Page 4 of My Rules for Revenge (Twisted YA Mysteries #1)

JACOB

W hat I’ve realized in my life is that women are despicable creatures, especially the stuck-up girls at Brightwood High. They were downright barbaric, and the prettier they were, the crazier they revealed themselves to be.

I loathed the way they looked at me like I had warts on my face, or when they rushed past me in the hallway like I had an extremely contagious disease. I reasoned they were allergic to my horn-rimmed glasses and nicely pressed polo shirts.

I was a senior, and if you haven’t guessed it already, I was a virgin, and that classified me as a complete nerd.

I wasn’t friends with the jocks or buddies with the student body president.

Carlos and Manny were my only two friends, and we were like brothers.

We played video games most of the time, and I trusted and confided in no one else.

Our loyalty was to each other, and we accepted no outsiders.

Other than that, we helped around the school with computer-related stuff since we were PC support.

We all first met in the basement-sized computer room at school that we nicknamed the Man Cave. This was our safe space—our secret dungeon of online gaming, where we hung out for half the day.

We enjoyed certain privileges that were provided to us by the school administration due to our “excellence” in helping out many teachers with their computer issues.

We mostly showed them how to turn on a printer or how to get rid of pornographic malware—the pop-ups that say, “ You have accessed an illegal website .”

When it came to technology, most of these old geezers were brain-dead. They collectively all had three brain cells to share. We never cared or complained. We had the time to game and find the social media profiles of the hottest girls at Brightwood.

I was in the Man Cave while I played Worldly Wizard Quest. I had my expensive gaming PC in there. It cost me a ton of money, but I didn’t care—it ran games like a wet dream.

Carlos kept watch at the door while he straightened out his plaid shirt so that his beer belly wouldn’t stick out. It didn’t work. One thing to understand about Carlos was that he was a very crude guy and said whatever was on his mind. I appreciated that about him.

“Heal me, teammate. You’re absolute trash!” I barked at the computer monitor.

“Screw this, Jacob. I’m going to the HotGirls website. My premium expires in two days, and I need to export all my favorite videos. There are seven thousand videos in that playlist,” Carlos stressed.

“No, bro, watch the door. She can come in at any time.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“Because I have you to do it for me,” I replied.

“So, does this mean you’ll help me export my playlist?”

“I’ll think about it. Now, go watch that door like a hawk.”

Carlos creepily rubbed his fingers together and proceeded to do what I commanded. When his eyes widened, I knew that he had spotted her.

“Jacob, she’s coming—she’s coming right now.”

“Go hide behind the desk, now!”

I minimized my game’s window and shot up from my chair. I grabbed a sunflower that I had next to me and quickly fixed my exquisitely gelled hair. Carlos stared at me while I did so. I shoved him near the desk, and he finally complied.

She walked in, and I was starstruck. It was Luna Rivas, a high school junior, one grade below me, but that didn’t really matter.

I knew I was better than those junior douchebags she hung out with.

In fact, I figured that dating me would be the best thing that ever happened to her.

Her light brown hair had streaks of gold, while her nails were painted a sunshine yellow.

I appreciated it when girls went the extra mile. It certainly showed for her.

I still believed girls were despicable creatures, but some of them hid it better than others. She had a PC support ticket in hand. I was prepared to help her in any way she needed.

“Hi, Jacob. Miss Leslie needs her printer fixed. It won’t print color,” Luna explained.

“Hey, Luna. No problem, we’ll get that fixed. Happy late Valentine’s Day, by the way.”

“Uh, thanks? I guess,” she mumbled.

“Did you do anything special yesterday?”

“No, not really. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Did you get my text message? I could’ve taken you out. It didn’t have to be anything serious.”

“Yeah, I did get it. Sorry, I didn’t answer, but I was busy.”

“Oh…okay. Well, you just said you didn’t do anything. So, that’s a little weird.”

Luna's eyes darted around the room as she stayed quiet.

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to give you this.”

I passed the sunflower over to her as she reluctantly received it. She seemed confused as she inspected it.

“Oh, wow! Thanks. This is nice,” she replied quietly.

“Yeah, you’re welcome.”

I inched closer to her.

“Hey, if you want to do something with me, don’t be shy—I feel the same way,” I whispered seductively.

“What are you talking about? Why are you whispering?” she asked.

I gave her the best sensual look I could muster up and stared straight into her eyes.

“You know.”

Suddenly, the color drained from her face as she placed down the sunflower and the PC support ticket.

“I’m so sorry, Jacob. No. Just no. I don’t understand why you’re saying all that.”

“What do you mean, you don’t understand? I’m making things perfectly clear. What’s your problem? You said you didn’t have a boyfriend,” I pointed out.

Just then, we heard a loud bang that came from the desk. Carlos hit his head like a complete moron and ruined my moment of romance.

“Whatever. Please fix Ms. Leslie’s printer,” she requested as she slithered away.

“Wait, just chill out. Come back!” I exclaimed.

It was no use—she was long gone. I threw a chair across the room in frustration. Carlos slowly popped up from behind the desk.

“So, how’d it go?” Carlos asked.

“How do you think it went, genius?”

“Badly, I suppose,” Carlos replied.

“No surprise there.”

Carlos walked towards me and picked up the sunflower.

“I can’t believe she rejected your sunflower. She loves them. We did the research.”

“I bet if she had received it from one of those annoying-ass jocks, she would’ve loved it. The girls at this school are snobby bitches,” I hissed.

“You knew that already. Why do you even try anymore?” Carlos asked.

I had thought about this very question before. Why did I even try? My great efforts in winning these girls over always produced the same disastrous results. I concluded that they were all ungrateful bitches and that since I was a “nerd,” I was automatically discriminated against.

I blamed the jocks. I just knew that they’d talked shit about us to the girls at this school. We had no chance, but I just had to keep trying. I figured that there had to be at least one lucky girl who would appreciate my grand, romantic gestures.

“I’ll tell you the truth, Carlos. I wanna get laid.”

“You can always get laid when you get to college,” Carlos replied.

“I need experience before I throw myself at those crazy college hoes. They’ll think I’m a complete loser if I’m still a virgin by then.”

“That might actually attract them.”

“We’ll see, Carlos. We’ll see.”

He stood up.

“Come on. We gotta go check out this idiot’s printer. It’s probably out of color cartridges. I can’t wait to see her face when we tell her we can’t fix it.” Carlos laughed.

“This should be good.”

As we walked to Miss Leslie’s classroom, we goofed around a lot.

We had certain privileges that allowed us this luxury.

If any dip-wad teacher wanted to reprimand us, we would show our PC support badges, and they wouldn’t be able to tell us a single thing.

They knew better than that. We would purposely sabotage their computers or internet connections if they tried us.

We’ve only had to do this once, and word got around quickly.

After that, most teachers treated us like angels. If only the girls treated us the same.

While we approached our lockers, we spotted a skinny athlete who carried a bag of basketballs. It was Eddy Chavez, an awkward loser who had no business being on a sports team.I hated that guy.

We laughed to ourselves as he struggled.

Soon after that, two girls who were also laughing walked near him.

One of them I recognized—she wore colorful headbands and long, baggy shirts.

The girl she was with, I had seen only a handful of times.

She was an exotic Asian specimen, a rare sight at our high school, which was mostly attended by white girls and Latinas.

Eddy stared at Heather while she walked past him, and she was quick to notice.

Carlos and I stretched our ears to eavesdrop on their spur-of-the-moment conversation.

“Hey!” Heather exclaimed.

Eddy stopped and visibly gulped.

“What…?” Eddy replied.

“Were you staring at my ass?” Heather asked.

We saw Eddy’s face turn bright red like an apple. Carlos and I giggled uncontrollably like schoolgirls. We thought we were about to witness Eddy getting his ass whooped. That would’ve been the highlight of our entire week.

“What?” Eddy repeated.

“Why do you keep saying ‘ what ’?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I wasn’t staring at… you know. My eyes drifted there by accident, but I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable. My eyes tend to drift wherever they desire.”

Eddy nervously chuckled. Heather remained unconvinced, while Vivian gave him a sympathetic look.

“I’m sorry, your eyes do what?” Heather asked.

“No, wait. That’s not exactly what I meant. I’m sorry—that sounded dumb.”

“Yeah, that did sound dumb.”

“Don’t be mean,” Vivian said while she softly hit her on the shoulder.

“Why are you hitting me? That doesn’t even hurt.”

“I’m really sorry, Heather. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”