Page 24 of Anti-Player

Chapter Seven

Paige

––––––––

I can't stop shaking.

I can't get out of my chair.

I can't...

I can't believe he did that.

My monitor is still on even if my camera isn't. I'd quick-exited the streaming app so there's nothing but my desktop screensaver to see. The swirling pink lights make my neck tight—I flick the monitor off entirely. Now the flat-black surface becomes a mirror. I see my wide eyes, slack mouth, messy brown hair; I'm hyperventilating. “Oh my god,” I manage to whisper.

Something blue catches my eye; the candy. The tray is fully stocked except for the slot where I'd plucked one out to sample. The hole looks huge to me, gaping and unsettling. The message attached to Mikel's tip—the message for thousands to see—punches through my memory.

Don't fill up on candy or you'll have no room for dinner.

On impulse I snatch the packet, throwing it full force across the room where it smacks the wall, hard blue balls rolling all over with loud rattles.

The worst part is that didn't even help. I'm not a violent person but there's a tension, a boiling fury, growing at rapid speed in my center. How can he do this to me? How did he not realize how inappropriate it was to tip me so much money in plain view?

My phone buzzes, making me flinch. I hold it up so I can see the text from Mikel. I read it once, then shut my phone off entirely. I'm not speaking to him right now. I don't trust myself not to blow my stack. And so what if I do? He deserves my anger. I should let him have it.

Unfortunately, my heart warns me not to. I'm too damn nice, I think grimly. Spinning my chair around on its pivot, I roll my head back to watch the cracked ceiling. I'm not sure how long I do that for, but I keep going, past the point of feeling sick.

“Don't make yourself barf,” I scold myself in the empty apartment. “Also, stop talking to yourself.” Maybe I should get a cat. Lots of single people do that, then they can talk to themselves without seeming completely crazy.

Bracing my feet, I stop the chair, groaning from disorientation. Turning my computer screen back on I see I have messages on Facebook. All of them are from Cookie on her real life Juliet profile. I open them.

:

Juliet: OMG

Juliet: What the fudge was that??

---