“Not interested,” I say, ignoring Mikaela.
“Why?” Benton asks.
“Because I don’t like you or any of your friends,” I say honestly. “And because you called Christian a faggot, and frankly, I find your behavior, if not your entire existence, appalling.”
Benton throws his head back and laughs. “Oh, Jesus, Remi. Get some chill. Chris is used to it. It’s just banter. Stop being an uptight bitch.”
“Oh, yeah?” I smile sweetly.
“Yeah.” He swipes his eyes along my bare legs under my desk.
“So, can I bring him along?”
His cocky smile collapses into an annoyed frown. Busted.
“Remington,” Mikaela warns in her nasally voice behind me. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but Christian is gay. You can’t get knocked up and leech on his family money. You’re better off placing your bets on someone else.”
I can’t take it anymore. I turn around, holding onto the back of my chair, and hit her with my own brand of nastiness.
“Jealous much?”
“Why would I be jealous of trash?” She giggles and elbows one of her mean girl reject minions.
“Because your boyfriend wants me, and you couldn’t catch a dick if it hit you in the face,” I say simply. I strongly suspect that Benton is Christian’s secret hookup, but my jab worked, because Mikaela looks like she is about to spontaneously combust.
“BURN!” One of Benton’s friends slaps his desk, and the sound rings in my ears.
“Fucking bitch!” Mikaela roars, standing up, and before I know what’s happening, she’s launching herself at me. I’m still seated when she clasps the collar of my dress shirt and throws me across the room. I land on Benton’s desk and watch his smirk as she leans between my legs to slap my face. I snap out of it. Fast. As her arm comes down at me, I take ahold of both her wrists and twist them like you would a doorknob, applying as much pressure as I can, and hear her little bones squawking together. A shrill scream leaves her mouth. It echoes between the walls, and I push her off me. In the background, I hear people yelling, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” “Catfight!” and “End that bitch,
Kae!” She throws herself at me again. I step away, letting her hit the wall. People around us laugh. I was in a lot of fights as a kid. With girls. With boys. Ryan always says I’m a “scrappy little shit,” and that if I had more discipline, I could totally be a fighter.
When the laughing and yelling around us die, so does the fight. Mikaela and I look up—I’m not sure when exactly I pinned her to the floor, everything is a fog when the adrenaline takes over your body—and see Pierce, I mean Mr. James, staring at both of us coldly.
“Up,” he says, standing behind his desk, the tips of his fingers splaying across it. He looks like a stranger now. He sounds like one, too. It’s hard to believe that this is the man who kissed me like I’m the only thing that matters. That told me things, personal things, about his family and sister and life. The heat in my face is unbearable. There’s an argument to be made that Pierce James is a chameleon. He changes his colors all the time. He has so many hats—teacher, lover, brother, savior, enemy—he always throws me off balance when he looks at me, because I’m never sure which Pierce I’m getting.
We both right ourselves, leaning against a desk and a chair. Mikaela has a fat lip from a punch I threw, and her hair is a tangled mess. I have bloody scratches on my arm, but that’s about it. I know how to dodge a slap or a punch. I’m my stepbrother’s sister, after all.
“Sir, I—” Mikaela starts, but Pierce waves her off, looking bored more than anything else.
“Sit down. Both of you.”
The whole class is staring at him like he had just ordered us to French kiss and fondle each other on his desk. That is unacceptable at West Point, and in general. You don’t just break up a fight between two students and not send them to the headmaster.
“You mean…” Mikaela’s mouth drops.
“I mean I will deal with this later. This class is important, and I don’t want either of you to miss it. You will be punished, Miss Stephens.”
“Oh.” Her voice drops with disappointment.
“Oh, indeed.”
I look around me before I hurry to take my seat. I don’t dare look at Pierce. I’m not sure where we stand, but I don’t regret acting the way I did this morning. I’m tired of this hot and cold game. Tired of him giving me a little taste and then denying me in the next breath. Denying himself of what we both want.
I see him in my periphery opening a thick, red book with yellow pages but keep my eyes trained on my desk. I want to keep my head high but can’t. Not right now. Benton Herring is high-fiving his friends to my left like the dickhead that he is. They probably thoroughly enjoyed the show. Especially the part where our skirts parachuted and everyone could see our underwear in the process. Goddamn Mikaela.
“We dance around the ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows. This is a quote by Robert Frost. Today, we’re going to discuss secrets. I’m sure you’ve all watched the news at some point this month, so you know about the affair between our president, John Holloway, and Secretary of State Elsa Dickenson. They were both single. Holloway is divorced, and Dickenson was never married before. Yet, this type of relationship is considered taboo. Wrong. A misconduct.
“Secrets. We all have them. Some of them are big. Some of them are small. How do we determine what’s big and what’s small, and do secrets hold a moral weight on us? Today, we will discuss all those things.”