Page 31 of Cry Madness
Scarlett, the audacious bit of good that she is, plucks the drink from my hand and, with a smirk, stomps to the trash near the curb. “Obsessed?” She drops my delicious brown sugar oat milk espresso into the bin. When she strides back, she uses the same false saccharine tone I used on her. “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
Nodding, I say, “Sure, you keep telling yourself that, but we both know you missed me. After all, babe, I’m your favorite target.”
“Go fuck yourself!” she yells so loudly that the group of nearby girls sitting on the grass giggle at her outburst. “What are you looking at? Mind your own goddamn business.”
One girl rolls her eyes and whispers something to her companions.
“I see you’re still marvelous at making friends,” I remark.
“I really do hate you,” she practically growls.
“No shit.” I glance at my wrist, checking an imaginary watch. “My, oh my, where does the time go? Wouldn’t want to be late for class. As always, Scar, it’s been an immense displeasure.”
“Bitch,” she spits as I push past her.
“Twat,” I yell over my shoulder, but I keep on walking because I’m so done with her it’s not even funny.
I half expect Scarlett to stick a knife in my back, and when the stab doesn’t come, I breathe a little easier. A moment later, I hear her heels strike the pavement as she marches behind me. Forcing myself not to turn around, I forge forward up the path toward Juniper Hall. Unfortunately, we’re in Painting IV together. Thankfully, though, I have plenty of backup by way of Ivory andMarch, and as soon as I step inside the art studio, I spot my best friend at her easel. She’s hilariously ignoring March.
He’s also pointedly ignoring her.
These two have been actively pretending not to have a crush on each other since forever.
I swear, they’re worse than Maddox and me with denying the obvious.
When I’m at my easel, I slide off my bookbag and dump it on the floor beside the stool. “Had a run-in with the Red Queen,” I whisper loudly to Ivory before her sister arrives behind me.
Scarlett earned the moniker when she was sixteen and showed up to a Halloween party dressed as the Queen of Hearts. That night, she ‘accidentally’ cut Joshua Snyder’s shoulder with scissors. Scissors. Personally, I think she was going for his throat and missed. No one knows the entire story, but the girl has always been a sore loser, and she and Joshua were on opposing teams in the chess club. He beat her fair and square the day before. Seemed to me that his win didn’t sit well with her. Next thing we all knew, she charged at him, brandishing those scissors.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say she tried to cut the kid’s head clean off.
He quit the team a few days later.
Ivory, paintbrush mid-stroke, lowers her arm. She doesn’t take her gaze off the lovely flower that’s coming to life in vibrant yellows and greens on her canvas. “Oh, Lordy, what in the world did she want?”
“Same old bullshit.” I shrug before donning the smock I keep neatly folded in my bag. “She tries to make me miserable. Then her panties get all in a wad when I scoff at her shenanigans.”
Ivory’s laughter has the twelve other students glancing our way. One of those people is March, whose ferocious brown eyeslinger longer than necessary on Ivory before returning to his canvas. He’s actually a talented artist, his sketches surprisingly delicate. Dare I even call them pretty? And when he refocuses back on the canvas, he leans toward it, scowling as he returns to the shadowed skull he’s working on.
“I’m sorry my sister is such a pain.”
“Not your fault,” I tell her. “She is who she is, and as long as I avoid her, I’m fine.”
Carefully slashing her paintbrush across the canvas, Ivory says, “I can’t imagine living life that bitter.”
“Bitter?” I echo. “No, Ivory, she isn’t bitter. She’s rotten, right down to the crumbs of her.” Quickly changing the subject when Scarlett comes stomping into the studio, I gesture at my canvas. “What do you think? Is it missing something?”
“Color,” Ivory is quick to offer.
“God, no!” I counter.
I don’t miss painting. Nor do I miss using color now that I’ve come to appreciate the complexities of using charcoal. All kinds of charcoal. Vine. Willow. Compressed. Pencils. Nothing beats the feel of a worn-down nub gripped between my fingers or the rough slide of it against a canvas’s texture. Each controlled stroke breathes life into my monsters. Creatures who’ve kept me company, kept me safe, and comforted me through the very worst and loneliest of nights.
“Alice.” The tone in Ivory’s voice has me bracing for a chiding. “You can’t spend all your time surrounded by those… those beasts.”
Ivory glances at March, something she does often when she knows he’s not looking at her. And when she’s not looking, he watches her as well. And right now, he’s focused on his canvas.
“Bet?” I retort.