Rebel Belle

Chapter 10

“SO ARE you mad at me about yesterday?”

I gave a shuddery sigh as I slid into the passenger seat of Bee’s car the next morning. Thank God, she’d made a Starbucks run before coming to pick me up. I took a scalding sip of my latte, then nearly choked on it.

Bee always got me a skinny vanilla latte. This was a triple espresso that was so strong, I was surprised my teeth hadn’t melted. Then I noticed how rigidly she was sitting in her seat, and that the rap music she liked was especially aggressive today.

For a second, I sat there, trying to figure out why I would be mad at Bee. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, worrying about why Ryan wasn’t answering my calls. I must have called him at least ten times, but he’d never picked up. And when I hadn’t been worrying over that, I was thinking of Saylor Stark, the look on her face when she’d seen me grabbing her nephew. God, what if she’d heard me use the F-word?

Then I remembered. Bee had done the Cotillion prayer for me yesterday, and she’d sent like three texts last night that I hadn’t responded to.

“Of course I’m not mad at you,” I said, but I must not have sounded very convincing.

“You seem like you are. Harper, you always answer my texts. And a couple of people said you had a big fight with Ryan yesterday and ditched school.”

My heart stuttered in my chest at that. Oh God, had Ryan told someone what happened? Did the entire school know I’d flipped him like a freaking omelet?

But no. No, if Ryan had told anyone, it would have been Brandon, and Brandon would’ve told Bee, and Bee definitely would’ve mentioned that first. I tried to keep my sigh of relief quiet before replying, “I told you, I was sick.”

I reached out to turn the radio down, but Bee slapped my hand. “No touching my tunes until you ’fess up. Were you really sick, or did you have a fight with Ryan?”

“I was sick,” I insisted again. “Remember the night of the Homecoming Dance? I . . . I must have some kind of bug.”

Bee frowned. “Something was definitely up that night,” she murmured, and for the first time, I noticed that while she might have been asking if I was mad, she was the one who seemed pissed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My brain was racing. Oh my God, had Bee put Mr. Hall’s and Dr. DuPont’s disappearance together with my pukeage?

A muscle worked in Bee’s jaw, and finally she spit out, “Mary Beth was going home for her free period yesterday, and she said she saw David Stark coming out of your backyard. She said he looked really weird, and then later, she saw Ryan leaving school, and he was super upset, and . . .”

She trailed off and my fingers tightened around my coffee cup. “Go ahead.”

“Mary Beth said that you and David have always been kind of . . . sparky. So she thinks there’s something going on with the two of you.”

I frowned at the “sparky” bit. David and I did not have . . . sparks. What we had was a feud that had been running since we were both in diapers. Something Bee of all people should have understood.

“Is that what you think, Bee?” I asked.

She shrugged. Today, Bee was wearing a huge pair of sunglasses that seemed to hide half her face. Her hair was done up in a high ponytail, and I could see a muscle twitch in her cheek, like she was grinding her teeth. “Explains a lot. Like why you’ve been so freaking weird lately.”

Then she glanced at me. “Explains what was going on in the bathroom the night of Homecoming.”

It was way too early in the morning for this conversation, I decided, drinking a little more espresso. It still tasted like battery acid, but I needed the caffeine. I already had a slight headache.

“I’m not going to pretend to understand why you suddenly have a thing for David when you have Ryan Bradshaw as a boyfriend,” Bee continued, yelling over the music. I went to turn it down, but she pushed my hand out of the way. “What pisses me off is that you didn’t tell me about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell!” I shouted. “I’m not cheating on Ryan, I don’t have a thing for David, and I was sick yesterday. That’s it! Not fighting with my boyfriend, not pregnant, and not any of the other hundreds of things you and Mary Beth probably guessed while y’all were talking behind my back. Oh, and by the way, David was at my house with his aunt. I’m guessing Mary Beth left out that little tidbit.”

Guilt, or maybe hurt, flickered over Bee’s face. “Do you think I’m a total dumbass?”

My head was pounding, and my face felt hot. “Right now, yeah, I do!”

Bee whipped into a parking place and braked so hard that I jerked forward in the seat.

She pushed her sunglasses up to glare at me. “I caught the two of you in the bathroom and you burst into tears.”

“That was actually a little after you found us,” I muttered, but she was on a roll.

“I know you want everyone to think you’re perfect, but you don’t have to pretend with me.” She thunked her head back against the gray leather, and a few girls walking by shot curious glances at the car. “Or at least I thought you didn’t.”

She slumped back into her seat, shaking her head. “I tell you everything,” she said softly. “Everything.”

I put my drink back in the holder and took her hand. “Hey,” I said softly. “I tell you everything, too. I promise.” Guilt tasted more bitter than the espresso, but I told myself that it wasn’t technically a lie. After all, I wasn’t lying to her about Ryan and David. Not really. Still, for just a second, I thought about how nice it would feel to tell someone—someone who loved me, someone who wasn’t David Stark—about what was going on.

But it was too bizarre, and for all I knew, it might also be dangerous. Until I had a better idea of who was after David and why, the best thing I could do was keep things as normal as possible.

So I leaned forward and said, “Ryan and I did have a little argument yesterday, but it was nothing. We’ll be fine. I plan on making up with him as soon as I see him today. And there is nothing going on with me and David Stark.”

She swiveled her head to face me. Bee’s eyes had always been both spooky and beautiful, almost startlingly dark against the peachiness of her skin and the wheat blond of her hair. Now, they were narrowed and wary. “Promise?”

I held up my hand. “Pinky swear.”

After a pause, she giggled and hooked my finger with hers. The little silver ring Brandon had gotten for her—complete with a pink cubic zirconia that we will not talk about—dug into my skin. “Pinky swears are sacred, you know.”

“I do,” I said, sitting up primly. “So I don’t use it lightly.”

Her grin turned into something like a leer. “So when you and Ryan make up, is it gonna be hot?”

Rolling my eyes, I disentangled our pinkies. “Perv.”

That sorted, we got out of the car. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of David standing outside Wallace Hall, waving at me. He was wearing a bright purple argyle sweater over a white button-down and jeans, so he wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

As subtly as I could, I flicked my hand at David behind my back. I knew we needed to talk, but with Bee on high alert where he was concerned, now was not the time.

“I can’t believe we still have a sub in history,” Bee said, snapping my attention back to her.

“Oh, is, uh, Dr. DuPont out?” I asked, trying not to imagine him standing in front of me, my shoe sticking out of his neck.

“Apparently,” Bee said, nodding across the courtyard. Mrs. Hillyard, the substitute teacher from yesterday, was hurrying up the steps into Wallace.

“But Dr. DuPont was a jackass anyway,” she added. “Didn’t he give you a hard time?”

You could say that. “Oh, not really,” I replied, just in case there were undercover police officers hiding in the bushes or something. “I actually kind of liked him.”

“Liked who?” Brandon asked, coming up to join us. “Me? Because I can tell you one thing, Miss Harper here is not a fan of the Bran Man.”

“And I’m not a fan of you calling yourself that,” Bee muttered, even as she let him take her hand and swing it.

“No, I’m serious!” Brandon insisted, flicking his blond hair out of his eyes. “Yesterday, she full-on smacked me in the middle of the hall. For no reason!”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Bee said sarcastically.

“It’s true,” Brandon insisted before shooting me a sideways look. “Is that why Ryan’s out today? Did you smack him around, too?”

That was way too close to the truth for comfort. Frowning, I asked, “He isn’t here today?”

“Not yet,” Brandon said, nodding toward the parking lot. Sure enough, Ryan’s car wasn’t in its usual spot. Heart sinking, I did my best to look concerned, but not panicked.

“Maybe he’s running late,” I offered.

David chose that moment to walk over to us, and next to me, I felt Bee stiffen a little.

“Harper, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“The bell’s about to ring,” I said to David, hoping he heard that as Friend Time, not right now.

He frowned. “We really need to talk about yesterday.” He had gotten my message, and now he was sending one of his own: I don’t care.

“What happened—” Bee asked, but I was already tugging her away.

“Your apology was more than sufficient,” I called breezily over my shoulder. “We’re fine.”

I could feel David glaring at my back, but I kept pulling Bee toward the school. Yes, yes, David might be my noble cause, but Bee was my best friend. There was a chance I’d already screwed up the boyfriend thing. I didn’t want to screw up what I had with Bee, too.

“You sure you don’t want to talk to him?” she asked once we’d walked through the front doors.

“Positive,” I replied. “I told you, it’s nothing more than the usual me and David Stark Mutual Disdain Society thing acting up again.”

Bee pulled her lower lip between her teeth, stopping just in front of the main office. I thought she glanced back outside toward the parking lot and Ryan’s empty spot. But all she said was, “See you at lunch?”

“Absolutely!” I chirped, doing my best to ignore David as he stormed past us.

Nothing happened the rest of the morning, but that didn’t stop me from jumping every time the bell rang. I also went out of my way to avoid the English hall, wondering if I’d ever feel safe at school again. There were no Pop Rocks in my blood, and there was no summons to the headmaster’s office to talk about Dr. DuPont, but I stayed on edge. Ryan’s absence didn’t help. Was he hurt, or too freaked out to even look at me?

By the end of first period, I’d made up my mind to call him, one more time. Cell phones were a major no-no during school hours, but I decided to risk it in the bathroom.

I’d just turned down the corridor when a hand shot out of the nearby janitor’s closet and hauled me into the dark.