8. Jason
8
JASON
A fter two and a half weeks of being tutored by Laura, I wasn’t sure of what I hoped to accomplish with her. I wasn’t going to change. I would remain rude and mean toward her. She wasn’t my friend. She’d never be my ally. As Dean Chen’s daughter, she was a direct target to pay back that man I hated.
As I worked out with Rory, though, idle and thinking too much about her, I wondered how I would know whether I was succeeding.
“She obviously hasn’t told her dad that you’re being an asshole to her,” he commented after hearing me out when I spotted him lifting.
“No, she hasn’t.” And that was interesting too. I was sure after the first week that she’d tattle to her daddy that I was showing up, acting like a fucking jerk, and not doing a single thing to show any sign of “good faith” that I wanted to improve my grades.
I expected her to be upset and tell him, and then to have Dean Chen email me or send another letter to request another disciplinary hearing.
That hadn’t happened, though, and it confused me.
Was I not making her life hell?
When I considered that a couple of days ago, I doubled down. Posting about her and following her on campus, I made sure to target her even more outside of the time she tutored me.
She wasn’t fond of the torture. That much was obvious. Something about making her stiffen at the sound of my voice made me feel triumphant. Seeing her duck her head in shame made me victorious and stronger.
Yet, she didn’t tattle. She didn’t outwardly fight back.
Trying to understand why she let me treat her like shit only forced me to question what I was hoping to get out of it.
Yeah, it was a sick pleasure to make her upset. It was a projection of how much I loathed her dad and wanted to pay him back. But if she never told her dad, how was I even hurting Dean Chen? If she told him and he didn’t care, then that was even more messed up.
“Or,” Rory said with a smile as he set the bar back on the rests, “she’s too scared to tell on you.”
I liked that idea more. The thought of getting under her skin gave me something to focus on instead of the raging anger about her dad.
“Then she'd better buckle up and be ready for more,” I said.
All week, I’d been tormenting her in person. Posting rumors about her online was a good pastime too. When my buddies joined in, though, that was when I knew she’d have to cave sooner or later.
I wanted to see her fucking cry.
Maybe that was the ultimate test. That would be the reward I worked toward. Even if she didn’t tell Dean Chen how shitty I was treating her, I’d know that I harmed one of his loved ones, just like he’d ruined one of my loved ones.
Tit for tat.
Eye for an eye.
If I wanted to exact precise revenge like that, an eye for an eye, I’d need to work harder to ruin Laura’s life, and that would require more than what I was doing with my friends. They’d been a huge help in smearing her name.
Dennis headed up the lies online, calling her a slut and an easy lay.
Ever since she caved to say the words sex and fuck , I couldn’t tell whether she was a virgin or not. whether she was a prude or not. She stuck strictly to tutoring every session with so much focus that I couldn’t tell what else she was like behind the studious academic angle. Regardless of whether someone had ever fucked her before, or if she had an iota of sensuality in her, everything that got shared about her was the typical crap that would tear any woman down. Relentless cyberbullying would make anyone upset.
Kevin and Rory helped too, always on my side. Every new thing they spread as a rumor was worse than the one before. But still, I wasn’t getting any backlash for it.
Doesn’t Chen know?
Later, the next day as we walked on campus, Dennis gave me another idea that I hadn’t considered about my new target.
“Maybe she’s not saying anything or telling her dad because she wants it all to die down. You know, if she fights back, it’ll make it worse?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t in any mood to quit. It still pissed me off that she seemed to be waiting for me to quit the tutoring sessions. I showed up. And I would continue to show up, even if for no other reason than to piss her off. Her immediate tendency to guess I’d quit felt too much like being pushed aside and dismissed. Just like my parents always did.
“I heard her boyfriend is getting annoyed about it, though,” Kevin said.
“Wait.” I stopped short, looking at him. Then I couldn’t help but bark a single laugh. “Her boyfriend ?”
They all nodded, smiling and amused at my disbelief.
“She has a boyfriend?” I asked.
I hadn’t dug too deep to learn much about her, coming on too strong from the beginning to attack and slander without any care for how correct I was.
“Yeah.” Kevin nodded. “Some pre-med about to graduate.”
“Laura—Second-Best Chen—actually has a boyfriend?” I couldn’t believe it.
She’d never given any indication that she wasn’t alone and single.
The more I tried to let this fact sink into my brain, the less I wanted it to.
Who the fuck is she with?
I couldn’t picture her with some guy. And I didn’t really enjoy the fact that she wasn’t a virgin. That someone else had done her already.
Wait. Why the fuck should I care?
I laughed again. “Laura has a boyfriend.” It should’ve been a question.
“I think his name is Ethan,” Rory said. “He’s a fucking loser.”
“He’d have to be,” I teased. “To be with her.”
“Actually, there they are.” Dennis pointed them out across the campus square. We were near the entrance to the student hall, to get coffee, but we detoured according to where Dennis pointed.
Over there, seated on a bench, was Laura with some lame-ass dork. Whoever Ethan was, he looked like the pathetic sort of moron who’d be with a potential prude like Second-Best Chen.
With gel in his hair, a fucking pen in the breast pocket of his shirt that he had tucked in despite the summery heat, Ethan looked like a dumbass asking for an ass kicking.
“He looks like a moron,” I commented, squinting to spy on the couple.
Seated next to Laura, he smiled and talked while she seemed to check out of the conversation, awkwardly looking around as if she wanted to dart. When he lifted his arm to put it around her shoulders, he moved it up and down, unsure of how to touch her or lean in.
I laughed again.
What a waste.
If she was calling this guy her boyfriend, I bet she was still a virgin. Ethan looked like he had no confidence and no clue how to act around a woman.
We kept walking closer, or I did and my friends followed like usual.
Now that I had this little detail to exploit, I was eager to make her squirm.
To blush.
Fuck, why was I so addicted to the thought of hurting her?
“Aw, look at the two lovebirds,” I taunted as we approached.
Ethan froze, looking so intimidated that he was probably two seconds from pissing his pants.
Laura sighed, giving me that not again expression of dread. It was the only sign she ever gave me that she heard me taunting her, but it still wasn’t a clue that I was actually getting a rise out of her.
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend, Second-Best.” I tilted my head to the side, as if I were some kind bystander observing their love.
She swallowed, drawing my eye to her slender neck.
I resisted the fantasy of wrapping my fingers around it to hold her in place as I pounded into her.
“You look like a perfect match,” Dennis said, grinning and enjoying the role of a bully.
Her cheeks turned pinker, and I bit my lip, pleased with her intimidation.
“One unfuckable loser with another,” Kevin said, also using the same overly sugary voice that Dennis and I had. “Happy accident, love wins.” He clasped his hands together as we all cracked up.
They probably got more fun out of making Ethan frown and lower his gaze.
But I kept my eyes on Laura.
She glanced away, pressing her lips together as if she didn’t want to even address what we said.
It didn’t seem like they were into each other at all, and I grew annoyed with how much more curious that made me.
I didn’t like being curious about her at all.
I didn’t want to wonder why she didn’t tattle to her dad that I treated her like shit, and I didn’t want to be entertained by how much she tried to ignore how I tormented her.
Most of all, I wanted to cut off this intrigue about what she’d ever see in a loser like that guy.