I know The Devil

Chapter 015| Thank you for being stupid

~ Though she be but little,

She be fierce.

I felt the air conditioner blast at me like it was warning me to calm the fuck down.

Mr Followhills was saying something but I could tell it included our textbooks because everyone was producing theirs from their backpack and I didn’t know what did it. Maybe I was pissed with everyone. How easily Tristan had sat beside me like we were BFFs and Law had called me his which though sent a secret thrill down my spine that my feminist self would take to her grave, it was still downright annoying. He didn’t know anything about me and if he thought picking just a week of confusing interest in me could change that fact then he was more mentally unstable than I had thought.

Maybe it was damn Zara whose eyes were rolled to her back while her hands clenched the edge of the desk making it obvious that Jax her boyfriend who sat next to her had his hands in between her thighs and soon they’ll both be leaving the classroom to finish off this session in a secluded closet. I clenched my fist and shot a hand on the air before I could talk myself out of whatever it is that I was about doing.

“Yes, Ms Prudence?” He raised his brow.

I was one of his best students, which was a recurring positions in most if not all the classes I took so he’ll forgive me if I told him I was just stretching. Probably he’ll laugh it off, right? The Huggins twins made a show like this all day and the class laughed right?

It wasn’t too late I reasoned, gulping but when I looked around I noticed that everyone’s attention was fixated on me and they weren’t expecting a joke.

I stood up, I won’t be giving one I thought clearing my throat.

“Mr Followhills, I believe you owe us an apology for arriving 20 minutes late to a class and it is highly unacceptable that you carry on with tutoring as if nothing happened.”

There was absolute quietness in the class but just to be fair it wasn’t like anyone has been feeling chatty ever since Law’s deliberate ruckus but this time it was different. The look of pure shock had been on their faces too in the morning but because of Law, but now, their piercing wide stare, the shock plastered on Mr Followhills wrinkly face since I opened my mouth to produce words, it was all me.

The old man must have considered me dumb since I never say a word in class or to anybody and never replied to him when he commented on my brilliance too.

This moment was mine so I soaked it up knowing that I’ll forever remember this minute of Fame, this profound silence. Everybody was wondering what did it, what made the weirdo sing? I was too.

It should have not been more than weighty seconds but it felt like days when Mr Followhills smiled as politely as one could swallow a snarky comment. “I’m sorry class for arriving 20 minutes late to class. I just never knew anyone was counting and I had a flat tire.”

I perch my ass on my seat, still shaky and I bet flushed from the adrenaline rush of how scary that had felt and been but yet the exciting thrill that followed was worth it.

“How did that feel?”

I couldn’t tell if it was Law or Tristan. I didn’t care really, this was about me. My moment inspired by my badass hoodie and fucking pain on the sole

I smirked, “Like I’m visible and not just a ghost waltzing in the hallways.”

“Good. Because you are very much visible to me. Always has been.”

I held my tray to myself even as I briefly glanced at everyone sitting with somebody and sharing a joke or just enjoying the companion of another with a wistful stare. Of course, not everybody sat at a table that many would not mind standing at if they could place their trays on top of it just once.

“Hey Prude,” someone shouted and I turned, more scared for the unfortunate person than being displeased. My eyes widened as I saw Gloria at our seat, giving me a toothy grin.

“Don’t ditch me now,” she hollered, “Even though I leave now many people who didn’t acknowledge that I was friends with you are watching us right now. Who would take me now when I’ve wined and dined with the school outcast literally?”

I smiled, shook my head, jogged and stopped a few feets from her. I was now laughing, so hard my cheeks hurt and I didn’t even mind that we had spectators. Students who glanced at us probably wondering if there was an insanity outbreak in the land of the poor.

“You didn’t take my advice.” She left her tray on top of the table and walked toward me.

“Who is the intelligent one amongst the both of us?”

“Me, of course,” I whispered smugly.

“So why do you look surprised?”

Tears welled in my eyes even as she lunged at me, wrapping her arms around me.

“Thank you for being stupid.”

She chuckled.

So I said it again and again till we both were sobbing, laughing and holding each other aware of how discomforting it would be not to. We are all we had anyways.

Gloria lived in Cabo San Lucas, unlike I whose town, La Paz was a northern neighbour to Todos Santos, so I hugged my arm staring at her retreating figure for a while as she headed for the bus station.

“If I wanted to know what it looked like if I kidnapped your puppy as a kid, I think I know now.” I turned startled to see Law Tyler leaning against the plush leather of his Ashton Martin one-77.

That was another thing that surprised me about Law Tyler. He was intentional about not being lost in the crowd of the rich in their exotic cars which were almost alike. Dozens of pink range rovers, red, grey, black, and cream. A harem of different models of Ferraris in different colours and other sporty cliche cars. His Ashton Martin one-77 which was a wet dream to Rob and his friends who lounged in one of the pubs in the neighbourhood; those with the smell of cheap beer and spirit that seems to cling to your body for days, was a sharp contrast in the driveway.

I can still remember my laughter as they’ll seat in a pub all day and imagine riding in a car which was worth three years of a middle-class working man’s earnings.

It’d felt like a fable and a funny fairytale when Rob would wake me up in the dead of the night to tell me that he saw himself riding it but now, it felt so unfair watching a boy, my age behind that wheel yet wearing a dang bored look on his face as if he’d rather be anywhere in the world than hanging out with us mere mortals.

I ignored him, holding on to my backpack and resumed walking.

I heard the door slam shut and knew he was following me.

He tapped me and I turned.

“Il Mio Fiore di loto__”

I wanted to ask him what that even meant and if he had dreamed hard for the car he was now riding since he was twelve.

“Don’t you know when to give up?” I asked him instead, staring at him, “You know the moment when you say with all certainty, run now, run,” I gritted my teeth even as I added in an accent that was completely whack “Il Mio Fiore di loto”

He smirked.

“Don’t expect me to pursue you. Then I’ll play a piece of classical music from a piano mentally to go with the touching backing down after a heroic attempt.”

“Tempting,” he nodded his head as if considering it for a while, “But no thank you. I want to drop you home.”

I shook my head, believing I must have heard wrongly. It was his sexy accent that made me wonder how they would sound when he harshly exhales my name in the throes of passion, with my hair fisted in his hand and the other holding onto my neck to slam me against his cock, fucking me just as hard and dirty I knew bad boys were capable of.

He held my hand not allowing me to take a step.

“Let me take you home.”

I laughed. Hard and long.

Then stared at him with his Greek-like Face, his car that would make the entire neighbourhood have a field day discussing, his pieces of clothing that although might not ooze wealth, but his aura, his gait, God, his skin… His damn Italian shoes. He didn’t even need the car. Anyone and everyone with a nose could smell the dollar sign on his body from miles away.

Bringing him to my neighbourhood would be like delivering a lamb to a pack of wolves. A very stupid lamb if you ask me who nodded when I asked him yet again if he was damn sure and gave him the heads up that I live in a shitty neighbourhood, a ghetto even yet he just nodded again.

I smiled as he opened the door for me, all gentlemanly and I sat down knowing that was the last time he would want to see me. This was my last trick as a magician, the epic reveal that leaves Everyone gobsmacked and this should do the trick, after he was mugged and stripped of everything he had on then he would stay the hell away from me that is if he would withstand the pungent odour of dirt, dust and hard drugs from afar.

If he wouldn’t be scared he’ll catch germs when he saw naked children, representing abject poverty. Their skinny underfed frail body looked like its ambassador and dressed as one playing around the neighbourhood would be interrupted by the presence of such a flashy car which would look out of place in their eyes and then they would pursue it trying to touch it with their hands. It was like a droplet of water in the desert, a patch of green leaves in a barren land, it was hope that there was a reason to live, that a pauper could one day be King and work their way up to Beverly hills. I had that dream and still did.

“Where are you headed?”

“La Paz.” I watched him wait expectantly after he inputted the information I’ve already provided on his Google map.

“I doubt Google is aware of my neighbourhood. I’d direct you.”

“Cool.” He shrugged.

I smirked, You’ll be anything but cool after this I thought.