3 #2
“I hate the Marquis de Sade,” he whispered to me earnestly.
“He’s so repulsive. They are all just perversions and frustrated fantasies written as a form of release .
. . yet a real reader reads all kinds of books.
It doesn’t mean they’ll like them all; it means they’re open, curious, willing to give things a chance, and—above all—don’t waste time offering baseless criticism or supporting other people’s unfounded critiques.
A true reader is able to form their own opinion, and that’s enough for them.
That’s good enough for me.” He paused, then finished, “Is that so hard for you to understand? Or is it just easier for you to judge people because they aren’t into the same things as you? ”
And with that, he delivered two sharp and triumphant blows to my mind.
But I refused to keep quiet because I’d rather be buried alive than let someone get one over on me. I exhaled and shook my head, overwhelmed by his little speech.
“No, wait,” I said, composing myself, ready to get into the debate. “I didn’t think you’d read something like that because you’re . . .”
“A Cash?” he said right off the bat. I blinked, incredulous.
“Well . . . yeah.”
“Wow,” he laughed, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
I couldn’t even get another word in. He raised his hand.
“Can I work alone this term?” Everyone turned around to look at him.
Ms. Lauris stopped writing on the whiteboard and gave him a curious look.
“It’s just that my partner thinks that I’m stupid because of my surname and that my reading tastes make me sick and repulsive.
And, to be honest, I think that’s really prejudiced. ”
Another slap in the face.
The whole class looked at me. Some covered their mouths to hold back laughter. I knew I’d put my foot in it.
I squeezed the pen hard.
“That’s not true!” I quickly hit back. “It isn’t true. All I said was . . . I meant to say that . . .”
So, yeah, I came across as stupid. I couldn’t turn things around. I trailed off because I couldn’t explain why I thought Adrik was an idiot.
I was a total joke.
“I’m afraid, Adrik,” said the teacher after shushing the students, “that this is all the more reason for you to work together and debate your different points of view, which is the whole purpose of the class.”
So, we weren’t split up, but we didn’t speak again for the rest of the class either.
As soon as the bell rang, Adrik grabbed his backpack and left.
I was glad not to have him around, but, deep down, I was left with the annoying and irritating feeling that he’d got one over on me.
Normally, I knew how to give as good as I got, but I had to admit that he’d taken me apart in less than five minutes in a way that was surprising and almost . . . admirable.
No, not admirable.
I had to be very careful with him. He was almost the most dangerous Cash, although there’s no way he could outdo Aegan. Or maybe cruelty was less harmful than intelligence?
I went to the cafeteria for lunch, where Artie had said she’d wait for me.
Up to that point, I had always considered cafeterias to be noisy, crowded, smelly places with stained floors.
In Tagus, of course, this wasn’t the case.
The cafeteria was sophisticated and clean, and everyone was speaking in hushed voices.
The food didn’t live up to the standards of the discerning palates of students who were used to the campus restaurants, but some people didn’t have time to go anywhere else.
I grudgingly dropped my tray of chicken and mashed potatoes onto the table.
Artie looked up from her notebook. She was eating and studying at the same time with her laptop in front of her.
She was wearing large horn-rimmed glasses that I didn’t know she needed and a thin headband in her short hair.
Again, I noticed her biting her lower lip like a girl from Twilight.
She seemed to be really insecure. Restless. Artie was restless, but not the hyperactive type, the nervous type. The question was why.
“What’s wrong?” she asked me when she noticed that I didn’t look very happy.
I sighed. “I thought that Literature would be—”
“What?” she cut me off. “You’re in Literature?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, taken aback by her reaction. “Why are you saying it like that?”
“That’s Adrik’s class,” she replied right back. “His territory.”
The panic I picked up in her voice left me more puzzled, but what she’d said made sense. Even the teacher seemed to adore him.
I needed information.
“Which classes do the Cash brothers rule?” I asked. “So I can make sure not to choose them.”
Artie didn’t hear me. In fact, she went into a kind of panic that surprised me.
“First of all, you have to drop out of Literature right now,” she said, and quickly put down her fork to look for something on her laptop. “There’s a form to switch subjects here somewhere.”
“No.” I tried to stop her. “I’m not going to change. I can stay clear of the other subjects, but I’ve already enrolled in this one, and leaving would be like shouting from the rooftops that I’m a coward.”
She looked at me like she couldn’t quite figure me out.
“At this stage, do you really care what others will think if you drop out?” she replied in bewilderment. “You already went looking for trouble with Aegan. Now you’re going to go looking for trouble with Adrik? The best thing would be to stay clear of him before things get out of hand.”
I furrowed my brow, suddenly filled with anger.
“Just because he’s in my class, I’m asking for trouble?”
“I mean, it’s obvious there’s a bit of friction between you, and I’m only telling you because . . .”
“You’re afraid of them,” I cut her off, stating the obvious. “Or did you think I hadn’t noticed?”
Artie sighed, looked around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping, and then leaned forward so she couldn’t be heard. I could sense panic.
“Jude, I know you got a kick out of taking on Aegan,” she whispered, sounding very serious. “I’ll admit that even I enjoyed seeing his face when you won, but to get into a rivalry with someone like him, you have to at least be on the same social level. Otherwise he’ll destroy you.”
I knew she was probably right, but I wasn’t scared. “Being afraid of someone powerful only makes them more powerful,” I said.
She pursed her lips and got comfortable in her chair. She looked at the laptop screen again. There was a mysterious silence until she finally muttered, “You don’t know what they’re capable of doing. What Aegan’s capable of.”
“And you do?” I asked. “If so, spill.”
She said nothing, yet her silence said a lot, and left me staring at her.
Maybe she also thought I had to steer clear of the Cash brothers because she’d settled in with the Tagus elite, where a famous surname automatically earned you everyone’s respect.
But they’d never have my respect. I knew that guys like Aegan were full of only one thing: flaws, which they did their best to hide.
That didn’t mean I had to argue with Artie, though.
If the Cash brothers wanted to take me on, I’d fight to the death, but I wouldn’t argue over these fools with Artie.
No. That’s not the way I wanted to roll.
Before I even got the chance to make up for our silly argument, Dash and Kiana arrived.
Kiana slid into the seat across from me, next to Artie, her face beaming with a juicy piece of gossip she had for us.
Dash sat next to me, with a wide, captivated smile.
He took off his designer backpack and started pulling out a thick stack of bank notes and placing them in front of me.
“What’s the point in playing if you don’t claim your prize?” he said, before placing a watch on top of the cash. “I grabbed it for you last night.”
My eyes flicked back and forth between him and the stack of cash.
“What’s this?”
“Your poker prize,” Kiana answered right away “Or do you not remember that you shoved a cucumber up Aegan’s ass?”
To be quite honest, I’d completely forgotten about the prize part.
“Yeah, that was a good pot,” I admitted.