really did make him this crazy. “Less than I thought,” he laughed, getting up and removing his pants. I followed suit, and ditched my clothes. As nice as it was to have his cum on me, I also cleaned up, giving him a tissue as well – even if we were using a condom, I wanted to make sure all of the cum was off of his dick before it ended up going inside me, just in case. By the time we had done our due diligence and gotten ready, Matthew was ready – if not raring – to go again.
I assumed the position, getting on all fours on the bed. “Ready to go all the way?” I asked teasingly, moving my ass back and forth, looking at him and giggling. Matthew stared at my pussy like it was hypnotizing him, and seemingly moved on his own to orient himself up with me. “Gentle at first, then have fun,” I half-instructed, half-teased.
It looked like Matthew was too turned on to even respond… at least, with words. He thrust forward, entering me with a grunt. Fuck, his cock was such a nice size. Not overwhelming, not painful, and with enough thickness to give me that amazing “stretching out” feeling I craved while being fucked. “Fuck yeah,” I moaned, arching my back and pressing my ass against him, taking his cock to the hilt. “Fill me the fuck up, Matthew.”
He hardly needed any more encouragement from me. He thrust again, slowly, and then again, with my juices and the concom’s lubrication assisting in our rhythm. His thrusts picked up pace, faster, faster… until finally, he was full-on fucking me, with me moving my hips back to meet every movement. Fuck, we were in perfect sync. I couldn’t help but let a few telltale moans and slutty noises while feeling him fill me up. I really wanted to be as quiet as possible, but with the way I was getting fucked, I didn’t think staying quiet was going to remain a possibility.
All hope of holding back went out the window when I felt Matthew grab my hair – the proper way, close to the head, nice – and pull, forcing me to arch my back further and making my mind go completely blank, save for the primal slutty thoughts that permeated my body in that moment. My mouth opened and made whatever noises it wanted without my brain’s approval. I couldn’t even imagine what a whore I sounded like, letting my mouth go on autopilot and letting this dumb genius have his way with my body, with only a thin layer of latex between us.
Matthew had quite a lot of stamina, and thank god for that, because I felt like I never wanted to move from this position again as long as he was behind me. The way he slammed into my pussy combined this reckless abandon and a perfect control of rhythm that had me absolutely hooked. I moved my hips back to meet his, not being able to resist lifting one of my one arms up, using all of my strength to ensure one arm could keep me up. I moved my fingers to my throbbing clibt and played with it, unable to resist pushing myself over the edge as this amazing dick was rocking my world. I experienced pure cockbrain, with my tongue actually hanging out of my mouth while I played with my clit. The only things to come out of my mouth, aside from drool, was the occasional “mmmh~” and my feeble attempts to gurgle out, “More…”
My fingers and Matthew’s cock were doing the job. I felt myself start to ascend, and get closer and closer to nirvana. The light approached… closer… closer… and I fucking exploded. Right when I did, Matthew slammed inside me, then ground his hips. I practically shrieked, and was pretty sure had his cock not been there, I would have fucking squirted. The noises coming out of my mouth sounded practically alien to me, and I collapsed down on the bed, ensuring I was still angled so that Matthew could remain buried inside me. If I could snap his dick off and keep it inside of me forever, I would have.
Embarrassingly, even when Matthew pulled out, I couldn’t help but murmur “noooo” softly; I wanted the moment to last forever. I wanted him to keep fucking me, over and over. After he pulled out, I remained in my no-doubt undignified pose for way too long, both mustering the strength to get up and mentally accepting that the moment was over and we weren’t going to just keep fucking. Some voice in the back of my head was pleading for him to see me in this helpless pose and use me; just stick it back in me and use my body to get off again. I wouldn’t have just let him – I would have moaned in approval and let it happen. Sadly, no such moment came.
The only moment that did come was the moment of regret. After I sobered up to have clear thoughts, the first person that came to mind was Kathy. She literally told me that she would go back to him in a heartbeat… and even though my reasons were, well, reasonable, they were complicated. It would take an hour to tell Kathy about the Hazelwood Underground, and even then, would that even be a good enough reason in her eyes to do what I did? Dammit, she probably would have seen what I did as a complete betrayal…
…And, I mean, yeah. At the end of the day, I heard that my best friend got dumped, heard her out, then rushed to the guy and seduced him. The rest was just details. Fuck sakes. If Kathy heard about this… Nope. didn’t even want to think about it. Besides, it’s not like I was stealing her guy. Just showing a guy leading a double life that I could pull spy movie shit off just as well as he could. I mean, I even found out who he was on my own, using nothing but my own intuition. Showing him I could blow his mind (and something else of his) was the cherry on top.
I groaned, moving a little in place, practically slithering around on the bed to test the waters. Were my muscles working? Survey said: kind of.
I looked back to see Matthew wasn’t faring much better. I giggled, watching him catching his breath. “How’re you feeling?” I asked.
Even amongst his breaths, he chuckled. “You’re certainly quite persuasive when you wanna be,” he admitted.
I beamed. “Sounds like I’m in,” I gloated.
“Oh, trust me. I was already pretty sure,” he continued.
My look turned to slight confusion. “Really? How long have you thought that?” I asked.
“Well, I had to break things off with Kathy to be sure,” he said with a shrug, finding his shirt.
“I don’t see how that would be relevant,” I admitted quietly.
He flashed me a smile. “Wow,” he simply said.
Weirdo. I rolled my eyes. “Whatever,” I said, finally getting up, finding the strength to sit on the side of the bed. “So, you said you’ll make sure everything goes smoothly from here?”
“Super smooth, babe,” he acknowledged with a nod and another cocky grin.
I winced. “Ugh. No calling me babe.”
“Ooh, making rules already,” he teased. “Anyway, yeah. I need a bit of time to think things through, y’know, make sure I’m doing everything right. But rest assured, I’ll text you, like, tomorrow, if that’s cool.”
“Oh, a hundred percent,” I agreed, putting my bra back on. I smirked at him. “This is really cool. When do we get to, like…?”
He caught on immediately. “Uh, a few weeks, minimum,” he thought out loud. “Y’know, to be tasteful.”
“Wow,” I mumbled. “By then the school year will practically be over. Will we even be able to get up to that much?”
He shrugged. “Cross that bridge when we come to it?” he offered.
I smiled. “Sounds good to me.” I didn’t know how the fuck Jordan and Jeremy would take this. I think I was mentally blocking out any thoguhts of Kevin for obvious reasons. But if Matthew said he would handle it, then I trsuted him. After all, he already clearly thought so much of this through.
***
After such a tumultuous week, the weekend couldn’t come soon enough. Luckily, Serena was finally starting to get a social life of her own, so she was starting to stop obsessing over mine. I was over the moon when I found out she was at a freakin’ sleepover when Matthew came over. Complication thoroughly averted.
I did what I hadn’t done in too long that weekend to unwind: I sat, on my bed, reading a book, doing fucking nothing else. No other responsibilities, no other thoughts, no other reason to care. Just me and my book against the world.
Reality sadly came knocking, quite literally. I barely registered when there was a knock at the front door, but when my parents yelled up the stiars that they were for me, the first thing I felt was confusion.
If Jordan or Jeremy found my address, I’d be scared. If it was Kathy I’d freak. If it was Matthew I’d understand, but… the texts he sent me since our… productive meeting on Friday were a lot more sleazy and flirty than anything actually concrete. I wanted to be a footsoldier! I wanted orders! The Hazelwood Underground was the most exciting thing I could have imagined happening to our sleepy little high school, and I wanted in!
None of that happened. Of all people, Kevin came to see me. I felt like such a ditz when I saw him – I was happy to see him. It was fucking Kevin, I was supposed to roll my eyes and wonder what the creep wanted like old times. I liked him, but… it was weird. A part of me kind of didn’t want to like him. Still, that part of me wasn’t the dominant part, and the fuckin’ butterflies returned.
“Um, hey,” I said softly. I wanted to sound weirded out, but instead I sounded… vulnerable. Fuck. I tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “What’s up?”
“Hey! Um, I just wanted – I was wondering if you wanted to maybe go on a quick walk. I heard we had a surprise English test on Monday, and I’m pretty sure I know what it’s about, so…”
A test? So close to finals? My expression definitely turned to weirded out, but in response, Kevin only flared his eyes and used them to gesture outside. My expression fell. “Uh, sure, of course, thanks for coming,” I replied diplomatically. I cleared it with my parents then quickly ended up walking on the sidewalk with him, my home fading out of view.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Anywhere,” he replied in a frazzled tone.
Something clicked. “I assume you heard?” I asked.
“I thought you didn’t,” he replied immediately, then looked at me. “You’re taking it well. I thought you’d be terrified. I was worried for you.”
I smiled. Kevin was worried for me? That was thoughtful of him. My smile quickly disappeared when I registered his actual words. “Wait, terrified? Why?”
He paused. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing here.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I stopped walking. “What are you talking about?”
Kevin stopped too, and scratched the back of his neck, looking at his feet. “Okay, so…” he began awkwardly. “What I’m about to say has a lot of implicaitons if you think about it-”
“Just spit it out, Kevin. You’re, like, pre-scaring me,” I told him.
“Arright, okay,” he conceded, then took in a breath. “Um, so, you know how you and Jeremy got that file on Jordan or whatever, and that’s how you got Quinn’s record too?”
I nodded slowly.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what’s up, because Quinn is still in the clear, but… somehow, the report for Jordan went through,” he admitted.
I nodded, more definitively this time. Jeremy. So, he actually went ahead and did it. It’s not like I had any reason to doubt the little guy, but it made sense. “So Jordan got in trouble?”
“Robyn,” Kevin said with a grave tone. He grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “He got suspended. And now he’s angrier than ever and the school might be looking for the other party.”
Suspe-…? I looked at him, searching for any element of “this is a joke” or “well, it’s not that bad” or even “but I have a solution.” And nothing further came out.
“But… that might have been… and he grabbed my… and…” I sputtered. “Kevin, I might be in fucking trouble.”
“I think you might be,” he admitted.
I breathed heavily, staring him in the eyes as he slowly removed his arms from my shoulders. Fear. I was feeling fear. This all could come crashing down. Thank fucking God I just got back into Matthew’s good books, because short of a helping hand straight from the most powerful people in the school, I might have just fucked myself with zero options left. But I had Kevin and Matthew on my side, and maybe even Jeremy too. It was time for Plan Z. It was time to phone in a miracle from the Hazelwood Underground.
Bashful Scribe 