Pusher

twenty-eight.

"You are the worst lab partner I've ever had in my entire life. Acne Aaron helped more than you." Ellie finished off her statement by whacking the back of my head with her notebook. I grunted, keeping my face pressed into my arms and my eyes closed. Perhaps sleeping through AP Physics was not the most effective way to prepare for our exam at the end of the year, but today I was much too tired to care.

Ellie whacked me once more.

"Would you cut it out?" I groaned. My eyes burned and my head pulsed with an exhaustion that never went away. It bored deep into my skull and made everything cloudy and slow. Well, it made me cloudy and slow.

"Hey," she said, "if Maverick was here, I'd be hitting him with my notebook. But he's not, you are, and I don't think I'm ever going to understand this dumb lab."

I hummed sympathetically and kept my upper body slumped over my desk. I was in no mood to try to figure out equations or keep up with Ellie's ceaseless chatter. Normally I appreciate someone who filled the silence, but she was driving me mad.

"You know what else I don't understand?" she began. I would have slammed my forehead against the desk if I had the energy to lift it. I knew where this was going. "What is so important about that journal that you would sell yourself to fricken Satan himself just to keep it secret. And you know what else I don't understand? Why Maverick gets to know and not your best fricken friend."

She punctuated her words with one last smack of her notebook against my head. I swatted it away and sat up, hardly letting my eyes adjust to the harsh fluorescent lights before I snapped at her.

"It's not like I wanted him to find out. He stole my journal there wasn't much I could do about it."

"Then what about me?" she countered. "What's so bad that you can't tell your best friend? We don't keep secrets from each other. Remember?"

Yes, I told Ellie all about how Maverick was blackmailing me. It wasn't like I could go to my cousin. Miles would only try to smash his head in, and as convenient as that would be for me, I didn't need him landing himself in a jail cell or racking up some assault charges.

So that left my best friend. It was a little bit of a conflict of interest with the fact that my big secret was the gigantic crush I had on her since middle school, but there wasn't anyone else to open up to and at the time I didn't want to face this alone. Right now, with her constant harassment and pestering, I wish I had.

Ellie lowered her voice to a whisper. "Selling weed on the side is one thing, but being on the payroll of the biggest dealer in our school is another. Whatever it is that he has over your head can't be worth it."

"It's only temporary, El, just until I get some dirt on him."

But even I didn't believe the words that came out of my mouth. Maverick's "little black book" turned out to be nothing more than false hope and unnecessary risk.

"I'm telling you Ang, you're in too deep," Ellie said. She struck me with a sharp gaze I did everything in my power to avoid.

I huffed and reached over for our worksheet, pointedly ignoring her comment, and stared at the words on the page. They didn't make any sense.

"I'm not giving up that easy," she warned me. I shot her a look.

"Can we talk about something else?" I asked. My voice was sharp but her returning glance was sharper. Clearly, the answer was no, so I added. "I have other things to worry about right now."

"Oh please do tell. I'm sure there are things much more pressing in your life than Maverick Weir. Are you becoming a jewelry thief now? Is the Mexican drug cartel looking for you? Has Floppy risen from the grave with an army of other zombie bunnies to seek revenge on you for being an awful pet owner?"