Tourmaline

Chapter Twenty-Three

 "No."

"Seriously. Hummus on pizza is amazing. I don't get why they don't sell it."

"Because it's disgusting."

"Shush, you. I have a million dollar idea here and you're shooting it down without even trying it."

"Then I'll try it. It'll just reaffirm my belief that it's disgusting and we can drop the subject altogether."

Laurie thrust her hand out toward me. "Shake on it. The soon-to-be-patented Hummus Pizza will be my greatest success yet."

I stifled a smile, gripped her hand, and shook it in an overly-manly and borderline laughable attempt at being serious. "We'll see."

She made a triumphant sound like a snort and accelerated her pace beside me. We went a few moments without speaking before she turned abruptly toward me and said, "Oh, shit. I forgot to tell you--they're done."

I glanced around, trying to find what she was talking about. "What's done?"

"The searches," Laurie answered. "The student drug searches are done."

I shook the surprise out of my expression.

"How do you know? Did they find anything?" I asked. 

Laurie furrowed her brow. "That guy Rory from my culinary class told me. And they probably found something, just not enough to carry out the little quest for the high school drug ring they had going."

"Wow," was all I said. My mind flashed back to the showdown between Tate and Brent; the sickening crack of fist to nose, the broken cry escaping Tate's lips that seemed to tear through him like that of an animal caught in the jaws of a bear. I fought off my discomfort and lended Laurie a meek grin. "I have to head to class, but I'll see you later."

"Later."

We parted ways and I began to shuffle in the direction of my next class. Suddenly, something rough collided with my shoulder and I stumbled backwards, righting myself only after my textbooks slipped through my fingers and hit the ground with a bellowing thump. A hushed voice sounded from behind me, nasally and high-pitched.

"Slut."

I turned smoothly on my heels. "What?"

A few people glanced back at my voice but faced forward quickly and continued on their way, leaving no one but a small-statured girl with a smug smirk in front of me. Her hair was the color of wheat with a round, tanned face and lipstick three shades too bright. She was thin with a slender neck, and both her hands were poised scoldingly on her hips, as if she'd caught me stealing from the cookie jar.

"I think you heard me fine," she hissed, scrunching her nose in distaste.

"No, I'm not sure I did." 

She looked left, then right, like she was about to tell me a secret, and leaned in close, so close I could feel her breath hot on my ear. A shudder shook me, but I didn't move away. "You're a pathetic slut. Everybody knows you cheated on Tate and then dumped him at the hospital for your gothic screw buddy." 

My mouth suddenly felt like it was filled with cotton. I gazed at her blankly, lips parted and at a complete loss for words, which only made her smirk widen. She continued, this time loud enough for others to hear.

"Caught in the act, huh? It sucks to be publicly humiliated, doesn't it, whore? Maybe you'll think next time before you infect some other poor boy with your sick STDs. Disgusting."

I struggled to process what she was saying to me, whether I was dreaming or not. Humiliated...whore...STDs. Shock pulsated in my fingertips, seized my chest, filled my head with a deafening pounding.