“What do you want?” Spit flies out of my mouth. I’m losing it. I’m losing her. The air begins to pulse, and the world is a living thing, swaying and swinging, trying to trip me.
“Lose the game, bro. I told her the only way she is getting this bitch back without any repercussions is if your ass lets us win. Everyone knows you’ve been approached by all the big ones. Just take a step aside and let others have a piece of the pie.”
“I still have my teammates. They’re the ones who deserve the pie,” I grit out.
Not everyone has been contacted yet with potential scholarship offers. Kannon hasn’t. Camilo has scouts eyeing him but has yet to receive a concrete offer. Neither has Nelson. By throwing the game, I’m throwing their futures, too.
Not to mention Coach Higgins.
Not to mention my goddamn morals.
“They don’t have your back, so I don’t see why you should have theirs.” Gus pushes my chest, and I realize I’ve released my hold on him without even meaning to. The red marks on his neck are going to be purple tomorrow morning.
“Don’t talk to me in riddles. If you have something to say—say it.”
He picks up the clipboard and slaps the plastic above him three times. I hear people standing up and circling the bleachers, and less than a minute later, I am standing in front of his entire football squad, sans Knight Cole. His posse is here, arms folded, chests puffed, ready to bring Gus’s point home.
“Throw the game.” Gus jerks his chin up. “Save your princess. She’d do the same for you.”
I stare at him through a mist of rage that’s blinding me.
I get in his face, sneering, too.
“Mark my words, Bauer. I’m going to fuck you over so hard and raw, no college will want to touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
Via stole Daria’s diary.
Via is still banging Gus.
Via also most likely told him where I live.
On my way back home, as I was struggling to pull my shit together so as not to get into a fatal car accident while the adrenaline coursed through my bloodstream, I figured out why Gus hasn’t thrown my sister into his mix of blackmail even though she handed him the ammo against me on a silver platter.
Gus protects Via.
Via protects Gus.
Nobody protects Daria.
I storm into the Followhills’ living room without so much as registering their faces. The only thing I see is my sister’s head peeking up from her homework on the kitchen island. I bunch the fabric of the back of her dress and hurl her outside to the backyard. Bailey lifts her head up from her homework and starts protesting before seeing the look on my face.
“Penn, what are you…?”
“Shut up.”
Surprisingly, it does shut her up. Maybe the look on my face is warning enough that I’m not above locking her in the utility room if she doesn’t cooperate.
“Oh my God! You’ve lost your mind! What are you doing? Let me go!” Via alternates between yelling and begging. “Penn! Wait! I can explain!”
“You can, but I’m done listening to your shit,” I say tonelessly.
My twin is still cawing like a raven when I use the back of her collar to toss her into the deep end of the pool. I watch as she stumbles on the edge, sinks like a brick, then rises to the surface. She shakes off the water and hair plastered to her face. I stand on the edge, watching her. Waiting to feel something more than disdain and discovering I feel nothing at all.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She punches the water, shrieking.
I throw my head back and laugh. “Dropping the F-bomb now, are we? Took you long enough to take off that cheap-ass mask of yours, Sylvia, but now that you have, I’ll give you one thing. I can see your real face now, and it’s pretty ugly.”
She wipes her face and starts swimming toward the stairs. “So I’m Sylvia now, huh?”
“Feel lucky that you are anything at all. I told you not to touch her. We had a deal. A blood oath.”
The day I told Daria to go look for dick elsewhere, I walked into Vaughn’s pool house thinking I was doing her a favor by temporarily breaking her heart. Smug fucker that I was, it never occurred to me that I’d be breaking mine, too.
I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I don’t even think about getting my dick wet, let alone allow the harem of cheerleaders and groupies to do the honor. I can’t breathe without thinking about the girl across the hall. I function solely for the purpose of proving to myself that I still can, and I can’t even look my sister in the eye without wanting to make it black around the edges.
Via climbs out of the pool looking like Samara Morgan from The Ring at the same time Jaime slides the glass door open, popping his head out.
“What the hell is going on?” His voice is an impatient growl.
“Nothing.” I wave a flippant hand. “We need to sort some shit out is all.”
Jaime glances at my sister with frost that wasn’t there before. Mel might have the patience of a thousand nuns, but Jaime knows what’s up, and he is Team Daria all the way.
Via nods at the same time she shivers her way to a lounger. “Thank you, Mr. Followhill. I’m okay.”
Jaime closes the door behind him. I walk toward her, casting a shadow over her figure, and kick her shin lightly.
“Answer me.”
“She ruined everything,” she huffs, her lips twisting in abhorrence. If she thinks she is getting off the hook by crying, she is gravely fucking mistaken, and officially doesn’t know the tin man she created the minute she left. “I hate her so much. And I swear I didn’t know about Gus asking you to lose the game. You have to believe me, Penn. I just wanted to get back at her for throwing my letter out.”
“I threw the letter out,” I yell in her face, stubbing a finger on my chest where the hole is. A hole that had been shrinking for weeks, but has now become bigger than ever since Via came back. I ripped my shirts the day I broke things off with Daria, cutting the holes so big, you can now see half my chest. “I’m to blame just as much as she is.”
“I hated you, too.” She darts up, pushing me and taking a step forward. “Is that what you want to hear? Because it’s the truth. Even before I knew you ruined my letter, I hated you. I hated you for looking at her with starry eyes every time you waited on the corner to pick me up after ballet class. I saw you falling in love with her before you even realized what your stupid ass was doing. And she was the enemy. You fell for my downfall.”
Clamping my mouth shut, I rub the back of my neck. All this time, I thought Daria was a bitch for doing what she did to Via. I never stopped to consider that my sister gave her a run for her money even back then. Via always covered for her shortcomings by being mean. These two were awful to each other, and Daria just happened to stumble upon something big she could ruin for Via.
If Via had found an identical letter, she would have destroyed it, too.
“I’m done with you.” I turn around, walking away. I hear her wild footsteps gaining on me. She’s tugging at my sleeve, falling to her knees in front of me, and I’m forced to stop.
“Penn, please.”
“You’re with him,” I say, not ask. She doesn’t deny it. Just keeps on saying please, please, please. I’m not even sure what she is asking for, but if it’s my forgiveness, she is officially high.