Page 29 of My Rules for Revenge (Twisted YA Mysteries #1)

JACOB - PRESENT DAY

S ometimes plans can work out well, and other times, they completely fail. Carlos and I planned on having a few drinks, but that quickly turned into a lot of drinks. Pretty soon, we got drunk.

“Your objective has failed,” Carlos asserted.

“No, it did not. The party’s not over yet. I’m waiting for the right opportunity to strike,” I replied.

“You said that three beers ago.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did—look at the three empty bottles below you,” Carlos pointed out.

He was right. There were exactly three empty bottles below me.

“I guess I did. I don’t remember,” I mentioned.

I saw Frankie and Vivian heading upstairs. They were giggling.

“Oh, wow! Look at them. That looks like fun,” I said.

“Who? Is that Vivian? Are you crazy? That’s Heather’s best friend with Frankie. He’ll kill you if you try anything,” Carlos warned me.

“I’m drunk, and I’m feeling bold, my main man. It’s time to party.”

I shot up and stumbled my way through the crowd while Carlos tried to stop me.

“Dude, get back here. You will be murdered and thrown into a ditch by the entire basketball team if you don’t chill out.”

“I’m chill, bro. Just stay here until I come back,” I ordered.

“Okay, if you say so. Don’t call me if Heather or Frankie kills you. You would be dead, and dead people don’t make phone calls, because they’re dead! ” Carlos exclaimed.

To this day, I don’t know what compelled me to get up and go after them. It had to be that the “drunk me” was some sort of maniacal monster who held no boundaries. If I were honest, the “regular me” seldom held any boundaries as well.

What happened next at the party was an absolute blur of chaos, confusion, anarchy, and weird chanting. I remembered that Heather wanted to hurt me with a baseball bat after I told her something that made her very upset. She succeeded and bruised my body in various ways.

After that, I remembered being outside, where she proceeded to make me bleed from my nose.

I felt like utter trash and tried to apologize to her, which may not have been the best thing to do at the moment, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty.

It was after that little event that I began to think about what the hell I had been doing.

I stood outside Frankie’s house in a daze. It could’ve been the alcohol that made me feel guilty, but I wanted to believe it was something else within me that finally awakened. It sounded dumb after the things I did, but it was the truth.

When I turned around, I saw Carlos sitting down on the side of the house, drinking. He looked miserable. We both had a rough night. I slowly walked over to him while I wiped my nose and plopped down next to him. I softly groaned as my shoulder ached.

“I saw what happened. Did it hurt?” Carlos asked.

“Yeah. It did. What happened to you?”

“I got kicked out by Porter, Marcus, Enrique, and some freaky Asian dude named Jerry. They literally picked me up and tossed me out. I managed to snag a couple of drinks, though.”

“I can’t believe Heather tried to kill me with a baseball bat. That was legitimately scary.”

“I told you that was gonna happen. She’s a goblin,” Carlos reminded me.

“Yeah. You were right. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking,” I admitted.

“It’s alright, man. This plan failed, but there’s always next time. This isn’t over until we say it’s over,” Carlos remarked.

“Honestly, I’m rethinking this entire feud with Heather,” I confessed.

“Huh?”

“I don’t know, man. I feel bad, I guess,” I said.

“Bro, that’s the alcohol talking. You’ll be fine tomorrow. Well, you might have a hangover tomorrow. You’ll be fine the day after tomorrow. I swear,” Carlos assured.

“I don’t know, Carlos, but when I was walking out of the house after Eddy saved my sorry ass, everyone just stared at me like I was the biggest monster ever.

They looked at me with such disgust, and I couldn’t tell you why, but I felt completely humiliated in that moment, one of the worst feelings ever,” I explained.

“Dude, what the hell are you talking about? People always look at you like that.”

“You know, ever since I was little, my mom never wanted me to have a girlfriend. She’d always bash me for wanting one, as she thinks they’d just steal my money, cheat on me, break my heart, and break my stuff.

She also said they’re super picky and high maintenance and that I’m better off never having one,” I explained.

“Whoa, that’s kind of messed up. Why are you bringing this up again? Did I miss something? I’m kind of wasted.”

“I guess that’s why I wanted a girlfriend in high school so badly.

I wanted to prove to her that what she said was wrong.

The thing is, they’ve all rejected me. You don’t understand how much I hate that.

The fact that she’s turning out to be right.

There’s nothing in this world that depresses me more. ”

“That’s wild. Hey, you think they’ll let us back into the party now that everything’s chill?” Carlos asked.

“I’m sorry if I’m rambling. It’s just that I got an email from Bright Rock’s admissions team.

He said they loved that little computer program I made with Manny.

The one that translates any English word into Klingon.

I gotta finish this year off strong and stop going viral on social media for the wrong reasons.

I have to escape this place, man. What the hell am I doing?

I’m single-handedly destroying my college dreams. I was wrong. My scholarship isn’t safe anymore.”

“That program was pretty sick. So, shall we go back?” Carlos asked.

“I’ll be stuck in a cycle of nothingness and pain if I stay here. That’s exactly what my mom wants. She wants to leech off my life force until there’s nothing left. I bet that’s why my dad left. She’ll never admit it, but I know that’s why.”

“I’m guessing that’s a ‘No.’ ” Carlos pointed out.

After the events of this party, I knew I needed to stop. My future was at stake. I knew that was a shitty and selfish reason to stop bullying Heather, but it was the horrible truth.

I slowly got up and got ready to walk back home. I wanted to be alone.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“I’m heading home, Carlos. It’s been a long night,” I commented.

“Dude, c’mon, just stay. I’ve done some bad things too. Things you don’t even know about,” Carlos confessed.

“Are you talking about the things we did to Heather? What else have you done?”

“No, not that. Well…never mind, it doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done,” Carlos explained.

“If you say so,” I replied.

As I walked home, I was utterly down in the dumps emotionally, and I felt like my organs were imploding.

I continued to think about everything that had happened.

I wouldn’t be in the position I was in if I hadn’t been such a douchebag.

My head pounded like it was getting slashed from the inside with a pickaxe, and my legs cramped up as I walked.

I wanted to collapse on the ground until the sun rose.

I began to fear that I wasn’t going to be able to make the long walk back home. After a few more steps, I turned around. I had to get a ride from Manny. There was no way I was going to make it home. I wasn’t thinking straight.

Soon after, I saw an SUV with blinding headlights speeding towards me, honking loudly.

Is that Manny? How did he find me? I thought.

It wasn’t. It kept roaring towards me, and I thought it was about to flatten me like a pancake.

I prepared to launch myself out of the way, but the SUV soon screeched to a halt a few feet in front of me, blocking me off.

Behind the two bright headlights, two clearly muscular giant figures with long blonde hair emerged from the vehicle.

When I saw that the veins on their arms popped out from underneath their skin, I audibly gulped and then tried to run, but my legs buckled, and without saying a single word, they clutched onto my arms and legs and lifted me up while I struggled to go free.

I was still pretty drunk and had minimal control of my body.

I began to feel very woozy, like I was in a heavenly dream or like I was on a shroom trip.

I was being taken through the darkness of a nearby forest. I only knew this because I saw the giant silhouettes of trees, and I heard the fierce crunch of grass beneath my captors’ feet.

This is it. This is where it ends, I thought.

Several minutes later, my head was submerged underwater.

I began to drown as my air bubbles shot to the surface.

I was there for a good while until my head was finally pulled out.

I violently coughed out water from my lungs as I desperately gasped for oxygen.

A firm hand tightly grabbed onto my hair, and I only figured out who my attackers were when they spoke, because it was too dark to see.

“Jacob Boruta. I know it was you who said all those horrible things about me on social media,” Angelica said.

“You can’t expect to say things like that and not get punished. We saw what happened to you at the party. We thought you deserved more punishment,” Erica added.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please don’t kill me,” I said while I sputtered water out.

They both laughed.

“We’re not going to kill you, idiot,” Angelica pointed out.

“Yeah, we’re not murderers. What the hell do you think this is?” Erica asked.

Angelica plunged my head back into the water for several more seconds. By now, I felt lifeless, as there wasn’t much I could do against two massive titans, hell-bent on revenge.

Fortunately for me, she pulled me out and shoved me to the ground. I continued to cough profusely as I tried to breathe.

“That was for us, for Heather, Vivian, Luna, and all the other women you’ve messed with,” Angelica said as she pressed her knee into my throat, choking me.

“Do something like that again. We dare you,” Erica remarked.

“If you say anything to anyone, we’ll find you again, and it’ll be ten times worse,” Angelica threatened.

They stomped away while I closed my eyes shut. I thought I was gonna die as I desperately coughed and wheezed for air. I lay there for a couple of hours massaging my throat before Manny called me. He managed to find me and helped me walk to his car along with Carlos.

Despite the type of person I was, I was very lucky to have loyal friends. If it weren’t for them, I might’ve been seriously screwed. I thought I was about to be drowned in that isolated area at the hands of those two blonde, violent behemoths.

As Manny drove me home, he and Carlos barraged me with questions. I tried to answer them as best as I could, but I was completely out of it. I told myself over and over again that this was my wake-up call and I needed to pay attention.

I knew the feud between Heather and me needed to come to an end.