Page 2 of My Rules for Revenge (Twisted YA Mysteries #1)

HEATHER - PRESENT DAY

M y name is Heather Chang, and I was sixteen years old when my life changed directions forever.

If I had known what the path of revenge would have led me to, I still would have taken it.

I won’t pretend that I would have known any better because I wouldn’t have.

I was a heat-seeking nuclear missile who destroyed anyone and everyone who disrespected me.

I tried not to be a monster, but some people made it easy for me.

I’d like to think that I was pretty normal.

I enjoyed reading books and making memes, and I still do.

But when I had to, I did everything in my power to uphold my reputation as someone you could not mess with.

I couldn’t let people get comfortable disrespecting me.

I had a duty to protect myself, and this was especially important in high school.

I imagined Brightwood High as a wild jungle filled with cruel bullies, assholes instead of athletes, and horny nerds who couldn’t get laid.

I lived in Brightwood Lake, a busy small town filled with soccer moms and unfaithful working-class husbands.

Not all of them were unfaithful, I would say.

My dad certainly wasn’t one of them, but for some reason, it seemed to be a serious epidemic where I was from.

It was like a supernatural force had descended upon this town and had forced most men to cheat—perhaps they were bored, perhaps not.

Just like any other town, Brightwood Lake has rich neighborhoods as well as a poor side of town, and I lived in the middle. I didn’t have to worry about my next meal, but I wasn’t crazy rich either.

I was enjoying a decent life that wasn’t very exciting until it happened.

My life would eventually become involved in cases of sexual harassment, abuse, missing people, and even murder.

Thinking back, it would always amaze me that certain people I’d come across could dictate the type of life I’d live. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, though. This story is important if you’re going to understand my motivations. This is my story of revenge.

The year was 2017. I was shopping with my mom at a grocery store after school.

My long, auburn hair was loose, and I wore a shredded, dark t-shirt with skulls andblack jeans.

Most people took one look at me and thought I was a freaky, Asian emo girl who loved death metal.

Truthfully, I was a freaky, emo girl who loved death—I’m only kidding; it was just the way I liked to dress.

I suppose it’s related to the idea that I liked to rebel, and maybe I was stereotypically angry at society for being how it was. Could you blame me?

As I told you earlier, I was with my mom, a slender, soft-spoken woman who usually wore a gray pantsuit with no vibrant colors and who didn’t like to make a fuss about things.

She was usually firm with me and no one else, which I found very annoying. She wasn’t the type of person to make a scene in public, but she was the type of person to allow someone to cut in front of her in the supermarket line and would rather stay quiet than complain.

I, on the other hand, would “politely” yell at them to get behind me and would threaten to turn their skin inside out, especially if, after I had asked the person nicely, they had deliberately chosen to ignore me.

One time, this actually occurred, and I was asked to leave by the manager.

I only complied because I knew she was just doing her job, but I still waited outside for the white girl wearing a tank top to come out, and once she did, I proceeded to throw a cup of ice-cold water in her face.

She screamed, I laughed, and my reputation was upheld.

For a while, my story went viral on social media, and I became a meme template.

The next time my “story” went viral wasn’t as pleasant.

At the grocery store, I was reading my book while I walked alongside my mom. I had tunnel vision as I bumped against a fruit stand and almost knocked it over.

“Oh, damn,” I exclaimed.

“Heather, language,” Michelle scolded. That’s my mom’s name. Sometimes I called her by her name to make her mad.

“Sorry. Bananas were in my way,” I explained.

“Can you help me get the groceries?”

“I’m reading.”

“I know that, but I brought you along so you could help me,” she clarified.

“Really?”

“Heather!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” I put my book away and began picking things out for her to buy.

I showed her fruit snacks, ice cream, chips, and beer.

She almost gagged on her own tongue on that last one.

I tried to explain to her that in Europe, kids began drinking at the age of fourteen, but she wasn’t having it.

I didn’t give up, though. I really wanted something to eat.

I showed her a package of chocolate bars.

“Can we have this?”I asked nicely.

“No,” she replied.

“Why not?” I whined.

“Wait. What is that?”

“Mom, it’s chocolate. You can’t tell?”

“Oh, it looks delicious,” she affirmed, while licking her lips.

“Can we have it?”

“No.”

I let out a loud “ugh” in frustration and returned it. I picked out a box of caramelized apples, which looked absolutely divine.

“Mom, this? It’s low carb.”

“How is that low carb?”

“It says it,” I assured her.

“Heather, how much is that?”

“I’ll pay for it,” I offered.

“Heather, you don’t have any money.”

“Can you give me some money?” I asked politely.

“No.”

“Can I get a job?”

“Absolutely not, Heather. Focus on school.”

I had one last plan to execute. I grabbed a giant bag of wrapped candies and gently placed it hidden inside the cart.

Unfortunately, my mom saw me. I tried to persuade her that sugar made you happy, but she argued that it caused disease.

I believed that since sugar also made you happy, it was worth getting a disease.

Shockingly, she disagreed. We disagreed even more on how to handle the situation that happened next.

As my mom was putting back the giant bag of candies on the shelf, an obnoxious young man who was talking on the phone squeezed between my mom and me to get through. He bumped into both of us and made my mom drop the bag onto the floor.

I almost burst into flames. This obnoxious twerp not only disrespected me, but he also disrespected my mom. He never turned around to apologize and just continued on his way. Whenever someone did something like that, I never let it go; I had to get even. My mom felt differently.

“Mom, can you believe that guy? I mean, what the hell? Sorry, I meant, What the heck?” I quickly corrected myself.

“It’s fine. He wasn’t paying attention. Let it go.”

“Mom, why do you do that? Why don’t you ever say something?”

“I’m not going to cause a scene in public. He might be dangerous. Didn’t you hear about those cannibals in that motel just outside Brightwood Lake?”

“Even if he’s a cannibal, it doesn’t give him an excuse to be so fudging rude,” I reasoned.

“Language!”

“What? I said, ‘fudging.’ ”

“I know what you implied.”

“Hold on. I’m about to imply something to that fucking dweeb over there.”

“Heather, no! Don’t cause a scene!”she yelled.

I tuned her out as I picked up and put away the fallen bag of candies. I walked over to the little twerp and prepared for war.

In my head, I called him “Dilbert.” I felt most people named Dilbert were either goofy weirdos or cannibalistic worshippers of Satan.

This Dilbert was special—he was just an ass.

When I caught up to him, I tapped him hard several times on the shoulder.

I made sure I dug into his weak shoulder bone. He looked like he had one of those.

“Uh, what?” Dilbert asked, with a surprised look on his face.

“You made my mom drop something on the ground. Those candies. You bumped into us and didn’t even say ‘sorry.’ ”

“Oh. Sorry, I guess?” Dilbert expressed, with doubt in his voice.

“What do you mean, ‘you guess’?”

“I don’t know. Bro, I’m kind of on the phone right now,” Dilbert explained.

“Oh, you are?”

“Yeah. Obviously.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it— bro ! I can’t believe I was interrupting you— bro .” I mocked.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, bro.”

“Okay!”

“By the way, now that I think about it, I think you two were in the way. You were both occupying both sides of the aisle,” Dilbert said.

“Oh, we were? Damn. We’re so dumb.”

“I wouldn’t say that, but sure, I guess.”

I stood there and stared at him intently. Exactly five seconds later, I smacked his phone out of his hand, and it clattered loudly as it hit the ground. A smirk formed on my face.

“Hey, what the hell?!” Dilbert exclaimed.

My mom was a few feet away, and she was frozen like a popsicle.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I think I spazzed out.”

He appeared to silently fume while he bent over to pick up his phone. Fortunately for him, it wasn’t cracked. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t cracked.

“You what? You spazzed?”

While he checked out his phone, I executed my original plan of attack.

I grabbed a bottle of squeezable hot sauce from the shelf and tore off the plastic covering.

Yes, they had bottles of hot sauce that you could squirt like ketchup.

Don’t ask me; ask the hot sauce fans. The second he looked up, I squirted hot sauce into Dilbert’s eyeballs while he screamed—it was one of the most glorious moments of my entire life.

The look of horror on my mom’s face said it all.

At this moment, she snapped out of her frozen state of mind and rushed towards us.

“Heather, stop that right now!”

“I will not!” I replied.

“My eyes are burning, lady!” Dilbert screamed.

“Good!” I shouted. “That’s what you get for disrespecting my mom and me and for calling me ‘bro,’ you stupid-ass Neanderthal. I’m not your bro .”

After that fiasco, the three of us went outside the grocery store. My mom and Dilbert spoke to separate security guards from the plaza while I sat down.