Better Than Revenge (Sweet Secrets #1) Read online

  He sat next to me in three of my core classes and it bugged me how he was always first to finish his work and how he would offer me help once he was finished as if I looked that incompetent as to need his assistance. It annoyed me how he would push his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose and peer at my work with a slightly disappointed look on his face. I mean, had he ever heard of privacy? The only thing that I actually liked about sitting next to him all year was the fact that he always aced his tests and he never seemed to mind when he caught me glancing at his work in need of answers.

  It was during the summer before ninth grade that I had actually begun to like Blake. I saw him one day while I had been walking to the park with the only family member of mine that really understands me, Lilly. She had been two at the time and being the great big sister that I am, I decided to take her to the park to play.

  On our way there we ran into Blake while he was walking his dog. Blake invited himself to walk to the park with us and after an hour of the two of us playing with Lilly we decided to exchange cell phone numbers. In his case it was a house number because he didn’t have a cell phone at the time. After that, we talked on the phone a few times a week and hung out whenever we were free. He became one of my closest friends, and after spending so much time together over the years he finally asked me out in the beginning of our sophomore year. I had been a little stand-offish at the time because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, but I had agreed to go out with him. I loved spending time with Blake and soon we became inseparable. Dating only made us closer.

  To my surprise, Blake had begun to grow into his looks, and by sophomore year he was labeled as one of the “hottest” guys at school. Puberty hit him hard. He changed his hair, got rid of his glasses, and thickened out a bit. He was, and still is, a nerd though; my nerd.

  I hate to say it, but I get jealous a lot due to all of the attention he gets from the girls at school. Mainly from my neighbor Brianna and her band of Barbie’s. Yes, I know that they are all prettier than I am, but I am in turn much smarter than all of them put together. Not to mention that if you sewed all of their clothes together to make a dress, it still wouldn’t come past the knees that they spent so much time on. I usually preferred to ignore them but there are times when I slip up and call them a name. It’s in my nature.

  Blake’s fingers slipped into mine bringing me out of my little reverie. The corners of his lips tugged up into a smile and I couldn’t help but return it. The way his smiles spread to every part of his face and caused his eyes to sparkle made my heart race and my breathing quicken. I leaned forward slightly and pressed my lips to his for a quick kiss. He pulled me closer using the arm that he had slung around my waist, and held my hip with one hand while his other rubbed gently across the small of my back.

  The kiss lasted for about a minute or so before a loud voice caused us to break apart. “First you’re late and now you’re chewing on another student’s tongue on my bus?” The bus driver questioned me in a frustrated tone over the loudspeaker.

  We hadn’t even made it to school yet and somehow I had already managed to make an enemy. That had to be a record of some sort.

  Blake tried to hide his smile at her words. At least one of us was finding her amusing. He leaned away from me, moving his arm from around my waist in the process. I glanced up to see her shooting daggers at me with her eyes. If looks could kill I would be dead by now. I glared at her which only made her smirk at me with a look of satisfaction on her face.

  When I looked away from her, I noticed for the first time that the bus was stopped and outside of the window stood our newly constructed high school. The front of the building was entirely constructed out of glass and I couldn’t help but wonder how safe that was. What are we going to do in case of a tornado? Gosh, I really am around my mother so often that I’m even starting to sound like her.

  Shaking the worried thought from my head, instead I began to observe the blue and black school sign that was placed on the front lawn. In large letters it said, “Bradbury High School Home of The Bulldogs.” On the lush green lawns in the front of the school stood a large fountain, a statue of a bulldog, and three tall flagpoles. Our school had been completely transformed from a tattered old building that looked like it was going to fall down at any minute, into a well-kept building that could undoubtedly pass for a private school or a small college campus.

  The bus doors opened and kids began spilling out hurriedly. Everyone seemed anxious to have a look at the new school. Blake tossed our backpacks onto his back and stood in the aisle, gesturing for me to walk ahead of him. I obliged and rose to my feet, adjusting my high water pants as I did so, and walked toward the front of the bus. The annoying bus driver had a sign up with, “Hi! I’m Mrs. Gross! Nice to meet you!” written in bold letters, sitting in the front window.

  I smiled at her pleasantly when I saw her gaze glued to my face. “Love the last name,” I chirped in my sweetest voice, smirking at her.

  She gave me another death glare before pointing a large sausage-like finger at Blake and shaking it up and down slowly. “I do not know what you see in this girl.” Her voice came out in a low growl. “But I am sure that a young man like yourself could do much better.”

  An angry scowl lined my face as I glanced back at Blake who seemed to be quite amused. He nodded his head up and down. “I’ve been told,” he joked, meeting my eyes.

  At his words I turned on my heel and stomped the rest of the way off of the bus. Instead of stopping and waiting for Blake I walked through the crowd of bus riders as they stood around reacquainting themselves with friends they hadn’t seen over the summer. I was aware of the fact that Blake was trailing behind me but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around to face him. Instead his hand grabbed my wrist and spun me around toward face him.

  “You know I was only kidding, right Vi?” A smile lit up his features as he spoke.

  Looking into his eyes all I saw was pure unadulterated amusement. I was about to reply when his eyes shifted to something behind me and, curiosity getting the best of me, I turned around to see what he was fixated on.

  Across the school yard stood Brianna and her band of two-bit bimbos. Two of her supporting sluts climbed out of her car and stood behind her while the other was bending over and tying one of her shoes. It was honestly the first time that I had ever seen someone tying their shoe with their legs straight and their butt stuck up into the air while the top half of them was bent over. All of the boys behind her were sneaking peeks under her skirt as she did this and a few of them even had the balls to whistle at her. She had been down for a few minutes already and I noticed that it didn’t take that long to tie your shoe, at least in my case it doesn’t. It must be hard living with only ten brain cells.

  A few boys stopped and stared at Brianna and her minions as they arrived and some even walked past them with dumbfounded looks on their faces. Had they never seen a group of hypersexualized girls with possible daddy issues before? Didn’t they have cable television?

  Brianna was wearing a skirt that looked as if it could fit Lilly perfectly, and was exposing a lot of tan leg. Her shirt was tight fitting, but surprisingly, it was buttoned to the top without any cleavage showing. The eye-catcher, that was probably there as a replacement for her cleavage, was a bright pink tie hanging loosely around her neck. All of her friends had on identical outfits but they were each wearing a different color tie. I was almost surprised to see that they weren’t wearing heels, but rather they all had on matching tennis shoes with blue and black details. I had no doubt in my mind that those were their cheer shoes. My eyes rolled at the irony; a mean blonde who was also a cheerleader. There was no getting around that bad cliché.

  Although I had seen Brianna over the summer I still took in the annoyingly noticeable improvements that summer had caused to her appearance. She had tanned a lot, and her hair had grown lighter from all of the sun she had gotten. Her sun-bleached, blonde hair was currently pulled up int
o a high ponytail with a few strands hanging loose around her heart shaped face that was covered in at least two layers of foundation. Her lips were drowning in lip gloss and considering how big of a bitch she is I had no idea why every boy on the grounds was staring at her with lust in their eyes.

  Yes, Brianna is pretty, but that doesn’t take away from her bitchy attitude or her willingness to open her legs for every cute boy she saw. I’m lucky enough to live next door to the bitch herself so I know this little fun fact from experience. I had seen more than enough boys coming to and from her house to last me a lifetime. A few have even resorted to using the tree that stood in between our yards as an entrance to her bedroom window. In the beginning of the summer there was one guy who had had too much to drink and had knocked on my window instead of Brianna’s. He was clinging to the tree for dear life and he had almost had a heart attack when he saw me. He screamed something about me dying my hair and that my chest had flattened overnight. I shook the memory from my head and clenched my jaw tightly as I stared at Brianna, who was currently batting her eyelashes at her newest victim.

  I stared at her intensely until her eyes finally met with mine. She waved her hand in the air, waving at me with a smile almost as fake as her personality was. Then, she proceeded to strut toward me with her followers trailing behind her. Her smile grew wider as she drew closer. She stopped in front of me, looking over my shoulder to wink and wave at Blake who in turn looked confused by her actions. Gosh this boy was oblivious to the most obvious of things.

  “Hey Blake, how’s it hanging?” She questioned, looking through me at Blake, obviously ignoring my presence. She looked smug at the double meaning in her sentence.

  Blake furrowed his eyebrows. Brianna only talked to him on rare occasions when she bumped into us at my house. He must have been confused as to why she approached us in public, considering how she and I weren’t friends even in the slightest sense.

  Ignoring the fact that she was talking to Blake and not me, I spoke. “Longer than anything you’ve ever sucked.”

  Blake’s eyes widened for a second before he bit his lip to keep from laughing. Brianna turned toward me with cold eyes, her smile gone. “Not like you would know, Virgin Violet.” Her cohorts laughed and smiled like that was the funniest thing they had heard in their entire lives.

  “You know I really do admire you, Bri Bri.” I smiled sweetly, leaning forward as I placed my hand on her shoulder. “The fact that you’ve had so many fuck buddies this summer and still have not managed to contract some kind of STI or gotten pregnant really does inspire me.” I smirked wickedly. “At least from my knowledge you haven’t.”

  The look that came to her face made me want to buckle over with laughter. She looked flustered, angry, and embarrassed all at the same time. Maybe I hit a soft spot. One of the girls standing behind her stepped forward and rubbed her back in an attempt to comfort her, but being the bitch that she is, Brianna turned around and slapped the hand away from her back.

  “Ella, don’t touch me,” she growled at the red headed girl who I assumed was Ella. “Who told you you could touch me?”

  I couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor girl as her eyes widened, causing her to look like a deer caught in headlights. She was shorter than the rest of Brianna’s friends, and even with the make-up on her face she looked younger than everyone else.

  “No one. I was just trying to help.” Ella’s vibrant red hair shielded her eyes from view as she stuttered, looking down at the ground as she spoke.

  Brianna almost choked on her laughter. “Well, it didn’t help. I don't need your pity.” With those words, she spun around and stormed off, leaving her followers to do what they did best—follow. As they passed, every last one of Brianna’s bitches shot me a glare except for Ella who just held her head low in defeat and scurried past.

  I smiled and brushed my hands together, pleased as I watched Brianna and her troop of trollops leave. Trying to gain my attention, Blake draped his arm over my shoulder and held a sheet of paper in front of my face. I stared at it blankly before realizing that it was his schedule. I had received mine in the mail last week while Blake had come to pick his up yesterday during office hours. Surprisingly enough, we hadn’t compared our schedules yet, so I pulled mine out of the side pocket on my bag and held it up so that we could do so.

  I was frustrated when I saw that we only had one class together and it was the one class that we wouldn’t be able to talk in seeing as how the boy and girl classes were separated. I was also mad that the one class we shared happened to be our first period. Flipping the schedule over in my hands, Blake and I looked at the tiny school map on the back until we had located which way to go. I was happy to see that despite the new building, most of the classes were in the same general area, meaning that finding them would be pretty easy.

  Blake smiled at my horrified expression as he tugged me toward the class that I hated the most—physical education.

  Chapter 2

  “All right ladies, shut your mouths and gather around!” A small, stocky woman―and I use that term loosely―stood with one hand planted on her hip while the other beckoned for the girls in my gym class and me to come forward. “We don’t have time for introductions. All you really need to know about me is that I am your gym teacher for the year and I would like to be referred to as Ms. Botch. Not Ms. Bitch, Ms. B, or anything else that your undeveloped teenage minds can think of. First off,” she held a pudgy finger up in front of her face as she squinted her little brown eyes at us, “I don’t take any bull-crap, and I don’t like excuses. Skip my class and you get a referral without hesitation. Everyone one of you,” her finger swiveled back and forth in front of her body, “will be here on time, and dressed appropriately for class. I don’t care what your social status is at this school because frankly, I don’t give a flying fla-doodle.”

  To my utmost disappointment Brianna was to the side of me with her arms crossed over her chest. One of her minions stood at her side as they took turns glaring at Ms. Botch, and looking her chubby body up and down with scowls on their faces. After everything that Ms. Botch said, Brianna would scoff or roll her heavily makeup covered eyes like the pampered little brat that she is.

  Once Ms. Botch had finished going over the rules of her class, she turned her attention to Brianna and smirked wickedly as she walked over to her. Stopping directly in front of Brianna, she gripped the front of her gym shirt into a tight fist causing Brianna’s eyes to widen in fear. Ms. Botch then positioned her body so that she was talking to the whole class while still holding onto the front of Brianna’s shirt.

  “This young lady took the liberty of showing you what not to wear to my class! Your shorts should not be rolled up to the top of your thighs and by no means should your shirt be held back by a hair tie!” She reached behind Brianna’s back and pulled the hair tie from her shirt, letting it fall loose, before she continued her rant.

  “Your hair should be tied into a neat bun or ponytail, and jewelry of any kind is not allowed! I will confiscate it without hesitation!” Ms. Botch let go of Brianna’s shirt and handed her the hair tie that she had taken off of her shirt. Afterwards, she motioned for Brianna to take off her earrings and bracelets, which Brianna handed over reluctantly, but only after she had narrowed her blue eyes, and a heavy scowl had slipped onto her face.

  Smiling, as if making an example out of her student had brought some light to her day, Ms. Botch turned away before she began speaking again. “This is not a modeling shoot, this is my gym class. Now give me five laps around the track! I want to see the sweat pouring from your adolescent bodies. That’s the real proof that you’re getting a good workout!” After she had finished talking she brought the whistle that was dangling around her chubby neck up to her mouth and blew into it until everyone in the class had started their laps.

  As I took off, I heard Brianna mumble, “How is she even a gym teacher?” At her statement, my eyes flickered to Ms. Botch's rotund gut protruding a few
inches away from her body. I had to admit, I was wondering the same thing.

  ***

  My stomach clenched again causing my body to jerk forward as I hurled into the trash can, gripping the edges of the can for support. I was never that strong a runner and after completing just two laps I started complaining about stomach aches. Ms. Botch told me to suck it up and stop complaining a few times before finally allowing me to stand off to the side while everyone else continued running their laps.

  Now she occasionally threw me sideways glances from where she stood on the track. I wasn't that focused on the faces she was giving me because at the moment the salty taste in my mouth was more important. My tongue was sweating, and the aching pain in my stomach helped to reduce the pain of my headache as I threw up into the metal waste bin.

  I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and I turned my head so that I could see the freshly manicured fingers that lie there. My eyes took in the perfectly sculpted nails and trailed up the muscular yet feminine arm until they landed on the face of a smiling redhead.

  “Can I help you?” I questioned a little more rudely than I had intended.

  “It looks to me like you need more help than I do,” she replied as she pulled her hand off of my shoulder and handed me a small stack of napkins with the other.

  “I can take care of myself. I'm just not a huge fan of running.” Or any other physical activities for that matter.

  “Whatever. Botch sent me over here to check on you, but since you can obviously take care of yourself, I can just go back to watching the boy’s gym class.” She shrugged her shoulders and was about to turn to leave before I spoke again.