Page 8 of Belong With Me
But Monday morning after class is dismissed and I’m heading to the cafeteria for lunch, I let my guard down for just a second while texting Nyah to arrange lunch plans, and I don’t notice Brandon searching for me until it’s too late. I practically face-plant into his hard chest.
“Time’s up,” he growls, corralling me to a less populated side of the hallway by some lockers. “You better have my phone in that backpack of yours.”
I don’t. It’s safely tucked away and turned off in my desk drawer at home, hidden underneath some college scholarship pamphlets I picked up from the guidance office last week.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have your phone,” I reply, keeping my voice calm and my heart rate as even as I can.
He’s not buying it, though. “I know you do. It was ‘stolen’ when I was ‘jumped’ at the motel party.” He uses his fingers to make air quotes and add extra emphasis around the words. “I know you or your bitch sister or your asshole boyfriend have it. I gave you a week, and your time is up.
Give it to me.”
He gets closer to me with every word, and although I’m trying to play it cool, I’ve somehow backed myself into a locker. With him looming over me, so close I can smell his cinnamon gum, I choke out, “You have a new phone. Why are you so obsessed with the old one? It’s gone. The people who jumped you and stole it probably wiped it and sold it off already.”
“That’d be fine if it was the truth, which it isn’t. I know you have it; I want it back. There are things on it I need.”
I knew it. Ifreakingknew it. He doesn’t care if it gets wiped because there’s evidence on it! But as long as he suspects it’s in my possession, data completely intact, with proof of what he did to Lily on it, he’s going to keep fighting me for it.
But there’s something I need to know, something that’s been bothering me. “Why don’t you just use theFind My Friendsapp to track the phone then?”
It’s a risk—maybe he forgot he had that option altogether and I just reminded him of it. But to my utter relief, he mutters, “I turned all location services off on the phone.”
Thank goodness. Now I can keep attempting passcodes without worrying he’ll track the location to my house.
Keeping the smugness from my tone, I reply, “Well, that sucks, but I don’t have it. If you’ll excuse me—”
My attempt to shoulder past him fails epically when he sidesteps and closes the minimal distance between us, his broad shoulders blocking my entire view of the hall.
“You’re a liar, just like your Hollywood whore of a mother,” he growls, and the words take me by surprise.
People in King City know Florence Bowen, and most who grew up with her don’t particularly like her or have the best memories of her, but not many people know she’s my mom. We have different last names, and I don’t go around advertising our relationship. The fact that Mr. Lewis told me the teachers are gossiping about it amongst themselves should’ve worried me more and warned me that it was only a matter of time until more people realized it. Brandon mentioned something about my acting superior because of my “shitty C-list actress mother” the day I was running out of his house, and I never gave it a second thought. But he’s been doing his digging. It should worry me. It does worry me.
Brandon uses my shocked silence as an opportunity to continue. “Did you forget that I can ruin your sister’s and your boyfriend’s lives and prove she was with me when I got ‘jumped’?” He uses the air quotes again.
It’s almost no fun how predictable he is. I knew he’d say that when he cornered me eventually.
“Yeah, I’m not worried about that,” I reply, crossing my arms and forcing him to take a step back. The small distance created between us helps me feel less claustrophobic, but I don’t suck in air like I want to, instead keeping my cool. I’m in control here, despite him being the one who backed me against the lockers and initiated the conversation.
“You should be. If I show the texts, it proves Gia was there when I was supposedly ‘jumped.’”
It takes everything in me not to slap his hands down when he does the air quotes.
“Which would poke holes in that whole story,” he finishes.
He’s right, but I knew this was coming and prepared.
“Well, I’ve had time to think about it, and as I said, I’m not worried about it,” I say, chin raised in the air.
Confidence is key here to selling it. “Gia wasn’t in the room; I stopped her from going right after she sent the text.
Everyone at the party saw her. She’s in videos and pictures at the party having fun while the fight in your hotel room took place. Your texts are all circumstantial.” Besides, he may be threatening it, but something tells me he doesn’t actually want to get the police involved, not if he’d have to explain why he was trying to get Gia to his room, and also not if he’s hiding something about Lily on his phone.
He believes me. I know he does. His eyes widen, and his head rears back as he scans my face. I stand straight, a defiant spark in my eyes as he runs through his options in his mind. I notice the switch a moment too late.
Rage contorts his face, and his fist slams into the locker right beside my head, making me flinch. “Give me my fucking phone!” he yells directly in my face, veins throbbing in his neck, and panic squeezes my throat. My heart beats out of my chest as he leans down, and I don’t know what he’s going to do to me, how I’ll be able to defend myself against him when he’s barely in control of himself. But as soon as his nose touches mine, he’s thrown back. More and more space appears between us, and I exhale, my chest heaving.
Jason’s there, his hand releasing the back of Brandon’s shirt where he had it bunched to throw him off me.
He stands in front of me protectively, shielding me from Brandon with his body. “You ever get that close to Siena again,” Jason starts, words dripping with venom,