The Alphabet Theory

Chapter 4

'What's the deal with you and Vincent? Are you friends or what?' Cassie inquired lying on her bed raising her hands to her head. She and Elle must have been in their pyjamas already because she had gotten into her bed.

'I just needed something from him, that's all. I don't want to be friends with an egotistical boy like him.' I shuddered at the thought of being friends with Vincent.

Why the hell would I want to be friends with a boy who thinks that Death on the Nile is a bad book but Me Before You is a good one? He is an asshole and has terrible taste. He called me an emo freak girl even though he didn't know me. Just because I punched him after he called me a freak, he started it, I just finished it. Clearly, he was a very sore loser I thought to myself I went to the bathroom to clean my knee which I had forgotten about for a while and wet some tissue to dab at my knee.

It's Saturday. It's Saturday. It's Saturday. It's Saturday.

Thank God. I LOVE Saturdays. Yesterday I found a lot of possibilities which probably sounds unrealistic but the first days of investigating are usually very easy. And I hyperfixate obsessively over things I like to do. I didn't have any classes except for anger management class which is only an hour and it's basically just like my therapy sessions with Aaron. You don't need anything for that class the teacher said, except a notebook and your pencil case. The teacher with us was called Mr Goldsmith, and he said that we would have another teacher called Mr Stein on on Saturdays and Tuesdays. I hated Tuesdays with a passion. It was the day that I had to visit the grandparents on my mam's side every week. I sat at a table with Vincent, Elijah, Alice Winston, Callum and the girl Alice was whispering about me with at the back of the bus. The only good thing about that is that I can talk to Vincent about the case. He isn't helping me with it but I need him to think that we are doing it together so that he trusts me with all the secrets and rumours he gets told. I still didn't understand how people could trust anyone remotely like Vincent with something as important as a secret. The downside of having Vincent at my table was that since Alice was also on our table she made it blatantly obvious that she has a crush on him. Unrequited desperate bitch. Dumbass. I can see how people might think that I'm not a feminist if I use the word bitch in the way that I mean it, as an insult. I am a feminist though. I support men and women and all the in-between. I hoped that he wouldn't sink to that level. Even he doesn't have that bad taste. I had hoped. I didn't think that he would flirt back with her. Unfortunately, he did and my understanding from that class was that he was going to die alone with a dog. I actually got second-hand embarrassment from them. He was giving me the ick. He winked at her in a way that made me want to agléim out of a fuinneog. She wasn't any better than Vincent was. She was shamelessly flirting with him and batting her eyelashes flirtatiously at him. Disgusting. I made the face that I make when I get second-hand embarrassment from someone. Which happens a lot. And I mean a lot. People are embarrassing all day, every day, three sixty-five.

*cough* my parents when they think they can sing in the church choir with all of the young people *cough*

'Vincent?' Another nudge.

'What?'

'Stop flirting with Alice Winston. She is the real enemy. She is a distraction from what we are really here for which is to investigate the murder of my cousin Alyssa.'

'Shut up Valerie. You're probably just jealous. I don't actually like her. I just am a naturally flirty person in general to everyone. And she isn't the enemy. You're just pissed that she got the last punch when we were on the bus and not you.'

As I had previously mentioned, he was an egotistical uncultured idiot.

'Vincent?' I whispered again. And yet another nudge. I didn't want to but I needed him to "be my friend" because people trusted him and obviously not me so he was necessary. No matter how annoying he was. I've never had an actual friend before, which probably sounds sad but I don't really care.