Pretty Reckless by L.J. Shen

Listen to the chaos

Brewing in your head

This, my pretty reckless lover

Is how our story ends

The next day, I’m a dead girl walking.

When I see Via in the hallway, I pass her wordlessly. I’m scared that if I say something, I might go apeshit, and my situation is very delicate. I’ve lost so much in the past few weeks, and I don’t trust myself to react anymore.

I’m passive. Timid. Scared.

Exactly as she wanted me. Precisely what she pretends to be.

Cheer practice is the only thing I have left, so when I put my uniform on in the locker room, I try to take a deep breath and enjoy the nothingness around me. Everyone is waiting for me outside. It’s time to shine. To be the old me. Whoever that may be.

I gather my hair into a ponytail, turning around to make my way to the door at the same time it bangs shut. I look up and see Esme leaning against it, arms folded. She is wearing her skimpy cheer outfit and a triumphant smile.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Her voice is sugary sweet, and my hackles immediately rise. I tilt my chin upward.

“Sure. I’m getting good at keeping them.”

She pushes off the door and saunters deeper into the room until we are face to face.

“I always knew you would be your own downfall. You were so pretty and perfect with your shiny hair and long lashes. So conceited and entitled with your crazy lineage, ex-teacher mom, and Hothole father. Sometimes, at night, I had to cry myself to sleep, convincing myself that you would fall, because it didn’t look like you ever would. And let’s admit it.” She chuckles. “The cheer captain title always belonged to me. I’m the better dancer. I’m a better leader, better mediator, the better human being.”

I stand straighter. She is talking about me in the past tense, and I don’t like that. I elevate my nose, reminding her who’s the boss. Though, truth be told, I haven’t felt in control for a really long time.

“You can’t strip my title, Esme. That’s not how things work, no matter how much you want them to.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” She puts two fingers to her mouth and whistles. The door opens and in trickles the cheer team in all their glory, complete with their uniforms. And at the end of the perfect line is Sylvia Scully, wearing a uniform she must’ve stolen. From me.

I see red.

I take a step back, twisting my mouth. Esme takes a step toward me, cleaning invisible lint from my crop top.

“You’ve been spacey, out of focus, and MIA when we needed you. Not to mention, poor Via told us about what you did to her four years ago with the letter,” she pouts.

Shooting an accusing glance at Via, I see that she not only meets my gaze, but she smiles, too. She got a new pixie haircut, stylish and expensive, and new studded earrings to go with it. She is already reinventing herself, and no one is stopping her from ruining my life. Melody is compensating for our lack of connection by showering Via and Bailey with everything I won’t accept from her anymore, and for whatever reason, Penn is firmly in her camp. The only person I still matter to is Dad, but even I know he is isolating himself in his quest to be there for me.

“You won’t get away with this.” I bare my teeth to Esme, getting in her face.

“What’ll you do?” She cocks her head at me, smiling.

For one thing, tell Blythe, your BFF, that you’ve been sleeping with Vaughn. Then, I’ll tell Vaughn to drop you, and make no mistake, the boy doesn’t have a modicum of emotion in his body. He will do so without even mourning the lost blowjobs.

But I can’t say this. At least publicly. The acts of the Hulk are to be done in secret.

“I’m guessing it’s settled, then?” I ask, twisting my head toward the rest of the team. They all look down, backs against the lockers in a row. Everyone other than Via. I laugh hysterically, shaking my head and waving at them dismissively.

“You guys are pathetic. You hate Esme.”

No response.

“Good luck living off Diet Coke and air for the next semester.”

I’m losing it, and I’m losing my place in the world, fast. The worst part is, I can’t even fight for what’s mine. Not when Via holds my journal. Dangling my life, future, and reputation above my head.

“Did you even mean it when you voted for me? Do you mean anything you do anymore? How fake can you be?”

Blythe takes a sharp breath, shaking her head. A tear escapes her eye, and I know Esme’s pushed her, but I still hate her for not growing a spine. Looking around at their faces—grave, guilty, uncomfortable—I don’t even know what to think anymore.

Everything I have is crumbling.

Everything I’ve worked for is perishing.

Via promised she’d end me, and so far, she’s kept her word.

I stalk outside, back to the school, before the tears fall. Maybe Penn is right. Maybe I cry all the time and make scenes. But here’s a scene I’d never forget:

The day Via and Esme took my cheer captain badge, which I earned fair and square, is the day I found out I wasn’t the only girl born with a green Hulk inside her. They have one, too. And it just burst through their bones and skin and chased me away.

My stomach lurches.

At least I managed to put mine on a leash.

“And lookie who we have here.”

Gus slams my open blue locker with a bang when I get my books out and gives me a playful shove. The hallway is empty. I’m ten minutes late because I’m running on no sleep, two cups of coffee, and anxiety. And there are cameras around, but he’s the football captain, so he can get away with murder. Probably literally.

I don’t move to pick up the scattered textbooks that fell when he ambushed me.

“Sure it’s a good idea for you to skip classes? You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed as it is.” I feign disinterest and nonchalance, but I’m not feeling it anymore. I’m so drained, I’m surprised I’m still standing.

“Too funny, Followhill. I wonder…” He gets in my face, tilting his head with a manic smile on his lips. “Would you still be so funny when I show you what I have?”

He raises his arm, and it’s my little black book. My mouth goes dry. I’m going to faint. Shit. Via really did it this time.

I plaster my back to the lockers and try to breathe, but the oxygen doesn’t hit my lungs. I think I’m having a panic attack. A real one.

“You look a little pale, Queen Daria. Where are your minions to bronze your face back into fake perfection?” He laughs boisterously.

“What do you want?” I grit out. I already know whatever it is, I’m going to give it to him. No one can get their hands on my diary. The prospect of people knowing what I did to my classmates or with Principal Prichard is paralyzing, but the real kicker is Mel. If she finds out I killed both her dream and Via’s, I will lose her forever.

I would lose my everything.

Gus taps his chin, tilting his head skyward, my journal still held high in the air above his head. I glare at it, willing for it to fly across the narrow space between us into my hand like in a Harry Potter book.

“Let’s see. What do I want? Oh, I know! I want for Las Juntas to throw the play-off game and give me what I deserve—a victory.”

To that, I actually laugh. It’s a hysterical laugh, but it bubbles from my throat all the same. I drag a hand over my collarbone and neck, wiping away cold sweat.

“Shouldn’t you be asking for something I can actually give you?”

“You’re fucking the captain. It’s in the journal. Surely, you have power over him.”

I wince. “It happened once, and he doesn’t care about me.” It’s a brutal admission, but he has to know I can’t make this happen.

He rolls his eyes at me. “Popped your cherry, huh? Lucky bastard. Anyway, you asked for the price, and I gave it to you. It’s your problem now. Not mine.”

“I can’t do that,” I croak. I’m losing grip of my indifference. My mask is falling. I can’t give him what I don’t have. “He’ll never do anything for me. He’s with Adriana.”

“For all I care, threaten to tell Adriana he’s been fucking you all along to make him do it. Whatever it takes to make his team shitty come Friday. Otherwise…” He waves my journal around as if it doesn’t harbor all my secrets and insecurities and vulnerability. As if the Hulk doesn’t live there. “This shit is going to be printed out—every single page of it—into thousands of copies and stuck on every single locker and inch of the bathroom, art room, lab, and locker rooms. I’ll post it on every social media site, and I’ll make sure you can never escape it, no matter how fucking far you go. And don’t even try to pull the parents’ angle, Followhill, because the entire school would kill you for ruining the state championship for us.”

He turns around and stalks down the empty hall. I chase him, choking on my own saliva. I’m too stunned to produce tears. My life as I know it is about to be over. I trip over my own legs, grasping his backpack so I don’t hit the ground. He turns around sharply, growling.

“Hands off, Followhill.”

“You can’t do this to me.” My knees hit the floor. How fitting. From this angle, I can finally see the view for what it is. All my mistakes, the people I chose to affiliate myself with—the jocks, the fakers, the popular kids—are ricocheting back at me. Gus holds my future—my reputation—between his sausage fingers.

“Please,” I say, stripping off my remaining pride. “I beg you. I will do anything else. Tell me what to do. I can’t get to Penn. No one can get to Penn.”

Penn is the tin man.

Gus smiles politely, grabbing the collar of my dress and yanking me up to my feet.

“I actually think you’re a very resourceful girl, Daria. Figure it out. Or I will bury you.”

“We need to talk.”

These are the words I could have imagined myself telling my mother, my future boyfriends, my friends, my family…not my principal. Yet here I am standing in front of Principal Prichard, telling him just that. I just threw up my nonexistent breakfast into a toilet bowl and cried my eyes out, and I probably look like just as much of a mess from the outside as I am on the inside.

When I walked in, I closed the door without his explicit order to do so, the first sign that something was off. Normally, I submit to him, awaiting specific instructions. That’s how it’s been since my first entry. The Via entry. When I walked into his office in middle school, I expected him to call my parents, set off a chain reaction, and fix my error. Fix me.

Instead, he tipped a jar of M&Ms he kept on his desk over the edge, his eyes never wavering from mine. Colorful chocolate pieces rained down the floor, rolling at my feet like marbles.

“Pick them all up, Miss Followhill. On your knees, as I read your sins to you.”

It became our ritual.

Over the years, he barked at me to rearrange the shelves in his office, clean his carpets, shine his shoes, and more recently, after Penn entered the picture, he’d strike the inside of my hands with a ruler. Where the red welts could be explained away by my grueling cheer workouts.

He always read my sins slowly behind his locked door, pausing melodramatically when he got to the juicy parts.

Most sinners say Hail Mary.

I atone for my sins in strokes of his ruler.

I deserve it. I deserve the pain. I distribute so much of it to others, I can’t even blame Principal Prichard for putting me through all of this.

Principal Prichard says our sessions are about discipline. Putting me back on the straight and narrow. But honestly, we both know I’m not getting any better, and the more the years pass, the deeper the misery in which I drown.

I always figured we were both just two fucked-up people doing screwed-up things because no one else around us would understand. It wasn’t until Penn that I realized Principal Prichard was possessive toward me. And that lust feels better than the striking. It feels glorious when experienced right.

Since then, Prichard’s tasks have become more radical and meticulous. The strikes of the ruler harsher.

“I beg your pardon?” He doesn’t look up from the paperwork he is signing. It has the Saints logo, so I know it’s football related. Everything seems football related these days. Rumor is Gus is on Xanax and has been hitting the bottle to deal with the stress.

I sit down on the chair opposite to him. His eyes snap from the pages. “Were you invited to sit down, Miss Followhill?”

“We have a problem.” My lips wobble. I reach out, putting his pen down for him.

His eyes narrow into slits, zeroing in on my hand. “Quite right. Get your sin book out.”

That’s what he calls it. It always drives me mad. As if he’s above sinning.

I take a deep breath and release it all at once. Here goes nothing. “I don’t have it.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have it?” His jaw flexes.

“Sylvia Scully stole it from my room last night. She lives with me now, as you know. Gus has it, and he is threatening to go public with it unless I convince Penn Scully to throw the play-off game.”

They probably planned it together and laughed all the way throughout. And me? I was stupid enough to buy into Penn’s distraction. I helped him clean himself up while she was upstairs, stealing my most valuable possession. The one thing that could destroy me. Principal Prichard’s lips twitch. With dark circles under my eyes, and the tiny red bursts of blood inside them, I’m sure I’m not the same pretty girl who lured him into this arrangement. I didn’t put on makeup this morning, and my hair is a tangled mess.

“I wrote about you in the book,” I add matter-of-factly to remind him how grave our situation is. Prichard is featured in my journal many times. I squeeze my eyes shut and blush when I remember all the things I shared there.

Entry number one hundred twenty-two chronicles how one time, when I went into his office and he wasn’t there, I rubbed myself against his executive chair. When he arrived, he made me lick the traces of myself from said chair. It’s the most sexual thing we’ve ever done, and it did not involve touching each other, but it’s enough to bring both of us down.

His jaw tick, tick, ticks, and I know he is losing his patience with me. We’re both in deep trouble now. Which is why I’m here. We need to stop Gus.

“He will not publish anything related to me,” Principal Prichard informs me, the picture of calm.

I blink, flabbergasted. “How do you know this?”

“I’m smarter than a cheerleader, for one thing. And so is he.”

I sit back, staring at a spot behind him, wide-eyed.

“I don’t know. Maybe I am stupid,” I bite out, “but so is Gus, and trust me, he will compromise your perverted ass.”

“Really!” he thunders, standing up and tossing the entire contents of his desk aside. I jump back in my chair. I’ve never seen him so angry before.

“What am I supposed to do? Threaten Miss Scully and Mr. Bauer? Just because you decided to spread your legs for the boy from the wrong side of the tracks even though I warned you not to?”

It’s my turn to stand, my fists balled beside my body as anger rolls off me, threatening to spill over.

“We’re in this together, and we have to think of something.”

“No. You’ll think of something. This doesn’t sound like a me problem. It’s a classic you problem.”

“Even if you get Gus to agree not to print out your pages, I’ll tell the world,” I warn.

He smirks darkly. “And? No one will believe you. You’re just another lost, spoiled brat who is hot for the principal. Don’t forget what happened here. You paraded your tits and bent over. I never had sex with you. I never touched you, skin-to-skin. I never even kissed you. It was. All. On. You.”

I’m floored. It feels like someone’s pulled the rug out from under my feet. But I’m working on autopilot because I can’t let him get away with this.

“Are you taking your chances, Gabe?” Gabe. I never call him by his first name. Only now, I have very little respect for him.

He runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Leave, Miss Followhill, and do not come back unless it is with the recovered book to get punished until your behind turns blue.”

“As if I’ll ever get anywhere near you again.” I throw my head back and laugh with humor I don’t feel. “You were always jealous of Penn, who, by the way”—I pop my finger into my mouth and pull it out with a sound—“is a fantastic lay.”

“Daria…”

Prichard’s never called me by my first name, either.

“He was so good when he took my virginity. Not too long after you found us in the locker room, actually.”

“Stop it right now.” He rounds his desk toward me. Slowly. Predatorily.

“Of course, by then I was fully prepped for the—”

“Stop!” He produces his ruler from under his desk, pointing it at me. My smile broadens. I’m free-falling off a cliff with a faulty parachute. Might as well enjoy the ride.

“Having him inside me as I writhed and moaned and orgasmed so hard I nearly fainted—”

In one swift movement, he throws me against the wall, my stomach hitting the cold surface. He pushes my dress up and strikes me with the ruler so hard I’m seeing stars.

“Don’t!” I yell. “Don’t you dare touch me, you asshole. We’re done, Gabe.”

He tugs my hair and whispers into my ear, “We’re done when I say we’re done, Daria.”

Strike, strike, strike.

My ass cheeks are burning and so are my eyes. I’m too stunned to move, to run away, choking on the bile coating my throat.

My principal, my priest, the man who held all my secrets, who I thought I could trust, just whipped my ass with a ruler against my will. Not once. Not twice. About a dozen times in a frenzy I’ve never seen before.

When he stops, it seems as though the world is rocking back and forth on turbulent water. Seasick, I slide off the wall, my mouth hanging open, but I don’t really know what to say. Principal Prichard is not going to help me.

My war with Via and Gus is not only going to be fought alone, but I just found out they have a very powerful ally.

When I hear him take a step back, I turn around to face him.

What happened to you in that church?

I watch him through a curtain of tears, waiting for the apology. For the begging. For the remorse. Not just for what happened right now—I don’t think I even fully comprehend it—but for the past four years. I look down, and he is hard.

So hard.

So very hard.

How did I miss this? The proper, abused Catholic boy turned out to be an improper, abusing man. My butt feels so hot and sore I doubt I’ll be able to sit on it anytime soon. My legs are shaking, and my heart aches dully in my chest.

I lost everything in the span of a semester. I didn’t get the boy, or the happy ending, or the perfect family, or even to keep my status as queen bee or the cheer captain badge.

“You are my worst mistake,” I whisper to him.

He smiles devilishly.

“And you, my darling, are my favorite sin.”