Page 35 of The Rebel
“You weren’t even there,” I snarled.
“I think you’ve got serious problems,” Scott said in a calm, condescending way, much like how my mother spoke when she was telling me off. “No wonder your parents haveabandonedyou for a month.”
For a moment everything went still and silent, all the air knocked from my lungs. I don’t know what appalled me more—the fact that I’d once had a crush on Scott, or that Gabby had blabbed about how I’d felt abandoned by my parents.
Gabby had straightened, her chin showing the slightest—and I mean barely existent—tinge of rosiness where it was possible my shouldermayhave accidentally collided with her. Or it may have been caused by her own hand pressing on it.
And I waited...for her defense of me. For her to say that I was not that unstable, volatile person Scott accused me of being. That my parents hadn’t abandoned me because I was an awful daughter. But Scott steered Gabby’s head against his chest and gently rubbed her damp cheeks andkissedthat spot on her chin!
I now knew where her loyalties lay—and though we had years of history, it wasn’t with me.
I stormed down the path, pushing through the main doors with force, my heart beating so rapidly that I feared it was about to smash through my ribcage. I headed straight for the bathroom, needing time to compose myself, a minute to breathe and focus, because my head was spinning out of control.
Our friendship couldn’t just terminate in an instant. Not from an accidental bump and a few cross words. Gabby and I were besties and had been for years. Scott might be jealous of that. He might have said all those things about me to make me look bad in front of Gabby, so he could spend more time with her.
And yet Gabby hadn’t defended me.
The bell rang, causing me to gather up my backpack. There was no time to fix this now, but at lunch, we’d reconcile. We’d both apologize and laugh and say it was a moment of madness and we’d be okay, back to normal.
But Gabby and Scott never turned up to the cafeteria and she never replied to the text I’d sent:Are we good?
Kelsey said Gabby had a drama meeting, but she’d never told me about it. The talk at the table was subdued, and I imagined a whole conspiracy about how I’d assaulted Gabby with my violent outburst. After eating a sandwich, I told everyone I had to do some library research.
“Are you coming to the cafe after school?” Jazmyn asked.
“No, I can’t. I have to report to Miss Creighton to help in the art room,” I said.
Jazmyn and Kelsey smiled sympathetically, but what upset me most was that Gabby seemed to be avoiding me. If we ever had a fight, it was a flash in the pan; we never stayed mad at each other.
As I pushed through the cafeteria door, I smashed right into a bunch of seniors.
“Hey, watch it,” one of the girls sneered.
I mumbled an apology, head down, walking away as fast as I could.
“Hey?” I heard Jade’s voice but didn’t stop, if anything, I increased my speed. He was the last person I wanted to speak to.
I hid out in the bathroom—becoming my favorite place of retreat—retouched my makeup and huddled around a sophomore’s phone watching a bunch of videos as I waited for the next period to start. It was Art History and I was keen to have Mrs. Bullock back. But as I came to the classroom door, standing there in her outdated navy pumps was Mrs. Fox, nose tilted in the air.
Moving faster than a mob at a Black Friday sale, I joined a crowd of kids heading down the hallway. There was no way—not in a million years—that I was going to sit through a whole period with that battleaxe again—she’d already ruined my life once! I kept walking, having no idea where I should go. I had never skipped a class before, but I knew I had several options. I could go to Mrs. Wainwright and feign illness or perhaps camp out in the library. Chances are no one would ask for a pass. Or I could risk going to Study Hall again. There had been so many kids in there that it was possible the teacher wouldn’t query me.
Or there was Plan D. And that was completely ditch the class and ‘vanish.’
The hallways emptied and time was running out. Common sense told me to run back the other way, go to my Art History class, sit down the back and suck it up. Probably Mrs. Fox’s memory was so bad, she wouldn’t remember me.
“Quickly,” I heard a male teacher’s voice say, his hands clapping as a few kids scurried past me into Study Hall. The decision was made and I attached myself to them and filed through the door. It was a different teacher at the desk and I wandered around the room, finding a secluded spot in the corner. I pulled out my sketching pad, staring at the shelf in front of me before flicking through the pages.
I had some sketches of Paris that I’d done in Florida while watching his training. It was actually a thing that artists got commissioned at tennis matches, in particular Wimbledon, to draw the players in action. They sat courtside and captured players and the crowd in the moment, similar to what I’d been doing at Paris’s matches. Ha, that was an idea—I should have insisted on going on tour to be Paris’s personal artist. The sketches were fairly raw and I pulled out my pencils to polish them up.
With my head down, I was on high alert for what was happening around me and had an excuse ready in case the teacher pounced on me and demanded to see my schedule. I’d say that I was told to come to Study Hall while my new schedule was being sorted.
But as the minutes ticked away and nobody queried my presence, I became engrossed in my art. Before I knew it, the bell was ringing, and I studied my work with a critical eye. I didn’t like the way I’d drawn the fingers on the racket handle.
“Hey, nice,” a girl said behind me. “Is that Paris?”
I turned sharply to see a familiar face, a senior who had been in the parking lot with Jade. But I didn’t know her name.
I nodded, about to close up my book.
