Whatever. I need to get home anyway.
I was able to get Pre-Calc done at lunch, but I still have some questions from the Novel Study and Government to do tonight.
“Whoa. Is that your locker?” I hear Ten say.
I look down the hallway and spot a pile of belongings spilling out onto the floor. About right where my locker is located.
Ten releases me, and we both jog up to the mess, seeing my locker door hanging open and part of it bent, as if it’s been pried open with a crow bar or something.
What the hell?
I kneel down, my lungs emptying as I sift through my clothes, iPod, and a mountain of papers laying astray from the folders they were neatly organized in previously.
“What the hell happened?” Ten bursts out. “Is anything missing?”
I swing the locker door open wide and survey the remaining contents. The little pink shelves and overhead lamp I’d installed are still in there, as well as my umbrella and fleece jacket I keep in there just in case. I kneel down, surveying the items on the floor and see that all of my books are accounted for as well as the Louboutins and the shirts I hide from my mom.
“I don’t think so,” I say breathlessly, still confused.
Why break into my locker and not take anything?
I look around nervously, noticing no one else’s locker has been vandalized that I can tell.
“I wonder what that means,” Ten says.
“What?” I look up, following his gaze.
He holds my locker door closed, showing me the word written in black Sharpie on the front.
Empty.
I stare at it, confused. What?
My lungs feel heavy, and I search my brain, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Empty? And why just my locker?
I gather up all of my belongings and pack them in my duffel, completely creeped out that someone was doing this while I was at practice. The office is closed now, but I’m definitely reporting this in the morning.
Slipping on my black fleece jacket, I head out to the parking lot with Ten and climb into my car as he hops into his. I immediately lock my doors.
I’ll have to get a new locker tomorrow, too. I can’t carry all this shit with me every day. Even if there’s only a little over a month left of school.
Goddammit. Who would root around in my stuff? Not everyone likes me—in fact, Ten is the only person who probably doesn’t have a motive to piss me off—but no one in particular sticks out. And what if it happens again?
I quickly drive home and pull into my driveway, parking in the garage and seeing no other cars home yet. My sister is probably still in class, and my mother’s car is parked at the airport, waiting for her when she gets back tomorrow morning.
I stare down at my phone screen, sending a quick reply to her text that she sent earlier.
I’ll be home late tomorrow. Cheer…swim…, I type.
K. Dinner will be waiting, she replies. Don’t forget to pack extra food tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah. I stuff my phone in my duffel. A couple nights a week, I stay late at school for cheer practice and then to teach swim lessons for a couple of hours afterward. I have a small break in between to eat something, since I won’t be home for dinner, and to get some homework done.
Closing the garage door, I gather my bags and enter the kitchen through the door off the carport, grabbing a water bottle out of the fridge before dashing up the stairs.
I’ll feel better after a shower.
With what happened to my locker and the episode in the cafeteria today, it’s been a long time since I’ve had that feeling. People don’t laugh at me, and guys like him don’t put me in my place. I’m not going to let him in my head like I let them in all those years ago. I’m stronger now.
I swing my bedroom door open and walk in, my bags falling from my hands.
What the fuck?!
“What the hell are you doing?” I shout.
Masen, the new guy, sits in my desk chair, leaning back with his hands locked behind his head. I hear music and glance over at my iPod dock, seeing that he’s playing Garbage’s “Stupid Girl.”
He smirks and stares at me, relaxing as if he hasn’t broken into my house and planted his ass somewhere it doesn’t belong.
“Hello?” I bark. “What are you doing in my room, asshole?”
Exhaling a slow breath, he jerks his chin at me. “I went to, what I assume is, your sister’s room first. That seems more you. Hot pink princess bullshit with the zebra print bedding.”
I quickly close my door, not wanting my sister to get home and see him in here. “How did you get in?”
But he ignores me and keeps going. “However, I don’t think it was your name in purple neon lights above the bed.” He starts laughing, probably at my sister’s stupid narcissistic decorating, and stands up. “Ryen, right?” he asks, looking around my room. “I must say, this is not at all what I expected.”
I’m a lot of what you’re not expecting, dickhead. “Get out.”
“Make me.”
I fist my hands. “How did you get in?”
“Through the front door.” He steps toward me. “So where is it?”
I pinch my eyebrows together, confused. “Where’s what?”
“My shit.” His teeth are bared, his smile gone.
His shit? What’s he talking about?
“Get out!” I yell. “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You seem nervous.”
“You think?!” I retort. “I don’t like strange guys in my house, and I really don’t like anyone in my room.”
“Don’t care,” he replies, looking bored. “You took something of mine. Two things of mine, actually, and I want them back.”
“No, I didn’t. Now get out!”
He reaches behind himself and pulls something out of the back of his jeans, holding it up. My face falls, and a knot tightens in my stomach.
Shit. My notebook.
A large, white leather-bound diary of rants and pity parties I’ve thrown for myself over the past three years, and something I don’t want anyone to see. Ever. Every bad thought or feeling I’ve ever had about myself, my family, and my friends, that I couldn’t voice out loud, is in that book.
How did he find it?
“Under the mattress isn’t exactly a novel idea, you know?” he says. “And yes, I read that part. And the other one. And the other one.”
My heart pounds in my ears, and a scream creeps its way up my throat.
I lunge for him.
I grab hold of the book, but he shoves me back, and I stumble onto the bed, his body coming down on mine.
I grunt and cry out, trying to get the book.
He reaches for something, and then my scissors from my desk is pointing at my face. I freeze, staring at the tip.
“Don’t worry,” he taunts in a dark voice. “I won’t make sure this falls into your mom’s hands. I’m going to rip out every fucking page and plaster them all over school, so listen loud and clear, you stupid cunt. I’m done talking to you, and I’m done looking at you. I want the locket, and I want the piece of paper you took at the Cove.”
“The Cove?” I gasp under the weight of his body. “Wha—“
What the hell is he talking about?
And then I pause as it hits me. The Cove. Last night. The piece of paper.
I want a lick while you still taste like you.
And then today… You taste like shit.
I stare at him, dumb-founded. “Oh, my God.”
That was his room?
I was right. There was someone there in the tunnel. He saw us.
And then I widen my eyes. He was the one who broke into my locker! That’s why nothing was missing. He didn’t find what he was looking for.
He darts to my side and snaps the scissors, and I wince as he brings the scissors back up, a few of my light brown hairs floating in the air.
“Stop!” I yell. “I don’t…I…”
His dark green eyes narrow on me, threatening and cutting right through me.
I growl, grappling for my pillow and reaching inside, pulling out a folded, worn piece of paper.
I shove it at his chest.
He takes the paper. “Now the necklace.”
“I didn’t take a necklace!” I shout. “Just the paper.”
He snaps the scissors at my hair again, and I scream. “Dammit! I told you! I didn’t take it! It—”
Ten. Ten was with me. He took it.