Page 71 of My Rules for Revenge
I began to fear that I wasn’t going to be able to make the long walk back home. After a few more steps, I turned around. I had to get a ride from Manny. There was no way I was going to make it home. I wasn’t thinking straight.
Soon after, I saw an SUV with blinding headlights speeding towards me, honking loudly.Is that Manny? How did he find me? I thought.It wasn’t. It kept roaring towards me, and I thought it was about to flatten me like a pancake. I prepared to launch myself out of the way, but the SUV soon screeched to a halt a few feet in front of me, blocking me off.
Behind the two bright headlights, two clearly muscular giant figures with long blonde hair emerged from the vehicle. When I saw that the veins on their arms popped out from underneath their skin, I audibly gulped and then tried to run, but my legs buckled, and without saying a single word, they clutched onto my arms and legs and lifted me up while I struggled to go free.
I was still pretty drunk and had minimal control of my body. I began to feel very woozy, like I was in a heavenly dream or like I was on a shroom trip. I was being taken through the darkness of a nearby forest. I only knew this because I saw the giant silhouettes of trees, and I heard the fierce crunch of grass beneath my captors’ feet.This is it. This is where it ends, I thought.
Several minutes later, my head was submerged underwater. I began to drown as my air bubbles shot to the surface. I was there for a good while until my head was finally pulled out. I violently coughed out water from my lungs as I desperately gasped for oxygen. A firm hand tightly grabbed onto my hair, and I only figured out who my attackers were when they spoke, because it was too dark to see.
“Jacob Boruta. I know it was you who said all those horrible things about me on social media,” Angelica said.
“You can’t expect to say things like that and not get punished. We saw what happened to you at the party. We thought you deserved more punishment,” Erica added.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please don’t kill me,” I said while I sputtered water out.
They both laughed.
“We’re not going to kill you, idiot,” Angelica pointed out.
“Yeah, we’re not murderers. What the hell do you think this is?” Erica asked.
Angelica plunged my head back into the water for several more seconds. By now, I felt lifeless, as there wasn’t much I could do against two massive titans, hell-bent on revenge.
Fortunately for me, she pulled me out and shoved me to the ground. I continued to cough profusely as I tried to breathe.
“That was for us, for Heather, Vivian, Luna, and all the other women you’ve messed with,” Angelica said as she pressed her knee into my throat, choking me.
“Do something like that again. We dare you,” Erica remarked.
“If you say anything to anyone, we’ll find you again, and it’ll be ten times worse,” Angelica threatened.
They stomped away while I closed my eyes shut. I thought I was gonna die as I desperately coughed and wheezed for air. I lay there for a couple of hours massaging my throat before Manny called me. He managed to find me and helped me walk to his car along with Carlos.
Despite the type of person I was, I was very lucky to have loyal friends. If it weren’t for them, I might’ve been seriously screwed. I thought I was about to be drowned in that isolated area at the hands of those two blonde, violent behemoths.
As Manny drove me home, he and Carlos barraged me with questions. I tried to answer them as best as I could, but I was completely out of it. I told myself over and over again that this was my wake-up call and I needed to pay attention.
I knew the feud between Heather and me needed to come to an end.
CHAPTER 16
INDIRA - 1 YEAR EARLIER
Ialways wished my father weren’t such a bad guy. I wish he were a simple man with simple needs. A dad who went home after work to eat dinner with his family and relaxed afterwards by watching TV. Butnooo! He had to be a total asswipe of a parent.
One night, when he hadn’t arrived home yet, I found out what he was doing. He’d left his laptop on top of his desk in his bedroom. Usually, it was never there, but he had made a grave mistake—he had gotten careless. He never thought I would dare go through his things, but I didn’t care what he thought anymore.
The laptop was open and unlocked, and I took the opportunity to investigate what my mother suspected. It was a modern laptop, so it had the same text messages he had on hissmartphone, and I doubt he even knew this was a thing. Old people were clueless when it came to that stuff.
A lot of companies that offer online accounts as well as social media apps require emails and phone numbers to link their users to their accounts and profiles. It was getting a lot harder to hide the things you didn’t want other people to see—the bad little secrets you wanted deeply buried.
After a brief search, my heart sank. It didn’t take long to find the other woman he was seeing. Her name was Linda Newman. He didn’t try to hide it. I only had to read a few sexually explicit messages before I slammed the laptop shut in complete disgust. I rushed to the bathroom, and my stomach erupted. I tasted straight hell as I violently vomited into the toilet. When I was finished, I sat down on the floor and wept.
It turned out that Principal Newman wasn’t the only one cheating on his wife. It ran in the family. I wanted to smash his laptop into a thousand pieces right then and there, but I restrained myself. I thought about what to do. If I confronted my father about it, he would deny it and grow furious. He would use his anger as a reason to blow me off, and he would argue as to why I was going through his stuff. I had him down to a science. I still needed to do something, though.
I snapped pictures with my phone of all the revolting and graphic texts he’d sent. Then, I met my mother in the living room and sat her down. I told her that she was right and showed her the texts he sent to Linda Newman. She began to sob uncontrollably. I consoled her as best I could.
That was one of the worst things that ever happened to us. I remembered my stomach badly hurting and my chest feeling tight that entire week. My heart felt like it was being strangled. The man who was supposed to nurture, love, and protect us had committed the ultimate betrayal.
