Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
I watch as Zoey pulls her shoulders back and lifts her chin before letting out a heavy breath, her cheeks blowing out, a sign that she’s nervous. Then before she gets a chance to change her mind, she strides across the cafeteria to her usual table.
I’m too far away to hear what she’s saying, but I keep watching anyway, trying to make out what little bits I can. Zoey must ask Tarni to talk, and I grit my teeth as Tarni scoffs and looks away from her, as though she’s somehow beneath her, but anyone with half a brain can see that Zoey has always been a million miles above anything Tarni could ever be. Zoey is a goddess, and Tarni . . . She’s the vermin who tears people apart, who smiles at your face and then plots against you, and that’s exactly what she’s done to Zoey since we were kids, time and time again. When her wicked scheming would break Zoey, she would fall apart in my arms, and I would put her back together every damn time.
Zoey inches forward, her gaze shifting to the other two girls at the table, girls whose names I haven’t bothered to learn, and as she seeks their attention, they both look away.
Despite the distance, I can still hear Zoey’s sharp demand. “Are you guys serious right now?” she says, her back as stiff as a rod as she takes a retreating step as if preparing to run.
Tarni lifts up her water bottle and takes a long sip, acting as though Zoey isn’t standing right in front of her. Knowing Zoey, she probably went into this prepared to grovel and apologize, but my girl is stubborn to the bone. There’ll be no apology now.
Slowly, Tarni turns her putrid gaze on Zoey, and I watch as she flinches, my whole body vibrating with rage. “You’re making a fucking scene,” she says too loudly, gaining the attention of the room, all eyes falling on Zoey.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zoey seethes, her voice now flowing effortlessly through the room as everyone shuts up to hear what’s going on.
“Shannan was right,” Tarni says, getting up from the table, clutching her drink bottle a little too hard as though it could help center her anger. “You are trash. Hell, I don’t know how I haven’t seen it, but now that I do, it’s glaring right at me. It’s always been poor sad Zoey, be nice to Zoey, she had such a hard life, but I’m done. You’re pathetic.”
“I’m pathetic?” Zoey fires back at her. “Look at yourself, Tarni. I came over here to try and make things right, but you would rather put on a performance. Wasn’t the performance you put on for everyone on Friday night humiliating enough?”
The eager spectators laugh, and while I want nothing more than to applaud Zoey, the embarrassment only fires Tarni up. “You want to talk performances?” she spits. “You’re a fucking man-stealing whore. All I wanted was one thing—one fucking thing, Zoey—but nooooooo, poor fucking Zoey couldn’t handle not being her precious Noah’s one and only. You just had to take what wasn’t yours. Newsflash, whore. He’s not into you. Anyone with two fucking eyes can see that.”
Oh fuck no.
“I’m the whore?” Zoey demands. “You’ve spread your legs for nearly every guy in the school. Oh, wait, not Liam, though. But that didn’t stop you from trying on Friday night, did it? Tell me, what were you offering to suck?”
“What?” One of Tarni’s little bitch friends demands, her eyes going wide as she gapes at Tarni. “Tell me she’s lying. You didn’t. You wouldn’t do that to me. You know how I feel about him.”
Tarni gapes at her friend, looking at her like a deer in headlights, but the moment quickly passes, and she turns her anger back on Zoey. In a flash, she tosses the contents of her water bottle right at my girl, drenching her from head to toe. “You’re such a fucking liar,” Tarni seethes as Zoey’s gasp tears straight through to my soul. “As if I would go anywhere near that STD-riddled asshole.”
I spring from my chair as the laughter of the cafeteria rumbles through the room like an endless loop of torment, every last bit of it aimed at Zoey. And as if that’s not bad enough, the chants start, this time with Tarni leading the pack.
“Trash. Trash. Trash.”
Zoey wipes the water off her face, focusing her stare on Tarni as people crowd around her, chanting and tormenting her. “Call me what you want,” she says. “But I’ve been in love with the same guy since I was six years old. It’s only ever been him for me. I’ve never even dreamed of touching another guy, and if that makes me a whore, then so be it. But at least I can hold my head up high and say that I have respect for myself. I bet you can’t do that.”