People are always breaking the school’s uniform requirements. They’ll go around in beanies and whatever shoes they want, but while they are expressing themselves, I’m going against regulation because the blazer for the uniform is too damn expensive. I can’t find a used one. I gave up sophomore year and have worn only the white shirt and the skirt ever since. The administrative board thinks the uniforms blur the lines of class differences between the student body, but all it does is set us apart even more in my mind.
With the next shrill of the whistle, another group of girls sprint from their starting position. I lick my lips and release a sigh.
My phone lights up beside me in the grass with a text from Gemma. It’s a used iPhone I bought from a guy with a shopping cart full of devices on the shadier side of Ridgeview’s downtown. The phone isn’t the latest and greatest model, like the spoiled rich kids who get a new phone every time an upgrade releases. This one is at least four generations old. It works, despite the spiderweb of cracks in the screen. Mom and I can barely afford the cheap monthly plan, but it’s for emergencies since we don’t have a landline.
The text is a selfie of Gemma on her college campus with her boyfriend, Lucas, partially visible. She looks so happy compared to this time last year, when we first met. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. The phone buzzes with another message.
Gemma: Just found this new location and omg I’m dying to do a shoot there with you. I want to show you so much here. Come visit me soon!
A visit with Gemma sounds incredible.
But it’s also impossible. Money, my mom, money, my junk box car, money. There’s too much keeping me from living the life a normal teen would.
A pang hits me in the chest. I miss Gemma. Before she befriended me last year as the badass new girl, I was a nobody in this school. Other than crossing paths with Devlin, I kept my head down and focused as much as I could on my studies while the vultures at this school called me names and taunted me for being poor. Gemma made so much of that go away.
Her boyfriend—the previous king of the school—wasn’t even so bad once Gemma got his head screwed on straight.
Why did Gemma have to be a grade ahead of me?
The heaviness of being left behind weighs down on my shoulders. I dig my fingers into the grass.
“Keep it up, ladies,” the track coach calls, her encouragement floating my way.
I pretend that she’s still offering me a boost.
A light breeze shifts my skirt, the evergreen and white plaid material riding up my legs. The blades of grass tickle the back of my knees.
I want to run. Maybe I should change into my gym clothes and jog the track around the football field.
“That’s it, girls! Go, go!”
Even though I was kicked off the track team last year, at the end of the cross country season, I still come to watch them. It was a shock when the coach told me she had no choice but to take me off the team. The rules were clear, she’d explained, and I had too many demerits on my school record.
Ridiculous.
My teeth scrape across my lip as I dig harder into the grass, tearing at it. I release my fist and watch the blades flutter to the ground.
I know exactly who to thank for getting thrown off the team.
Devlin.
Evil fucking bastard.
He retaliated against me picking his friend’s pocket last year by fabricating more detentions on my school file. With a best friend who is the son of our principal and his elective as an office aid, it was probably easy for him. And because I don’t have a rich family to donate to the school, no one noticed anything amiss with my file.
When it all went down with my coach at one of our last practices of the season, Devlin made sure he was close by to watch the showdown, of course. He smirked as he wiped his mouth with the neck of his soccer jersey. When the burn of his smug stare became too much to ignore, I swung my gaze to him. Told you, he mouthed.
Because he’d warned me not to try him.
I muffle an irritated sound in my throat and slam my fist on the ground.
The cruel king can take away my spot on the team, but he can’t take running from me. I still run anyway.
“Nice, Katrina!” My old coach praises a girl as she reaches the group.
Sitting up, I tuck my legs into a pretzel, leaning my elbows on my knees as I hunch over.
I don’t think many of the team liked me, but running with those girls filled a gaping hole in my chest, just a little so the loneliness didn’t bend in on itself like an aching empty stomach wracked with hunger pangs. The team was sort of like a family. It’s not the running I miss, but running with other people who have my back.
Another text interrupts my moping. It must be Gemma, since I didn’t respond.
It’s from a number I don’t have in my phone. My brows pinch together. What the hell?
Unknown: Do the first english essay for me. $250.
Realization dawns on me. My entire body goes hot and cold with emotion all at once. It’s from Devlin.
“Motherfu—” I cut my annoyed curse off and tap my fingers against the side of the phone. “How did you get my number, you tricky devil?”
I wrack my brain, trying to think of the few people who have my number and where my cell is listed. There’s no way he weaseled it out of Gemma.
Knowing him, he probably invaded my privacy and nabbed it off the emergency contact form in my student file. Or he had his best friend, Connor Bishop, do the digging. I’ve heard that guy knows everything about everyone at school, trading secrets for favors and payment.
A huff of disbelief escapes me.
I should’ve known Devlin would be the kind of morally gray prick at ease with pilfering personal files for his own gain.
The question is, can I trust he’ll keep his word if I do this?
Eight
Devlin
Blair doesn’t answer my text right away. I hover at the edge of the soccer field with my water bottle in one hand and my phone in the other. Behind me, Bishop’s shouts to the guys become background noise as my attention zeroes in on Blair.
My head jerks with a snort.
Does she think she’s being subtle, sitting near the girls track team? She’s pathetic.
Her head is bent over, her hair creating a curtain of black as it falls around her face.
My eyes flick down to the screen, anticipating three dots popping up any second with her response.
After I bribed Bishop with a little mischief and the number of a Coyote Girl he wanted to steal from the football player she was dating, he gave me the password to unlock the current student files stored on the computer system. This morning during my office aid elective period, I found her cell number on a form for a field trip in sophomore year. With a smirk, I programmed her into my phone as Little Thief.
“Dev, quit slacking off,” one of my teammates calls.
I lift a brow in his direction and slowly bring my water bottle to my mouth, taking a long gulp.
He flips me off.
The phone buzzes, but it’s a message from my aunt letting me know dinner is at seven tonight.
What is taking so long? I squint at my phone and bounce my gaze between the screen and Blair. The task I set is hardly difficult. After the shit she pulled with my car, I could’ve plunged her into the deep end and paid her to run around school in her underwear. She should be thanking me.