Chapter 2

The next morning, I woke up with a headache.

Not the kind caused by a cold, lack of sleep, or even the fact that Felix had spent most of the previous evening laughing every time he looked at me. No, this headache was caused entirely by remembering that Noel Carter had witnessed the Pink Razor Incident.

The second I opened my eyes, the entire scene replayed itself in my head like a movie I had never agreed to watch. Me charging downstairs. Me yelling at Felix. Me waving a pink razor around. Me screaming. Noel screaming back.

I buried my face in my pillow. There were moments in life when getting out of bed felt impossible. This was one of them.

For a brief moment, I considered pretending to be dead. Unfortunately, my mother believed in things like responsibility, education, and regular school attendance.

"Frankie!" she shouted from downstairs.

I groaned into my pillow. "Five more minutes!"

"You said that ten minutes ago!"

"Then clearly I'm committed to the bit."

A moment later, my bedroom door opened and Felix walked in carrying a bowl of cereal. I immediately sat up.

"Get out."

"No."

"Why are you even here?"

He took a bite of cereal. "I just wanted to see how the celebrity was doing."

I narrowed my eyes. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing."

That answer alone was enough to make me suspicious.

Felix was physically incapable of saying "nothing" and meaning it.

"What did you do?"

His grin widened. "I didn't do anything."

"You have the face."

"What face?"

"The face you make right before Mom discovers a broken lamp."

"I think you're imagining things."

I threw a pillow at him.

He caught it easily.

"By the way," he said casually, "Noel thought yesterday was funny."

I froze.

"What?"

"He thought it was funny."

I hated how interested I sounded, but Felix noticed immediately.

"Oh my God, you care."

"I don't."

"You actually care."

"I DON'T."

"You absolutely care."

I grabbed another pillow and Felix wisely left before I could throw it.

The moment he disappeared, I collapsed backward onto my bed. Noel thought yesterday was funny. That wasn't great, but it also wasn't terrible. Funny was better than horrifying. Better than humiliating. Funny was survivable.

Maybe this wasn't the end of the world after all. Maybe everyone would forget about it. Maybe life would continue normally.

Maybe… . .

"Frankie!" Mom yelled again from downstairs. "School!"

Apparently life was continuing whether I liked it or not.

An hour later, I stepped onto campus and immediately got the feeling that something was off. People were looking at me. Not just the occasional glance either. Everywhere I looked, someone seemed to be staring, whispering, or suddenly looking away when I noticed them.

At first, I tried to convince myself I was imagining it. Maybe I was still traumatized from yesterday and had become weirdly paranoid. Maybe nobody was actually paying attention to me, and I was just suffering from a severe case of main-character syndrome.

Then a group of freshmen walked past. One of them whispered something to the others, and a second later they all started laughing.

I stopped walking. A terrible feeling settled in my stomach.

No, no, no.

There was no way Felix had told people about yesterday.

Sure, he was annoying. Sure, he enjoyed my suffering far more than any loving brother should. But even Felix wouldn't spread the story across an entire school.

…would he?

Before I could decide, somebody called from behind me.

"Frankie!"

I turned to see Aurora Clover, my one and only bestie running toward me. The moment she reached me, she grabbed my arm.

"You are never going to believe what happened."

My heart immediately sank. "You know."

"I know." Aurora covered her mouth. "Honestly, I wish I didn't."

I closed my eyes. For one beautiful second, I considered transferring schools. Maybe changing my name. Possibly entering witness protection. When I opened my eyes again, Aurora was staring at me with obvious sympathy.

"How many people know?" I asked.

She hesitated. That was not a good sign.

"Aurora."

"A lot."

My stomach dropped. "How many is a lot?"

She gave me an apologetic look. "Most of the school."

I nearly walked into a tree. "Most of the school?"

"I don't know if it's literally the whole school."

The way she said it told me it was absolutely the whole school.

"Okay," she admitted a second later. "Maybe it is the whole school."

For a moment, I just stared at her, hoping she was exaggerating. She wasn't. Instead, she stared back with the expression of someone delivering terrible news and wishing they were somewhere else.

Then she winced.

"On the bright side," she said carefully, "everybody agrees the screaming part was funny."

That was not a bright side. That was, in fact, the exact opposite of a bright side.

I pointed at her. "You're supposed to be on my side."

"I am on your side."

"Then stop finding this amusing."

"I'm trying."

She wasn't trying very hard. I could tell because she was smiling.

Before I could respond, another group of students walked past us. One of them glanced in my direction, then leaned over and said something to his friend. A second later, they both looked at me and started laughing.

I immediately looked away, I wanted the ground to open beneath my feet.

"Who told them?" I asked.

Aurora gave me a look. The answer hit me almost instantly.

FELIX. Of course it was FELIX.

Who else could it be? He'd been laughing about the incident since yesterday. He practically collected embarrassing moments the way other people collected hobbies.

I already knew the answer. I just didn't want to hear it.

I sighed. "Say it."

Aurora patted my shoulder. "It was NOEL."

For a second, everything seemed to go quiet. Not literally, of course. Students were still talking, people were still walking around, and the world continued functioning exactly as it had a moment earlier. But inside my head, all I could focus on was a single thought.

NOEL?????

For one brief moment, I'd been so sure it was Felix. I had been fully prepared to hunt down my brother and make his life miserable for the next six months. But Felix wasn't the one who'd told everyone.

It was Noel.

My secret crush.

The same Noel who had watched me humiliate myself yesterday and had apparently decided that experience was worth sharing with the entire school.

A wave of disbelief hit first, followed quickly by embarrassment and then pure, blazing anger.

"Oh, he's fuckin dead," I said.

Aurora blinked. "What?"

"Dead. Gone. Finished. He's not surviving this."

"Frankie…."

"No. Absolutely not. I cannot believe him."

Because out of everyone involved in the Pink Razor Incident, Noel had somehow been the last person I expected to tell anyone. And yet here we were. My entire school knew.

Noel Carter was a dead man.

About ten minutes later, I spotted him near the science building, standing with a few friends and looking completely normal. He was laughing, smiling, and generally going about his day as if he hadn't just ruined mine.

The moment our eyes met, his smile widened. My blood pressure immediately doubled. Any remaining hope that this was all a misunderstanding immediately died.

He knew.

He knew that I knew.

The traitor.

The absolute traitor.

I started walking toward him.

Aurora immediately grabbed my backpack.

"Frankie."

"Let go."

"What are you planning?"

"Violence."

"Frankie."

"He started it."

"You cannot murder people on school property."

"Watch me."

To my annoyance, she refused to release me until I promised not to commit any crimes.

By the time she finally let go, Noel had already spotted us. And unfortunately for him, he looked very pleased with himself.

I pointed at him from across the courtyard. His smile grew even wider. Then, very clearly, he mouthed two words.

Hi, Frank.

The audacity.

I stared at him in disbelief. He stared right back, completely unbothered. Then, as if he hadn't just betrayed me to the entire school, he lifted a hand and gave me a casual wave.

At that moment, I had never wanted to throw a razor at someone more in my entire life.

And judging by the way Noel was laughing, I had a feeling he wasn't sorry at all.