His eyes are deathly cold, but for some reason that only makes me smile brighter.
“Oh, I’m going to spread the rumor even more, now. Thanks for letting me know it was bugging you.”
I wink at him and walk off. He doesn’t show much emotion, but I caught the tiniest glimmer of annoyance flit across his face before I turned. I won this round. The bell to end lunch rings and people start streaming out of the cafeteria and I keep plotting. I’ll keep harassing him like this, until he apologizes to Kayla, at least. It’s really his fault. It’s only two words, and then I’d let him off the hook. But no – he has to be so stubborn, so conceited, so –
Someone grabs my wrist, hard. I whirl around to yell at them, or possibly fight them off, when a blur roughly pulls me in, hard hipbones pressing into my stomach and height dwarfing me in shadow. I barely register the flash of blue eyes before they tilt my face up and kiss me, a tongue tasting the corner of my mouth and a lip tracing the curve of my cupid’s bow. The kiss spreads buzzing heat from my tongue, to my throat, to my lungs, to my heart, all the way down to my stomach and even below that. Everything is on fire. I can’t breathe – the kiss has me frozen, locked in place, completely immobile. This is my first. This is my first kiss and I’m going weak in the knees, I’m making some kind of stupid little moan. How moronic am I for reacting in such a cliché way? How stupid am I for letting this person –
And it’s then I realize the blue eyes belong to Jack.
And it’s then I realize Jack Hunter stole my first kiss in front of the entire school. People are whistling, hooting. The smell of Jack’s cologne wafts up and the taste of his mouth is pepper and mint on my tongue as he leans in to whisper;
“If it’s a war you want, Isis Blake, it’s a war you’ll get.”
Forty entire seconds after Jack Hunter kisses me and walks off, I’m too stunned to move. Just like that. Just like that, my first kiss went to East Summit’s Icedouche Prince. Not to someone I really loved. Hell, not even to someone I liked. It was sacrificed helplessly, like a little ritual priestess on the altar of callous assholery.
And all of East Summit High saw. He couldn’t have picked a more perfect time for the entire lunch crowd to see, and like an idiot I stumbled into the perfect place – the only hall connecting the cafeteria to the main entrance. I set myself up, and he pounced on it like a jaguar.
As my shock wears off, two things hit me;
1. He’s good. Very, very good. Not at kissing. No – definitely not. I was just in shock, that’s all. That’s why I couldn’t breathe. No, what I meant is he’s good at the game. I started it at the party by initiating the rumor, but he just fired his first shot back, and it was a perfect ten. I couldn’t have done it better myself. I’m dealing with a mastermind. Possibly a criminal one. It depends on how many cups of baby’s blood he drinks a day.
2. He took my first kiss. Now that everyone’s seen me go weak in the knees from a kiss (weak knees run in my family, we all have to get canes, it’s nothing special) they’ll never believe the rumor that he kisses bad. That he kissed me bad. Now I’m a liar. He proved me a liar in front of everyone in ten seconds flat. My title’s expanded from New Girl to New Girl Who Lied And Said Jack Hunter Kisses Bad. He took my first kiss and ruined my reputation but most importantly he took my first kiss when I thought no one would ever take it. No one had up until now. I’d gone seventeen years without a guy once trying to kiss me. Ugly girls don’t get kissed – that’s a fact. Nameless never even tried to kiss me. I buried my hopes of ever getting kissed deep beneath the nine-billion-foot grave that contains my respect for men.
My feet start taking me to Mrs. Gregory’s class again. I hear my name on people’s lips, and I feel them staring. I need to be plotting my next move against Jack. I need to make him apologize to Kayla no matter what. I need to somehow turn this around and salvage my reputation. But all that just melds into a cacophony of faint buzzing in my head, with three huge words echoing over it.
I got kissed.
I got kissed.
I shake my head so violently to clear it one of my ladybug earrings nearly flies off. I cup the small creature and pet the enamel of it soothingly. Hush now, Mr. Ladybug. Don’t go anywhere. I still love you. You’re the only one for me. That kiss didn’t mean anything at all – it was just Jackoff’s way of making me look like a liar.
Once Mr. Ladybug is soothed and I’m in my seat comfortably zoning off while Mrs. Gregory yammers about matrix equation shit, I expertly piece together what just happened, edited to my taste, of course. I white out the entire kiss. That goes first – I don’t need to remember that ever again. Men are scum and Jack Hunter is the worst scum of all. If anyone asks, I lost my first kiss to Johnny Depp and/or Tom Hiddleston. Possibly at the same time. Note to self - verify that with your Realistic Likelihood Calculator™ before committing to it.
As for the other parts, I know I saw Mr. Evans and Jack talking. Apparently some stuck-up colleges want Jack to attend. Maybe he got good grades or something? I wouldn’t put it past him to be smart – I’d seen that much with the way he took advantage of the perfect timing in the hall. And he uses big weird words, so he’s probably a huge nerd. To be fair, I do too, but that’s because I’m fabulous. Jack has no such excuse. Evans and Jack also talked about a ‘she’, as in, ‘She’ll get better with or without you here’. Who’s ‘she’? And is she somehow holding Jack back from going off to college?
It’s a huge mystery I obviously don’t have time for. I ferret the information away in my brain in case I need some really heavy-duty ammunition against Jack in the days to come, but I leave it at that. I have to plot to take this guy down, not get all weirdly concerned over his future. Unless said future involves me strangling him. Then that’s fine and I should probably concern myself with that in order to make absolute sure it gets locked down on the permanent dimensional timeline.
And how the hell did he find out Nameless’ name, anyway? It’s not like I’m in the newspapers back in Florida – that’s really private, sensitive, and particular information. And if Jack somehow found out Nameless’ name, is he capable of finding out what happened between Nameless and I?
I quickly scribble down a battle plan on the back of my hand with ballpoint pen;
1. Assess the threat
2. Pinpoint weaknesses
3. Exploit said weaknesses
4. Win
“Isis?” Mrs. Gregory snaps. “Are you paying attention to the problem on the board?”
“Seventy-two,” I say, and get out of my chair to sit beneath my desk.
“Excuse me?”
“The answer,” I call from underneath the wood. “Seventy-two.”
She looks startled, but quickly takes in the board and scribbles on a loose sheaf she thinks I can’t see. The whole class is staring at me with bated breath, wondering what the hell is going on. Mrs. Gregory finally looks up.
“Correct. But why are you sitting –”
The bell rings then, shrill and in short bursts. Mrs. Gregory tells everyone to get under their desks and remain calm. Her bug-eyed face is anything but calm. The lockdown lasts for four or so tense minutes in which I pick the black polish off my nails while everyone debates whether it’s a shooting or a drug raid. Mrs. Gregory crawls over to me and frowns.
“Isis, how did you know there was going to be a lockdown? Are you…” she lowers her voice and leans in. “Involved with shady characters? It’s okay to talk to me, you know. I can convince the police you didn’t mean any harm. There are programs for students like you - ”
“I saw the kid who likes knives too much run across the quad in his underwear with a plastic one.”
She looks understandably shocked. Principal Evans gets on the PA and announces it’s safe. On my way to the parking lot I pass the open Principal’s door, where knife kid sits in a chair, surrounded by three cops arguing what to do with him. I flash him a thumbs up, and he makes scissors with two fingers and drags them across his throat in a jovial greeting, but it doesn’t faze me. I’m still in a daze.