The Materialists | Book 1 + 2 ✔

17 | You play Chess, I play Checkers

. Relationships slowin' me down, they slow down the vision .
Guess I'm not in a position to deal with commitment
. Certain people need to tell me they proud of me .

♕

RACHEL AND I MET UP that Saturday at 5 & Diner again. I ordered the same as before, corndog, fries, and a milkshake. Once our food appeared before us, we launched straight into planning.

"What happened at the party?" Rachel asked first, and I wasn't surprised. The party was the first thing I decided to do without letting her know first.

"I invited some of my old friends to help loosen things up, make it less formal and awkward and more of a party. And after about 15 minutes Isaia tried getting me drunk," I shrugged off the thought of his hand against my back. Disgusting. "Then I managed to get away from him, but found Brandy snooping around in my room. She didn't find anything by the way. Then I disappeared and around 10 minutes before the party ended Ryan and Yasmin got in a fight, Yasmin hooked up with Sonny, and my security guards kicked them out."

"Well, quick heads up, don't expect Isaia to stop hitting on you anytime soon. And after everyone saw how drunk you were at the first party they'll probably try to get you wasted again. So don't drink anything they give you, even water," Rachel commented, and she was right. How stupid of me to forget I partly fucked things up already after deciding to drink at that back to school party. "Also, how did Yasmin and Ryan benefit you, us, at all?"

"I got it all on camera. And there is a reason I invited the two biggest gossip girls who also thankfully despise each other to the party," I replied, taking a sip of the milkshake. "I knew they would fight, and I also knew some things they'd probably prefer kept a secret would be leaked. Referring to the fact they know so many irrelevant things."

"You're...smart," I saw Rachel smile a little bit. "Thank God they picked you. Any other girl would be too stupid to realize what they were doing. Even I was almost blinded by them."

I nodded, and she was right. I was practically a professional at messing with people, faking relationships and feelings and I was also a professional at making people feel weak and desperate. I learned from the best. "So, other than the parties, what now?"

"Well, I've been thinking about this for a while, and I guess thanks to you recording the fight and everything, it kind of put the idea into action," She began, a little hesitant. "But since social media is so big in this school, and the world in general, what if we used it to benefit us? Imagine this, an Instagram account dedicated to exposed everyone in the school. And we could have a tellonym link where people could anonymously send things people have done, even if it's a lie. It can't be traced back to you and it will only help you climb the social latter."

I didn't even have to think twice about it. "Perfect. That's exactly what we need. Especially now that someone ratted you out, it's too risky for me to play the same game."

"And if they do go the extra mile to trace the account back to us, it can be under my phone, email, and password so you'll never take the hit," She must've seen the suspicious look on my face though. "Obviously you'll have access through it, but set it up under my name and stuff. And plus, if they do trace it back to me I clearly don't give a shit at all. Considering I'll be ditching these losers in less than a year anyway."

I nodded my head and finished up my fries. "We should make the account now then, yeah?"

And that was it. Rachel made the account, naming it Redwoodexposed, and gave me the login to sign in to my account. We both followed hundreds of people from school and in only 30 minutes, 500 of them accepted us and were following us back. Now, to the bigger part. The profile picture was iconically Blair Waldorf, and the only thing in the description was the link to our tellonym. A site that you could anonymously send messages to. Although we had tons awaiting us to look at, we wanted to wait until everything was perfect.

30 minutes later when 700 people were following and 278 people sent us anonymous things, we made our first post. The video of the fight between Yasmin and Ryan. I made sure Yasmin, Ryan, and Derek, Yasmin's ex, was following the account. By the time the video was posted we'd both finished our food and having way too much fun messing with people.

"Now, let's let the comments, likes, and messages pile up. In the meantime you need to do something more...progressive to help you," Rachel said, shutting off her phone and pushing it to the side.

"Like what?"

"Usually Isaia doesn't start the flirting to October when the mascarade ball is, cheesy and stereotypical, I know. But it's only been a couple of weeks and he's trying to get in your pants. I think it would be better if you slowed down the process to make it harder for him."

"So your point is?" I think I knew where she was going with this, but I wasn't sure yet.

"Get a boyfriend. Or a crush, or something. Just get a guy to be interested in you and build the relationship to a point where it's strictly you."

"Isn't that too easy?"

"Not really. Most of the guys here just want to smash and dash, but you need to find someone who can stick around for a while, as long as you need him, and won't be trying to get in your pants asap as well. Assuming you don't want to have sex with a guy you're not interested in."

"Okay, I'll do some browsing on Monday," I said, trying not to laugh at the fact we were describing getting a boyfriend like doing some Sunday grocery shopping.

"You know, Laura Strathen. I think you might be the first person I've ever met that isn't a complete idiot."

"I could almost say the same, Rachel. But for me this is just a game, for you, it was revenge, redemption. So while you play chess, I play checkers."

Song Of The Chapter:

(Disclaimer: The song is an instrumental because Drake restricted 70% of all his albums to music premium users only *Insert barf emoji*)

I would like to put out, I am deciding to make this actually more sensible. I feel like other stories forget that more than half of the teens now are somewhat addicted, if not addicted that very much enjoy, the usage of their phones and social media. So why not make that impact the story, right? I won't make it too big of a thing just a factor to take into consideration.

As always, please tell me if I missed any plot holes or errors because I suck at editing and I post these as soon as I finish them so I often miss things.

Question: What's your favorite name for a guy?

ALSO HAPPY HALLOWEEN LOL