The Devil & Me

Chapter Four: Jack of all Trades

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My friends came to pick me up from the nurse's office a few hours later. Luce slung her arm around my shoulders and carried my bag, while Grace walked beside us, quiet even for her, as we traveled through a drizzly rain.

"I really thought you were going to be in trouble," Luce said. "I came to get you and the Ambroses were tossing you around like a bag of flour."

All right. Maybe I didn't owe him an apology.

"Then why didn't you take me?"

"Hell, I tried. But he shoved up in the back of the car and drove off like a mad man. I honked at him, and he ignored me. Then I came back here to get Grace, but she said it was fine, you were already in the nurse's office."

I looked at Grace, whose skin had a gray cast over it. She picked at her hands. "What did you say to him?" I asked.

"I just told him to bring you to the nurse. But he probably would've done it already."

"Huh." We open the door to our room, and I set my bag down. "He really didn't say anything to you? He wasn't angry at you?"

"He's not as bad as you think," Grace whispered.

Luce kissed her teeth. "You party with them a few times, and you think you're one of them."

Grace grew quiet, and the air thickened with tension. I'd missed a lot of time with them between studying and working. If there was something between them, I wouldn't even know, though I could feel it now.

"Don't be rude, Luce. She can party all she wants."

"How am I being rude? She'll never be one of them, not when she's one of us⁠⁠—"

"Who is us?" Grace spat. "There's Camille and I, two little poor scholarship students, and you, the rich girl that follows us around. Do you think we're a group just because you're black?"

The silence is deafening. Luce turned around, clapped her hands together, and leaned back with a wide smile on her face.

Shit.

She surged forward, and in two snappy seconds, had a fistful of Grace's hair in her hand. "You dumb little bitch!"

I wrapped my hands around Luce's waist to pull her back, all while she gunned for Grace's face. At least she was using an open hand. It meant she still cared for Grace, because if this had been any other girl, Luce would've been using fists only.

Grace pulled herself free and wiped her bleeding lip. Her eyes were full of fury. "You know I'm right."

Luce twitched in my arms. "Come on," I whispered. "Please." But she knocked me aside, with ease too. I didn't have the strength for this, not so soon after waking up from a fever.

"And you know that I saw you perched in Leon Raufus' lap, squirming and shit." Grace's skin lost all its redness from the fight. Even her bloody lip seemed to pale. Luce grinned. "You're not the only one who likes to party."

It felt like I'd had ice poured down my body. That can't be true. But why wasn't Grace denying it? I looked at Luce, who was wiping the sweat above her brow, before looking at Grace, who was shaking as though she stood in Siberia. It's true!

"You went out with Leon?" I asked. "Why?" Grace shook harder.

"She didn't just go out," Luce said, her tongue rolling with vicious laughter. "She's dating him. She made out with him in public. God knows what she does behind closed doors."