Page 58 of Enemies to Prom Dates
“I’m taking you to the nurse. You’re going to say you have really bad cramps and you need to go home.”
She nodded, understanding quickly my intention.
“What about Todd?” she whispered as we walked through the now empty hallways as class was in session.
“What about him?”
“He’s my boyfriend. He’ll help me, right?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question, either. Todd was pretty clueless about most things, and I would have thought a fairly decent guy. Except Sarah was only fourteen and, just looking at her ashen white face, I knew she hadn’t been ready for any of this to happen to her.
Would he still date her? Or had he gotten what he wanted? Leaving Sarah alone with her humiliation and now a tarnished reputation.
“You’ll need to talk to him yourself,” I said. “But Sarah, know this. You don’t have to let this define you, okay? You don’t let anyone tell you who you are.Youmake that choice. You’re in control of what you do from here on out. Not what they say about you. Got it?”
She nodded, but I don’t know if it meant anything to her. I only knew I was on a new crusade. I was going to stop this stupid betting ring, not just for Kit and Lyd and Gigi. But for every freshman girl in this school, now and yet to come.
Now I was in it for the sisterhood.
13
Fitz
“And everyone knew. The whole school knew in an instant,” Beth said even as she buckled her seatbelt.
I don’t know why it was, but she looked good in my car. Like she fit. Like she was always meant to be in the passenger seat.
“I know,” I told her. “Ed and I were in the gym lifting weights when we got the text.”
This was the first time Beth and I had a chance to really discuss what had happened on Monday. Between her work schedule and my football practice schedule we hadn’t been able to see much of each other.
So when I picked her up for the party, her greeting was about how we had to put an end to the betting ring now.
“It was awful,” she said. “You should have seen Sarah’s face.”
I was just as pissed as she was but there was nothing I could do about it. That only pissed me off more, that I had no direction for my anger. Not feeling like I could trust Locke anymore, I was doing everything I could to poke around and ask questions myself.
But everyone knew Gigi was on that list, so everyone knew my thoughts about it. No one was telling me anything because I might have been the one person with enough clout to put an end to it.
And the money was real. Word was Jeff had been paid out over a thousand dollars for his bet.
“The money,” I said.
“What?”
I turned to her. “Maybe that’s the angle we should be following. The money. Who needs it the most?”
“The Havenots,” Beth said instantly. Then she huffed out a laugh. “And me. I’m not behind it in case you were wondering.”
“I didn’t think so. But what if there are more people like you. People we think have money but are really broke and struggling. If you were a sick and depraved person, you might sink to such depths to save for your family. Wouldn’t you?”
She lifted her hands. “I don’t know, Fitz, I’m not a sick and depraved person.”
“We need to be better observers. We need Locke, damn it.”
“I thought we decided we don’t trust him,” she said.
I loved the way she was using the wordwe.
