Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
Dad said to follow my instincts. But what if my instincts send me down an unfamiliar path? All my life, I’ve been on the sidelines, so to speak. Never allowed to think for myself, let alone act. But my instinct is telling me not to sit this one out. That though Cody was the one framed, I was the one attacked.
There was a feeling inside of me that I didn’t recognize. I wouldn’t call it rage, but it was definitely part of the anger family. Not only that, but I’m feeling mean. Tomorrow, I’ll have a talk with Jess and Alexis. I’m sure Jess would be on board since she’s already raving mad at whoever had done it, and Alexis spent the rest of the night after I came back apologizing and cursing whoever had done it until she went to bed.
I’m shaking with dread, but dad is right; follow my instincts, I shall, and hope they don’t lead me off a cliff. The only thing now is keeping my plans away from Cody. I have a pretty good feeling that he might not approve.
CODY
Chad, Steve, and Henderson had come over to my dorm last night when I called. “What’s up, bro? You sounded pissed on the phone.”
I didn’t bother answering Chad, who had brought Henderson along, as I knew he would; I just showed them the picture I’d sent to my phone from Alexis’.
“Who the fuck is that? And why is he wearing your jersey?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Where did you get this?” Steve was studying the screen with a frown.
“Someone sent it to Lisa’s roommate.”
“What?” It took the three of them a minute, but Chad, who was the only one of the three who really knew the whole story behind Susie, put it together.
“You don’t think….”
“That’s exactly what I think. I knew she was going to pull something, but I never imagined this.”
“But it’s easy enough to tell that it’s not you in the picture.” Chad looked at it again.
“Sure, for someone who knows me. But if you don’t take the time to look closely, at a glance, you might think that it’s me.” And Susie, who I’m damn sure is behind this, seems to be very resourceful when it comes to this type of stuff.
“So, what’s our plan?” Henderson, the big lummox, is more on the quiet side, but he doesn’t take kindly to people messing with those he considers his friends. Susie hates his guts because, along with being a stalker nut, she’s a racist fuck.
Henderson is as dark as midnight with a Cajun twang that it took me damn near three months to configure, with a heart of gold. He also has hands the size of baseball mitts and towers over most everyone on campus, but damn can he play a mean game of football. I owe a lot of our wins to the offensive tackle.
Now his slow Cajun drawl set the other two in motion. Chad wanted to go find Susie and knock her head off; typical, Steve was trying to figure out what her deal was since he still didn’t get it from the night she’d tried to assault me at the bar, and Henderson was just waiting for whatever I wanted to do.
“I don’t have any evidence. I wish I could get my hands on Alexis’ phone to see if Parker could do a run and find out where the message came from, but that might be tricky.”
“Parker doesn’t need her phone, just her number.”
“Really?” I asked Chad, who nodded and pulled out his phone to call the wide receiver, who was probably either in front of his computer hacking into somebody’s shit or out with some chick he didn’t plan to see again.
My guys are an eclectic group of misfits, with me being the glue that holds us together. I guess I’ve been doing a piss poor job of it lately because this is the first time in a very long while that we’d been together without getting piss-faced drunk in weeks.
I can’t have Lisa seeing me act like that, so the last night I’d gone out with the guys was the last night I’d gone out with the guys. Now I have to reel them back in after being the one to lead them astray. They’ve always followed my lead in the past, choosing to study when that’s all I wanted to do. Of course, they went out and had their fun sometimes, but nothing on the scale with which they’d started doing so after my slip up.
Now it’s time to get back on track and buckle down like we used to. So far, they haven’t given me much flack for pulling back, but I’m sure they think it’s only because of Lisa. I don’t really share my troubles about my dad with them, well, some, but not to the point that that’s all we talk about or anything.