Here is a sweet treat from my new book, SAINT SLOAN, coming out on Feb. 28th from Astraea Press :)
*****
“Girls, is everything okay?” asked Ms. Wheeler, the tall, middle-aged Senior English teacher, as she came out of her classroom across the hall. Her floral skirt swished against her ankles as she walked.
Sloan wanted to tell her that no, everything was not fine. The girl had taunted, teased, harassed, and upset her for weeks, and she was tired of it.
“Yes, ma’am, Ms. Wheeler. Everything’s fine,” Darcy said with the sweet, innocent voice she used with everyone except underlings like Sloan. “Sloan and I were catching up. We don’t get to hang out much together anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Ms. Wheeler raised a brow over her black-rimmed glasses.
Sloan looked away, afraid her eyes would betray her. Talking to Ms. Wheeler and getting Darcy in trouble would do Sloan more harm than good, in her opinion anyway. Darcy had ways of making her suffer.
“Yeah, life and all,” Darcy smiled at Sloan. If looks could kill…
Boyd came up behind Darcy then and put his arms around her waist. He kissed her shoulder but kept his eyes on Sloan.
Jerk.
The five-minute bell rang, much to Sloan’s relief. “Well, gotta get to class.” She forced a smile at Ms. Wheeler and hoped the older lady bought it.
“Me, too.” Darcy leaned over, handed the coat to Sloan, and kissed her on the cheek. She whispered in Sloan’s ear far too low for Ms. Wheeler to hear. “Enjoy your day, Saintly. I know I will.” Darcy and her pack turned down the hall toward class with Boyd hanging all over her. He glanced at Sloan for a brief second before disappearing around the corner with the rest of them.
Mrs. Wheeler came closer to Sloan. “Miss Bridges, are you alright? Is Miss Perry bullying you?”
Bullying sounded like a nice word for it. It was the buzzword at the moment in the media. If anyone got picked on or teased, they were bullied. Yeah, Sloan supposed by that definition Darcy was bullying her, but she couldn’t see how telling Ms. Wheeler would help the situation any. Knowing how cunning Darcy was, she thought telling would probably make it worse. The best thing to do was deal with it in her own way: by doing her best to ignore Darcy, and with lots and lots of prayer.
“No, I’m fine. Darcy and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of stuff anymore.” Mrs. Wheeler acted like she was going to say something, but Sloan beat her to it. “I have to go.”
Mackenzie caught up with Sloan and they headed down the winding halls toward Biology class. “Wow, that was intense.”
“It’s over now. Darcy can’t hurt me unless I let her.” If she said it enough maybe she would start to believe it. It hurt that her former friend hated her so much, especially when she’d done nothing wrong. They used to be inseparable; and then God happened.
“She might not be able to hurt you physically, though I wouldn’t put it past her, but she sure can hurt you socially,” Mackenzie said. “She has ways, you know?”
“I know,” Sloan said sadly. “I taught her some of ‘em.”