Page 11 of My Rules for Revenge (Twisted YA Mysteries #1)

HEATHER

A few days went by as the barrage of online hate targeted towards me was beginning to dissipate.

I had been the talk of the school for a few days before it died down and moved on to the next vicious cycle of widespread gossip.

Vivian and I hung out near our lockers while we spoke about my next move.

However, I would soon be interrupted by a certain awkward young man in the most random way imaginable.

“How are you feeling?” Vivian asked.

“I’m okay. I guess.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You probably already guessed it,” I replied.

“This is going to be the high school equivalent of a nuclear war, isn’t it?” Vivian remarked.

I mimicked an explosion with my hands and shot imaginary guns into the air.

“That answers my question.”

“Viv, I’m going to skin him alive. What he did to me was inexcusable. I’m going to destroy him and his little virgin squad of dumb nerds.”

Vivian scoffed.

“Oh, boy.”

“He will be annihilated,” I threatened.

As I turned towards the hall, I saw Eddy Chavez studying his chemistry textbook.

He was deeply focused and wasn’t vigilant about where he walked.

A couple of seconds later, he slightly tripped over himself and dropped his book.

He quickly went to retrieve it and somehow grazed my butt when he shot back up.

I jumped up in surprise while he stood still in horror.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I stood up too fast, and I didn’t see where my hand was. I swear. This is embarrassing. I’m really embarrassed right now,” Eddy said apologetically.

“You did that on purpose.”

“No, I swear I didn’t. I would never.”

I curled my hand into a fist and stared into the very depths of his soul. After the nonsense I had been through, this was about to be my melting point.

“You definitely saw my leaked nudes. Am I supposed to believe that you didn’t do that on purpose? The way I see it, you liked what you saw, and you wanted to get a feel for yourself,” I replied.

“Jesus, Heather. Trust me, I know what’s been happening, and I would never participate in anything like that. I’m sorry, I know you don’t deserve it,” Eddy expressed with regret.

I looked at him with a skeptical face and then glanced over at Vivian, who seemed to be falling for Eddy’s sob story.

“You’re lying, and I want you to admit it right now,” I demanded.

“Heather, he might be telling the truth. He’s a nice kid,” Vivian whispered.

“Nope, all lies. Eddy, you wanted to cop a feel, right?” I asked bluntly.

“I can say with all certainty that I didn’t,” Eddy replied.

I stared at him until my expression softened.

I could tell that he was being honest. A person like that wasn’t capable of malicious intent.

He was a good guy, through and through. I’ll be honest. I found him attractive.

He wasn’t a loud jokester or a stuck-up star athlete, but he was kind.

There weren’t a lot of those around. I figured it would have been best if I tried not to turn away all the good ones.

“Fine. I’ll let this go. I’m on edge, as you can see. I believe you didn’t do it on purpose—this time,” I said, annoyed.

“I didn’t. You can believe me. It won’t happen again,” Eddy said nervously.

“If you do it again, I’ll squeeze your head into a pickle jar.”

“Heather, don’t say that. Don’t worry, Eddy. You’re fine,” Vivian assured him.

“No, he’s not. His head will enter a jar of pickles if he decides to be a pervert again.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I’m not a pervert, I swear. I don’t do perverted things.”

“That’s something a pervert would say,” I pointed out.

“What? No, it’s not. Is it? Wait, do you guys seriously think I’m a pervert? What can I do to make you guys think I’m not a pervert? I’ll do anything,” Eddy said.

“You don’t have to do anything, Eddy. Trust me, it’s okay,” Vivian comforted him.

“Definitely don’t trust her, and it’s not okay,” I asserted.

“Really, Heather?” Vivian asked.

“Do a little dance, Eddy,” I requested.

“What kind of dance?” Eddy asked curiously.

“Okay, we’re leaving.”

Vivian grabbed me by the arm and led me away from Eddy, who remained confused.

“Why aren’t you letting me have my fun?”

“Don’t be mean to him; be mean to Jacob,” Vivian advised.

“Oh, I’ll be downright wicked to that shithead.”

“I’m sorry again,” Eddy said apologetically.

I gave him a thumbs-up.

“You find him cute, right? I’m not the only one,” I pointed out.

“Oh my god, you like him?”

“I never said that,” I said defensively.

“After you told him you wanted to pummel him with a pickle?”

“I definitely never said that.”

“You said a variation of that,” Vivian clarified.

“That is false,” I replied.

“Whatever. We need to work on your romance skills.”

“Actually, I need to work on psychologically tormenting Jacob,” I said with a smile.

“That sounds intense.”

“It will be,”I said.

I felt fortunate to have lived in an age of social media where people can be connected to each other all over the world.

We’re able to share news, thoughts, ideas, memes, videos, and more.

Unfortunately for me, that included leaked pictures of me flaunting my goods for the entire world to see. This went both ways, however.

I began to dig for dirt on Jacob’s wrongdoings through his social media accounts. I set out to find them and soon discovered a gold mine. I didn’t know how I entirely felt about the emerging movement known as cancel culture, but I used it to my advantage.

When it came to humiliating Jacob, I was willing to do anything. Instead of ruining his face, I set out to ruin his future.

It was late at night. I sat at my desk while I endlessly scrolled through social media on my laptop. Four long hours had passed. Vivian was beside me, doing homework. My eyelids were heavy while I intently studied many profiles.

I tried to find Jacob’s. There was no doubt he would have some posts that were in poor taste or downright disgusting. I needed something that would turn half the school against him and call attention to his cruel nature.

“Have you found anything?” Vivian asked.

“Nope. I’m about to screech like a starved vulture. The best I found was a Jacob in Minnesota who likes to post pro-slavery content. It’s incomprehensible that people like him exist anymore.”

“Wow! That’s, uh… I have no words,” Vivian expressed.

“He’s probably a descendant of Hitler.”

“Either that or he was created by Satan himself,” Vivian added.

“You wanna send him a cute little message through the app? I sent him one already. It had one hundred and fifty-seven curse words.”

“I think I’m going to pass, as tempting as it sounds.”

“You’re such a hippie.”

“That’s why we complement each other so well. I’m love, and you’re…hate,” Vivian pointed out.

“That makes me sound like a monster,” I remarked.

“Oops, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re not a monster, obviously. I just…I don’t know,” Vivian said, embarrassed.

“I kind of am, Viv. It’s by choice. Sometimes, I have to turn into an ogre.”

I grinned as she lightly chuckled. I continued to search for profiles and came across one with the name “JB,” a male around our age who lived in Brightwood Lake. My heart fluttered with excitement because all of that browsing had finally paid off.

I went through the posts and mostly saw reposts of promotional events for a game called Worldly Wizard Quest, whatever the hell that was, but soon I saw something that caught my eye.

I stopped dead in my tracks and lasered in on a status that mentioned the word “skank.” I silently read it and gasped aloud.

I rapidly tapped Vivian on the shoulder to get her attention.

“What happened? Did you find something?” Vivian asked.

“ Girls are weird AF. How can you like girls who act like ‘skanks’ with their bodies and magnificent milk jugs? The answer is, you don’t. They grow up to be skanky-ass whores. And you don’t want a woman like that for a girlfriend or a wife. Do you? ” I read aloud.

Our jaws simultaneously dropped.

“No way!” Vivian exclaimed.

“Wow!” I reacted.

“Of course, he would say something like that,” Vivian said with certainty.

“It doesn’t have his full name, but it has his initials. It has to be him. This fits too well. It’s definitely not Justin Beaver,” I giggled.

“Are there any more like this?” Vivian asked.

“There’s nothing else like this on his page. He must have removed anything that could have sentenced him to a social execution.”

“Are you absolutely sure it’s him?”

“I’m fairly certain. He is our age. He lives here. He plays this stupid wizard bullshit. He has four friends. One of them is named GirlsRDemons666 .

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Exactly. I’m pretty sure one of his friends is toxic enough to name themselves that,” I assured Viv.

“My goodness.”

“That was also my reaction, again,” I added.

“Did you try finding anything on the different social media apps?” Vivian asked.

“I already checked. There’s nothing crazy. That particular post was years ago. He knows he would get destroyed online if he posted that type of nonsense now.”

“How are you going to prove it’s him?” Vivian asked.

“I’m going to bully him into admitting he’s a misogynist,” I revealed.

“How do you plan on doing that?”

“If he hates girls that much, he will most likely go berserk if the students at school start calling him a misogynist. I’ll secretly record him and hope he says a certain word that will cause riots.”

“You think that’ll work?” Vivian asked hesitantly.

“It’s worth a try, but I need to go all in on this. We need a few pigs.”

“I’m sorry, we need a lot of what now?” Vivian asked.

“It sucks there isn’t an actual toy store anymore. We’ll have to find them somewhere,” I muttered.

“Heather, what exactly is your plan?”

“I’ll explain later. I also need a few guys who are willing to help me. Jacob and his gang of twerps can’t see this coming. If they see me, they’ll run.”

“Who can we ask?”

“Your old cheerleading friends?” I asked.