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“Penny for your thoughts?” Paige asks Violet as she takes a seat across from her in the courtyard. Violet’s head jerks up and she glares at Paige. “C’mon Vi, you’ve been storming around the halls looking like you’re ready to murder someone for the past two weeks. You’re scaring people. What’s going on with you?”
“Garrett cheated on me,” Violet growls. “Happy?”
Paige frowns. “No, I’m not happy. Do you want to talk about it?”
Violet shakes her head. “No, I want you to go away.”
She has to admit, they’ve never gotten along very well. The thing is that Paige has been watching Violet as she stormed around lately. It made her heart ache to see Violet going through something, clearly alone. She’d decided to skip band practice to come find her and maybe offer up a truce of some sort. Not that Violet would ever agree to that willingly.
“Garrett is an asshole,” Paige says as she opens her water bottle.
“You think?” Violet snarls. “I could kill him. Fuck. I’d get a piece of rope and choke him to death. Burn the rope. No one would ever know.”
Paige raises an eyebrow.
Violet’s shoulders deflate. “Okay, so I’m sure everyone would know. I haven’t been subtle about my hate for him lately.”
She snorts. “Writing Garrett is an asshole in spray paint across his locker might give you away.”
“Whatever. Why are you still here, anyway?” Violet asks, narrowing her eyes on Paige.
“I want to give you some advice. Garrett thinks that he’s won, and I don’t think you’re the type of person who wants that.” Paige shrugs, pretending to stand up. Violet waves at her to sit down with a frustrated sigh. She looks at her, expectantly.
Violet huffs before she says, “You think he thinks he won?”
“I do. Do you have a game plan to prove to him that he hasn’t?” Paige asks.
“No.”
“Great, because I do.”
Violet’s expression changes from anger to interested. She leans forward to listen to Paige whisper a ridiculous idea.
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Violet glances at Paige, who keeps her focus forward. “You really think this is going to work?”
“How could it not? I told you. Garrett hates me ever since I got him kicked out of band for being a jerk to Tracy,” Paige tells her. She slips her hand into Violet’s and takes a deep breath. She has to be confident or else this will never work.
“Yeah, he was pretty pissed about that.”
“He cheated on you,” Paige gently reminds her.
“He’s an asshole. Did you tell anyone?” Violet asks her. She sounds nervous.
“No. Tracy just knows that I’ve been crushing on you for the past few months, and Hayden thinks that I’ve been pining after you for longer than that.” Paige doesn’t mention that she’s had the biggest crush on Violet since she arrived at the school with her boyfriend. Who does that? Transfers schools with their boyfriend. As ridiculous as it had been, Paige had found herself watching Violet.
The girl walked around as if she owned the school. She’d been so fearless considering she was new. Paige couldn’t resist. She often lost herself in daydreams of making Violet come undone. After her very strange relationship with Derek, ending on decent terms, she hadn’t felt attracted to anyone else. But Violet. Violet did things to her.
“Oh, okay.” Violet takes a deep breath. “And they think…about me?”
“They think that you’re a little edgy. Too edgy for me. But Hayden’s always complaining about how I don’t take risks, so she’s really excited that I asked you out.”
“You asked me out?” Violet asks, nodding. “Okay. How?”
“After school. We ran into each other. I said you had a dentention and–”
Violet laughs. “I’ll have you know, for the record, I have never once gotten myself a detention. Thank you very much.”
Paige laughs, relaxing now. “Duly noted. C’mon, let’s go make Garrett regret his life.”
Violet raises her eyebrows. “Someone has a mean streak in them, don’t they?”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. We’re going to make him wish he never hurt you.”
“I like the sounds of that, Paige.”
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“He’s looking,” Paige whispers. She’s pressed Violet against the lockers. They had spent all last night talking about this, went over all the details, the moves. Actually doing it was a whole other thing though. Paige doesn’t need to look to know that Garrett is watching them.
She moves one of her hands up Violet’s side until she’s brushing a piece of hair out of her face. “You okay, Vi?”
Violet swallows. “Yeah. You’re, uh, you’re really good at this.”
Paige’s eyes flicker down to Violet’s lips. “We don’t have to continue.”
“No, no. I said it was, it’s more than okay, if you kiss me.”
Paige’s lips brush against Violet’s. She doesn’t want to rush anything, doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable in any way. But she’s been picturing this in her mind for months and she can’t help but drag her lips across Violet’s agian.
The next time she goes to do it, Violet stops her so she can part their lips. Paige is surprised. They hadn’t discussed open mouth kisses. It excites her enough that she forgets they’re in a school with people around.
“Man, didn’t you two just start dating?” Hayden’s voice comes from somewhere. Paige jumps, but she doesn’t move too far away from Violet. “It’s like you have no class at all. Everyone knows you wait until the third date before you start macking on your best friend’s locker.”
“I’m not even sorry,” Paige admits. Violet laughs.
“I see that. I’m just going to get my textbook and you guys can go back to having a grand ol’ time, and making me wish I didn’t hate Liam so much,” Hayden responds.
“I thought you and Liam were dating?” Violet asks, confused.
“Oh, we are. I still hate him.”
“She’s lying. She’s so in love with him, she’d probably climb on top of him right now if that was a socially acceptable thing to do,” Paige teases.
Hayden nods. “Damn straight I’d sit right on his face if I could. Boy’s got a magical tongue.”
“Oh god,” Paige says, laughing. Violet grins, clearly amused and not at all traumatized. Hayden gives her a pointed look.
“That’s what you get for teasing me. Go make out at Tracy’s locker. Maybe it’ll inspire her to go as Alicia out,” Hayden says. She closes her locker door and says, “There. All yours.”
“Bye,” Paige says as Hayden waves and walks away.
“I like her,” Violet tells Paige. “You have nice friends, don’t you?”
“Yeah. They can be your friends too. They’re not scared of you,” Paige answers, smiling at Violet. “Unlike 90% of the school.”
Violet shrugs. “They’re scared with reason. Didn’t you hear about that time I killed a man?”
“Is Garrett still watching?” Paige asks. Violet nods and then she says, “So shut up and kiss me.”
Violet murmurs, “Happy to oblige.”
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Paige finds out from Hayden later that Garrett had left when she’d been walking up to her locker. She wonders what it means. She stays quiet while Hayden and Tracy chat.
They’d spent most of the past week meeting up between classes to make out. Sometimes while Garrett was around, sometimes while he wasn’t. Paige had told Violet that it was good if people saw them and could pass it back to Garrett.
The thing is that Paige hadn’t come up with that excuse until Wednesday. So when they had been kissing on Tuesday, Violet had known Garrett had left.
She inhales sharply and stands up. “I’m sorry guys. I have to go…there’s something I need to do.”
“Oh–okay,” Hayden says, confused.
“Everything okay?” Tracy asks.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll call you later?” Paige asks. “We’ll have a three-way call and I’ll explain everything. I promise.”
“Okay,” Hayden and Tracy agree in union. It’s Tracy who shouts after her. “Good luck, babe!”
Paige waves over her shoulder and rushes out to her car. She drives around Violet’s block a few times before she finally draws up the courage to park in front of her house. She texts Violet, her hands trembling.
PAIGE: hey vi, I’m outside your place. you home?
Paige sees the front door open a few minutes later. She gets out of her Camaro, shuts the door, and walks up Violet’s walkway.
“Everything okay?” Violet asks her.
“I don’t know. Hayden told me the other day, when we were making out at her locker, that Garrett had left.”
“Oh,” Violet says, ducking her head. “Paige, listen, I’m really sorry about that. I was just excited and–”
“Violet, I like you. I wasn’t lying when I said my friends think I’ve been crushing on you for months. I have been.”
There she said it.
Violet meets her eyes. “You have?”
“Yeah.”
“But–is that why you offered to be my fake girlfriend? Paige, I–I really like you. You’re one of the few people who have been kind to me since I’ve gotten here. You never seemed scared of me. Not even when I was a bitch to you.” Violet brushes some hair from her face.
“It’s hard to be scared of you when all I want to do is make out with you all the time,” Paige admits.
“You should sit on my face sometime. I could put Liam Dunbar to shame,” Violet says.
Paige’s eyes grow wide. Her lips part, but she has no idea what to say to that.
Violet laughs really hard. “God, you’re so easy. So innocent. Come inside. My grandmother and I are playing Uno. We can play a few rounds and go upstairs to make out.”
Paige shakes her head, but the smile on her face is unbreakable. She walks forward, slipping her hand into Violet’s. “You’re something special, aren’t you?”
“You’re about to find out,” Violet teases her. She bumps Paige’s shoulder as they walk up to the house.
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When Paige is on the phone with Hayden and Tracy later that night, she starts off with, “I sat on her face.”
Her friend’s screams only make her laugh. Paige falls backward onto her bed and proceeds to tell them the whole story. Tracy groans about how innocent she used to be before she started hanging out with Paige and Hayden.
“Your life got better with us around,” Hayden reminds her. “Now, Paige, tell us how good it feels to be with your crush and inspire Tracy to ask Alicia out.”
“It’s better than I ever imagined,” Paige admits.
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