Chapter Twenty-Eight. Reid
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
REID
NOW
@haikuforyou
Given the chance to
Remind them of who we are
I would show them all
THE FIGHT IS UTTER chaos.
For the first few seconds I have the advantage and whale on Josh, holding nothing back. Every time I ever wanted to hit him comes surging through my fists. When he tripped me at state, when he talked down to Clara, every time he opens his fucking mouth.
“Reid! Stop it!”
I know it’s Clara, but that only urges me on. Along with adrenaline and the satisfying crunch of bone and muscle as I try to hurt him as much as he hurt her. Knowing he kissed her, touched her, only adds to the fury.
But despite the blood pouring down his nose, he recovers much quicker than I expect and throws himself at me with a savage force.
A folding chair breaks our fall, and we land in a crash against the hardwood floor of the auditorium.
But I barely register the hard ground or the shocked, horrified screams of the crowd.
Josh hovers over me, a wild look in his eye as he hits me so hard my head snaps back.
Pain explodes through my head for a second.
In the next moment, massive arms encircle him from behind, which allows me to scramble out of the way of Josh’s next blow.
Mitchell holds him with one arm and shoves me back with another.
Even with my brother in the way, I lunge for Josh again, thinking of all the ways he lied, all the times he ruined everything. He struggles against Mitchell’s hold, too, but Mitchell’s a lot stronger than him. It takes Kenji, my dad, and Principal West getting between us before it’s over.
I’m panting and sweating, and my eye is already swelling, but I have never felt more satisfied in my life than knocking that smug look off Josh West’s face.
Principal West’s voice is gruff; the words come out through gritted teeth. “Both of you outside. Now.”
But my knee is screaming, and I don’t trust myself to walk.
Not in front of all these people. Instead, I sink into a chair pretending like I need to catch my breath.
Like I’m hurt worse than I am. Josh slumps in one, too, wiping the blood off his swollen nose.
West seems to decide that the next best thing to do is end the brunch.
The crowd dissipates reluctantly. None of the Legacies or my friends leave.
Clara rushes over to me, her eyes wide and terrified. I feel her shaking fingertips featherlight across my face. “Are you okay?”
“Get your camera,” I say over a grunt.
“What?”
I grab her hand against my cheek and squeeze it gently. “Just do it.”
Though she looks exasperated, she does. She steps off to the side, pointing it at the surrounding group. Poised to capture everything.
Good. Let her get Josh’s confession on the record once and for all.
My dad sprints to grab the first aid kit from his office and several packs of ice. When he returns, a queasy feeling takes over seeing the stress and worry in his eyes. But I can’t see much more once he slaps an ice pack on my face.
He checks me and Josh both for serious injuries. Once he’s determined they’re nothing more than swelling and cuts, Principal West takes over. His arms folded tightly across his chest.
Anger makes his words quake. “A fight between my own son and the guest of honor. In all my years as principal, I have never been so disappointed. What could possess you to pull this in a room full of the wealthiest, most influential benefactors this school has ever had?”
I think Josh narrows his eyes, but I can’t quite tell from the swelling. “Ask him.”
West turns to me. “Well?”
“Josh took the video of Clara and played it at the assembly.”
There’s a collective gasp. Clara looking the most stunned out of everyone.
But Josh scoffs. “What the fuck?”
“Language, Joshua.”
Josh grimaces, then immediately winces at the motion. “I already told you on camera that I had nothing to do with it.”
I gesture for Logan to step forward. He does so reluctantly.
He’s pale, clearly freaked out that his off-the-cuff comment resulted in all this. “Sorry, man, but you know you gave me that flash drive when I was working the projector.”
Josh opens his mouth to answer then closes it. He shakes his head slowly. “Yeah, I gave you the flash drive my dad told me to give you. I didn’t know what was on it. I was just the freaking messenger.”
I spin to face Principal West, and the motion makes my eye throb. I press the ice pack harder to it.
West holds up his hands to calm the murmuring of the group. “Clara submitted a flash drive with her documentary sample as part of her Legacy application. I assure you, and the selection committee can attest, there was no such video on it at the time we reviewed it.”
I study him. He’s a jerk for a lot of reasons, but it doesn’t seem like he’s lying. He seems freaked out that it was tampered with on his watch.
If they’re telling the truth, then Josh really had nothing to do with it. Which means as good as it felt, I just really fucked up. The Legacy terms include a zero-tolerance policy for physical assault. For all the ways I’ve tried to keep it together, I just let it all go in one impulsive moment.
Clara meets my eyes over her camera, clearly putting the same pieces together.
“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to take this incident to the board for review of your statuses and ban you both from the banquet tonight,” West says.
Josh glowers at me. “Happy? She seriously worth all this?”
I have to control my breathing as he reminds me that even if I punched him for the wrong reason this time, I was still right to do it.
“Can I speak to you a moment?” Dad asks Principal West.
Dad pulls West aside, and they have a conversation in low, tense tones. When they’re done, West looks notably perkier.
“Well,”—he claps his hands once—“Reid, I understand and can even appreciate how … passionate you are about this issue. It’s natural for young men to work through their conflicts this way.”
Clara’s and Delaney’s identical scoffs are the only sound in the room.
“Considering the caliber of guests coming tonight, we can’t very well make any rash decisions today. I do believe I can convince the board we should review it at a later date.”
The “caliber of guests” meaning the Olympic coach Dad convinced to come here.
To meet with the athlete I’m not sure I even am anymore.
My lungs feel tight knowing I’m trapped, as a mix of relief and disgust flow through me in equal measure.
I can hit the shit out of the principal’s own son and still keep my Legacy spot and scholarship, but Clara did nothing wrong and lost hers.
I want to punch something all over again.
I would if my knuckles didn’t hurt so badly.
The crowd continues to disperse, but I don’t move.
I’m not sure I can. My dad is about to approach me, a furious look on his face, and I catch Mitchell’s eye, silently pleading with him to intervene.
He nods and slings his arm around my dad, talking a mile a minute.
Somehow convincing him to give me some space right now.
Amaya is tearful as she helps Josh up. “You poor thing,” she murmurs, before shooting me a glare. He wraps his arm around her, and she nestles closer against him as they walk slowly away from the group.
“I thought you were over all that,” Nicole says to me. She gnaws on her thumbnail, a panicked look in her eye. A look I don’t quite understand but that tugs on the murky memory of our talk after the play last night.
I just stare at her, trying to remember what she said. But I don’t before Amaya calls her over.
Which leaves me with Clara.
She puts the camera down on the table beside us and lowers herself to my eyeline.
“Your beautiful face,” she scolds.
I snort at the playfully forlorn tone in her voice and regret it immediately when pain sweeps through my nose.
As she takes in the various states of my injuries, I watch her expression shift from concern to relief, landing somewhere in between. When she’s seemingly satisfied I’ll live, she leans back on her heels.
“You finally punched Josh West,” she says, her eyes shining. “How did it feel?”
I sigh. “It would’ve been better if he had actually done it.”
She shrugs one shoulder up. “It’s okay. Thanks to you, I think I know who did.”
I sit up straighter, which causes my ribs to ache. “You do?”
“I knew Logan was the one who ran the projection booth, but when Delaney and I asked around about it last year, Amaya said he was sitting with her during the assembly. It wasn’t until you called him out just now that I realized she was lying.”
My stomach sinks. “Why would Amaya lie about that? To cover for him?”
“Not him. Think about it,” she urges me.
“We know Amaya didn’t take the video because she was in New York.
We now know Logan played the video at the assembly …
and we know that he and Nicole hooked up the other night and have been acting like a couple all weekend out of nowhere.
Maybe that was something going on all last year and we didn’t even know. ”
“Okay…” My head hurts.
“Who else would Amaya protect?” she asks.
Protect.
That’s when the drunken memory hits me. The last thing Nicole said to me before I passed out last night.
You can trust me, she breathed in my ear. If it hadn’t been for me, Amaya wouldn’t know what kind of guy Josh is, and you wouldn’t know what kind of girl Clara is. I’ll do anything to protect my friends, Reid.
“Amaya lied about him sitting with her not to cover for Logan…”
My voice is barely above a whisper. “To cover for Nicole.”
The corner of her mouth curls up, and she nods.
“Nicole took the video.”