“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Regan replied curtly. She speared a carrot on her tray and shoved it in her mouth.
“Sooo,” Casey interjected. She shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to her best friend. “Did you guys see the new Brad Pitt movie?”
Brandon ignored her. “Wanna try again?” he asked Regan.
“What do you mean?” she replied between crunches.
“I don’t know, Regan. You put sparkles on your face, and suddenly you have an attitude with me all the time. I don’t get it.”
Regan delicately touched the side of her left eye that sported a few pink and purple jewels. Body jewelry. Eye art. Something she always loved but never wore because she knew Brandon would have something to say about it.
“You look ridiculous,” Brandon muttered, tearing open a small package of Saltines.
“I like them,” she replied, sitting up straight. The words were the perfect mixture of girl power and petulance.
“I know you do. I just don’t understand why. And I don’t understand why you’re wearing all these silly outfits lately. What are you trying to prove? What are you trying to tell me?”
“They’re not silly,” Regan replied coolly.
“You look like something out of a Japanese anime cartoon.”
“So I saw the movie,” Casey said loudly. “And he was totally hot. Old, but whatever. Guys have a way of aging gracefully, don’t you think?”
“I am not a cartoon,” Regan spat. “I’m a person.”
“You look like you’re five years old, and your mom let you dress yourself for school,” Brandon shot back.
“Brandon . . .” Casey whispered. Even she knew he went too far.
Regan drew in her breath. “I like the way I dress. I like it so much better than how I used to dress when you basically told me what to wear. And I don’t plan on changing how I dress, so you can either deal with it or kiss my ass.”
Brandon’s mouth dropped open. And then his lips curled into a grin.
“I’d love to kiss your ass, Regan. I was hoping for an invitation, but lately you haven’t given me one.”
“O. M. G,” Casey whispered.
Ethan snickered beside her, and she smacked his leg under the table.
“Do people need to know our business?” Regan cried.
She wished she’d said nothing. She knew Brandon’s motivation—to embarrass her in front of their friends. Well, no, his friends. And he didn’t just want her to feel embarrassed but to voice it, too. He got exactly that.
She realized as she stared at him that they’d been playing their own version of a color war since the beginning of the school year. The louder and more colorful her outfits became, the more his true colors showed through. And his weren’t like hers—bright and cheery. His were dark and dangerous.
“Oh, like you don’t share everything we do with Casey anyway,” Brandon said dismissively.
“So not the point!” Regan replied.
Brandon propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.
“What do you want from me, Regan?” he whined.
“I want you to stop being a jerk!”
“How am I being a jerk?” His face remained hidden behind long, slender hands. Desk job hands, she thought a long time ago. He was no working man.
And then her courage showed up. Just like that.
“I heard the way you talked to Hannah this morning,” she said.
Brandon raised his face slowly, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Huh?”
“In the stairwell,” Regan explained. “This morning. I heard the things you said to her. Don’t try to deny it.”
Brandon thought a moment. “I didn’t see you there.”
Regan shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I was there.”
“What, like hiding under the stairs or something?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s weird.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that I heard all those awful things you said. Don’t deny it!”
“Okay, I won’t.”
She wasn’t exactly prepared for that. It took her a moment to compose herself—to figure out how to proceed with the interrogation when she realized he wasn’t flustered. At all. But he should already be sweating under the light, shouldn’t he?
“Why?” she asked.
“Because that girl has been bullying my brother for years, and it was time she got a taste of her own medicine,” Brandon replied.
Regan furrowed her brows. “Huh?”
That made absolutely no sense. She’d never once seen Hannah even look at Jarrod.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m that same jackass from middle school. That I haven’t changed at all. You know, Regan, it really hurts my feelings that after three years of dating, you have no idea who I am. Have you not seen the changes? Do you not know me? Have I not shown you exactly the type of stand-up guy I am? Apparently not. Apparently you think I’m an asshole for sticking up for my little brother. Well, that’s fine then. I’ll just have to keep on being an asshole because no one’s gonna intimidate and humiliate my family. No one.”
Brandon climbed out of his seat even as his friends urged him to stay.
“Nah, man, I’m outta here,” he mumbled to Ethan, who shot Regan a nasty look.
They watched Brandon toss his lunch tray on the top of a trashcan at the cafeteria exit and disappear through the door.
“Nice,” Ethan said.
“Ethan, stop,” Casey replied.
“What is your problem?” Ethan directed the question to Regan.
“I . . . I know what I heard,” she faltered.
“Yeah. You heard a guy defending his brother. What the hell’s wrong with you?” Ethan demanded.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Regan snapped.
“Get all the information first before you start passing judgment,” Ethan said.
He, too, left the table in a huff, and Regan was left alone with Casey and Brandon’s other friends—the ones she never talked to. They stared at her for a moment before resuming their conversations.
“Are you okay?” Casey asked.
“I know what I heard,” Regan repeated.
“I don’t doubt it,” Casey replied. “But maybe there was a reason. You know, like he said.”
“He was awful, Casey,” Regan said. “I mean, he asked her if she was a girl or a guy.”
Casey stifled a giggle.