Wicked Confessions (Excerpt Only)

chapter five (confessed by Seth)

I always thought hazing was illegal. So, why was I sitting in a tub of ice water to stop the burning pain that raged throughout every muscle of my body? I got their message loud and clear. The team didn't approve of a freshman on the varsity squad. And they didn't like me being named the starting quarterback. So, yeah, I knew I wasn't welcome, and thus, the daily reminders needed to stop.

"Totter! What's going on? Your mom said you were up here taking a cold bath? Have you lost all your marbles?" Harley grilled me as he barged into the bathroom.

"Bro! Privacy! Really?" I reminded.

He scoffed. "Whatever. I don't wanna see anything anyway. So, is it from actual football tonight or more of the same?"

What can I say? A couple of nights back, at just the wrong time, Harley had come around a corner at school, after his cross-country practice, and caught the team giving me my dues. As my best friend, he had wormed the whole scoop out of me. But honestly, I had needed to vent to someone. Who better than him?

"Totter! You can't let them keep doing this to you!"

"Bro, it's not like I want them to. It's just a rite of passage."

"Hazing is not a rite of passage. You need to report it. Get out of that tub, and let's go to the cops."

Yeah, turning the team over to the police? Not an option. After all, I wanted to remain alive. "No way, Bro. I need to not be in a body bag at the end of this."

"Fine. I'll take care of them myself," he threatened.

"Like you took care of Jesse Kingsley today?" I countered. Only Harley would pound a senior on the first day of school. But Jesse Kingsley was smarm. I never could understand why Princess liked him. So, it absolutely made my day to hear that Harley had put Jesse in his place. It was long overdue. "So, what did he do, anyway?"

"He cried. It was great. 'Oh, please, don't hurt me!' Little sniffly wimp."

I snickered and clarified, "I meant, how did he piss you off?"

"Besides merely existing? He told Persephone she needed black hair to be Goth, so she immediately went to the corner store – yeah, as in, on her way to school – bought a pair of cheapo scissors, and hacked her hair right off!"

"Princess cut her hair?" I summarized in disbelief. Princess's hair was her pride and joy. She wasn't herself lately, but a haircut? The last time her hair was short was like in third grade or so.

"Yeah, no! She cut her own hair! Don't you get it? With crap scissors! That's not a good thing, Totter. It's a mess!"

"So, you beat Jesse up over it?"

"Cuz he's the one who put the idea in her head! How dare he insult her, with no regard for her mental state and wellbeing! One flip comment and BAM! She snaps and does something drastic!"

Okay, so he had a point. Jesse clearly had too much influence over Princess. "But Bro, she's talking to you again?"

He shook his head. "No. Gabby told me. Or should I say, 'Her bestie in the whole world, Gabby, told me.'"

"Bro, chill! We are still her best friends. She just doesn't want us getting hurt, so she pushes us away. You'd do the same thing in her shoes. Oh, wait! You already did!"

"Totter! Let it go! I never turned my back on the two of you! I walked away from magic. There's a big difference. I couldn't control my powers, and I killed someone! I couldn't risk hurting you guys."

"And Princess believes it's her fault that Jade is dead! So, she pushes away everyone who truly matters to her because she can't deal with the idea of losing anyone else. Don't tell me your therapist didn't go over it with you. Mine's told me a hundred times. So, you know what she's doing, and you know we can't take her actions personally right now. She's just trying to cope."

"We all are," he reminded me.

"Well, cut her some slack, Bro! You haven't been in her shoes. She never makes promises, and the one time she does, she breaks it?"

"Totter! Don't even act like I'm not compassionate enough towards her! Who's been there every day this summer? Who believes in her no matter what? And yet, she talks to Gabby and hangs out with Gabby and is all fine around Gabby but won't say squat to me!"

He needed to dial back the jealousy. "Well, if you meant as little to her as Gabby does, she'd talk to you, too, Bro."

He growled. "Need some more ice, Totter?"

"Actually, I'm good," I decided. I stood up, grabbed my towel, and wrapped it around me.

"Totter! Really? Dude, give a warning! Yuck!" he complained, covering his eyes.

"Bro, relax. You didn't see anything." I probably should mention that his back had been to me the whole time, so he really hadn't seen anything. I ruffled his hair as I walked by him and went to my room to get dressed.

Once I was decent, I went out to my backyard and found him sitting on the picnic table. "You ready to do this?" he wondered.

I nodded. "Ready as I'll ever be." And with that, we walked over to Princess's house.

Her hair was so short that it spiked. And it was black. Her mom had brought her to the hair place to fix it after school. They did a very good job. It looked hot. I mean, Princess always looked hot, but even without all her hair, she was an absolute knockout. Like, jaw on the ground, hubba hubba, whoa, hot.

"Totter, stop drooling," Harley pointed out.

"I wasn't drooling!" I lied. "You're the one drooling, Bro!"

To break up our little wrestling match, Princess spoke! "Guys! Really? Knock it off." Five words. Then, she turned back over in bed, looking towards her windows.

Just five little words, and yet, it was totally the breakthrough we had spent all summer hoping for. Princess had spoken to us! Someday, she'd be back to her old self. It was just a matter of hanging on, no matter how difficult she made it.

And if her new haircut was intended to be her latest effort to push us away, it clearly backfired. In fact, all the way back to my house, Harley and I wouldn't shut up about it. And with the evil glint he had in his eyes, he probably kept right on talking about her, to himself, all the way home.