As soon as Brooke finds out, she tells me that she's going on the same bus as the footballers on Saturday to the game. She starts talking about how she could catch Antoine then, but I shut her down in disappointment, saying that he can't go, because of community service.
Well, that day, after school, Mrs. Toussaint, who asked for my number and Antoine's for some odd reason last Saturday before we left, calls me. I pick it up, saying respectfully, "This is Reese Abbott speaking. Hello?"
"Hello, Reese. It's Mrs. Toussaint. I just wanted to tell you, Antoine won't be helping out next Saturday, so I'll have you work an extra hour. That way, instead of have four hours done of your twenty, you'll have five! Doesn't that sound nice?"
I'm very surprised, and I honestly find this to be completely unfair. "Why on Earth is Antoine skipping? He can't just do that, can he?"
"His football coach had a talk with the police, apparently. He needs to play for a game on Friday or something. But he's going to be skipping three weeks of football after that, and this coming week he'll be required to be doing some clean up at a nearby trashed beach."
I grin to myself, my previous annoyed emotion completely gone. This is wonderful. Brooke will be able to fulfill our plan on Saturday! And Antoine skipping football for three weeks?! I know how much he loves football! That's excellent. He'll be miserable because of it! Football is to Antoine as food and water is to everyone else, to put it shortly and simply! He'll practically die without football! And I think the thing we all want the most is for Antoine to be dead!
I try not to laugh out loud right there on the phone, take in a deep breath, and say, "Oh, well, alright. Thank you for the information, Mrs. Toussaint. I'll see you and Officer Brink on Saturday, then?" I accidentally add in the mention of Officer Brink. I mean, it's not like he was relevant to this conversation one bit... He's just super cute.
"Yes, I believe so, sweetheart. Bye now!"
"'Kay, bye," I say, hanging up impatiently. I call Brooke right away, before anything else.
She picks up with, "Hey, what's up, Reese?"
"Oh my God, so you were right. Antoine is going to that game on Friday! And you said you're riding in the same bus as the guys?"
"Yeah, and there's a pool party afterward the game. We're all going. I'm sure Antoine, being the most popular guy in the school and all, is going, too."
"That's perfect!" I grin, and it's broader than the Kunshan Grand Bridge. "You talk a bit with him on the bus, and then confess during the pool party. Then date him for a while, 'til he really does seem to like you a whole lot. Then break up with him. You know, insult him. Be cruel."
"Sure," she says, and I think she's smiling. "I will, for sure. Alright, got to go now, bye, Reese."
"Bye, Brooke." This is going to be great.
Wonderful.
Just great.
Oh, how sweet revenge tastes.
How so sweet.
I hope more than just this happens to Antoine. I hope bad luck is following him. I hope his life sucks, like he has made so many other people's lives suck. I hope he's miserable, because that is what he gets. It's what he deserves.
I am praying for the downfall of Antoine Griezmann.
And I think God is just enough to answer those prayers.
Antoine's Perspective
I lost it. Of course I did. It was when I learned about cleaning up a f***ing beach. Like, my God. You're making me skip football because I'm f***ing suspended, and then you go and make me clean up a damned beach? All because of something I didn't do? I didn't f***ing do anything wrong. I was forced into it. Nobody will never f***ing believe me, because I'm 'insane', because 'I was raped' or some crap! Sure, my dad's boyfriend was the second most awful man on earth (my own father being the first), but he didn't rape me. He just... raped other people.
Either way! I'm not f***ing insane! But everything piling up like this sure is going to drive me insane! If it continues like this!
There isn't a moment, it seems, where something isn't bothering me!
So I'm at my mom's house this week, and although it's not as bad here as it is at my father's home, it's still miserable. But compared to my dad's, it almost, just a little, tiny bit, feels goo to be here.
But the only place I really like being is on the football pitch.
That's beside the point, though.
At my mother's house, my mother has major problems with anxiety, so I always have to be very careful, by being quiet, talking softly, and never, ever, causing any sort of blow up. I can never get mad. I can never really show any extreme emotion, because otherwise she freaks out, and starts yelling about something or another. Even when me and Louis are as calm as we can be, she still freaks about something. Bills, dinner, work, pressure, messes, or us simply being home. She's a nervous wreck, and probably as like OCD or something. I don't know. She's afraid of doctors, so she's never been diagnosed, but probably she should be on a lot of meds.
So it is hard to be at my mother's house when nothing is going right in my life, because I'm feeling a lot of emotion. I hate it, because wherever I go, I can never show my true emotions. That's why I had Reese Mallory to beat on, because I got my emotions out on her, by looking like some hot bully dude. But I had no other place to get out my anger. I wouldn't talk to my friends about it, because at school, I'm Mr. Hot Antoine or something. And both my parent's houses are not the places to do that.
And I will not stoop myself down to the level to go to the school psychologist. Someone could easily hear about that, too, and my reputation would be gone.
Why do I care so much about my reputation?
Well, because I do, and because I don't have anything to do with my emotions, I did something that I completely regret. It was on accident.
But my anger got the best of me.
Again.
As I sit on the curb, in the rain, doused with water, I think, I swear, after all that has happened, there has to be someone praying for my downfall.
