Page 63 of Chasing Mr. Prefect
“Please. This illegitimatethingis no family to me.”
“What did she just say?—”
“Oh my god?—”
I heard my clubmates whisper among each other. My vision went hazy as my anger clouded my judgment. No one in our team knew about Cholo’s family history and I just felt furious on his behalf. That was foul.
“Must be sad being less loved than theillegitimate thing, then?” I retorted and Miss Mikayla glared at me, seething.
“You—”
“Vinnie, let’s go outside, please,” Cholo said, coming to my side and putting a hand on my arm as our other clubmates did the same with Miss Mikayla, who was ready to lunge at me.
The space made me uncomfortable so I fought hard to be released from Cholo’s grip but he was determined to keep me at bay. The resulting force made me lose my balance and bump straight into Miss Mikayla, who had just advanced at me. Next thing I knew, we had both landed on the tiled floor.
Miss Co came up to the booth at the worst possible time and came to her sister’s aid.
“That’s it!” Miss Mikayla screamed, getting back on her feet and looking down at me. “I’m pulling out of this event!”
My head spun as Miss Co tried to plead with her sister.
“Atsi, please be reasonable?—”
“That girl pushed me!” Miss Mikayla replied, turning on her. I wanted to reason that it was an accident but I did not want to make it any worse than it already was. “Look. Either she’s out of the team or Exonerate cancels the entire deal. Take your pick.”
It was not an empty threat. I knew how people like Miss Mikayla worked—she would make good on that promise. Feeling ashamed, I fled from the scene to compose myself.
I had just made it to the lobby when I ran into Summer, whose eyes flashed at the sight of me.
“Looking for this?” said Summer, walking towards me with a triumphant smile and holding up my hard drive.
I stared at the thing on her hand in horror.
“Funny how I didn’t even have to say something,” she taunted. I froze in my spot, not even thinking of grabbing it from her. “I just had to hide this and wait for you to mess things up yourself.”
“How low can you get?” I asked, hardly able to absorb any of this.
“Well, you happened to be under the illusion that you were better than me and they had this idea of you that Cholo planted in their heads. You all needed the wake-up call. They needed to see you for what you really are.”
I had nothing to say to that. She was right. I had dug my own grave. It was all my fault. Hiding the hard drive was nothing compared to me ending up pushing someone else because I was angry.
She shoved the hard drive in my hand.
“It’s a good thing I have a backup or this launch would have been a failure,” she said. “Would you mind me going back in there to save the day?”
With a last smile, she regally turned on her heel and walked out the door, leaving me devastated.
CHAPTER 28
Iwas angrier at myself than anything. Summer did not even break a sweat in taking me down and while I wanted to go back inside to redeem myself, the damage was already done.
Cholo came out the door with my backpack and laptop moments later, his face blank. He took my hand and led me to the parking lot. His silence scared me more than anything.
The drive that followed was one of the longest and worst I ever had. I expected him to snap at every traffic light that turned red but Cholo did not speak until we got past the exit.
“What happened back there?” he asked softly.
The disappointment in his voice made it worse. It would have been better if he had shouted as right now I had no idea what he was feeling. I could still remember everything that Mikayla said and I was still hurting on his behalf.