Chapter 19 – Seeking Revenge

Vamped

Previously, Mark assures Misty that his parents enjoyed their dinner. Misty watches Arabelle decline as her prospects for the coming dance slide from her grasps and spends quality time with the girls watching Mark’s practice.

Monday

Mark's parents were almost rabid in their enthusiasm to entertain again, even so soon after our dinner last night. They brought out half the raw ingredients in the pantry and pounds of smoked salmon, his father pulling on an apron before stationing himself a the stove. He narrated his process while we waited for Zane and Claire to arrive, showing me how to make the honey-roasted veggies and the seasoned green beans my mom had made for me. He had me wash up and flake the cooked salmon for him, assuring me it was too easy to screw up.

After, they both kissed Mark on the cheek and left the house. “Don't they want to chaperone us all?” I asked.

Mark just shrugged. “I really don't think they expect us to get into much. Plus, this is their shopping night. They make this weird date out of smelling produce and sampling cheeses.”

“You're joking.”

He laughed. “Not at all. It's gross in that parents-in-love way, but also cute in that parent-in-love sort of way.”

I gave a noncommittal noise, never having experienced that in my own home.

There were a couple of honks outside and we both went over to the front door. Mark opened the door to see his parents' car getting onto the road, his Mom's hand waving out the window to another car that was about to pull in. Mark waved them in also, then filled Zane in on the scrimmage match while they both got settled.

Claire was bouncing on the balls of her feet, clearly excited, so I asked about the council meeting. “We got your idea approved,” she said, beaming.

“How?” Even if it weren't my idea, a program for making weirdos feel more welcomed to the school seemed like the antithesis of Newcastle's intentions toward me.

Claire played down the accomplishment, staring at her nails like it was nothing. “Oh, you know, he really wasn't interested at first. But I reminded him that it would take little effort or funding on his part. Then I explained to the other members how successful students can be when we take on the workload ourselves.” She winked and I figured she was probably referring to Erin's dance a couple years back. “Then he was all for it. Just didn't want to babysit us, he said.”

We all continued on into the kitchen, where Mark and I had plates ready to be filled and stools lined up by the counter. We dished up, Mark being careful to casually select the few vampire-friendly foods his dad had made for him while I scooped up servings of the sides I had helped to prepare earlier.

We were quiet for a few minutes while we ate, but eventually Claire broke the silence. “So how's the masterplan going, you two?” she asked. “Arabelle finally lay off?”

I made a so-so hand motion, but Mark answered, “Great.”

“What do you mean, great?” I asked. “She still spends most of sixth period glaring at me or out the window.

He smiled. “I told you before, it was mostly an excuse to spend time with you. It's not like you would have trusted me to want you without some ulterior motive.”

“Well, yeah. I've seen enough teen flicks to know that never happens.”

The other three rolled their eyes at that. “Yeah,” Mark said. “I definitely wanted to get with you for a bet.”

“Oh.” They all laughed at that.

“Actually,” Zane cut in, “I was curious to know if she'd left you alone, Mark.”

“It's been better. Ara still tries to catch my eye in the hallway, and I can tell she's been trying to get me alone. But I always have someone around between classes, so…”

“Pity she won't talk to you with a witness,” Claire mumbled.

Zane snorted. “Oh, I'm sure she knows it's harder to seduce someone with another person available for a reality check. She doesn't want to talk, she wants to manipulate.”

“I don't even think she wants me back anymore. I doubt she sees any benefit of us being seen together.”

“Maybe she wants to get your stories straight,” I said.

They shifted their focus to me, politely confused. I squirmed a little as I decided on some vulnerability. “My mom tried to leave a few times before my dad died. But he'd always convince her to come over, to talk. Figure out where he went wrong. Why she hated him.” I took a deep breath. “But he never wanted to talk, you know?” It came out in one big huff, as I tried to keep my eyes from watering and my voice from shaking. “He would start off asking what he did, but in this way that was really telling. Did I hit you? Cheat on you? It must have been really bad. Like those were the only things she was allowed to leave him over. Then he'd move on to blaming her for his actions, then asking what she would tell people. He'd get really mad when she'd say the truth. And then he would tell her what to say. It would start off small, of course. Just tell people they both got angry. Then when she'd agree, he'd add more. That she set him off. She was a cruel shrew. She hit him. He threw her out.

“He'd never start there, because he knew she'd never agree to it. But he'd grind her down until she was repeating his lies. Then they'd both tell me what to say. Not that I was ever allowed to speak to anyone.”

There was a moment of silence before Zane spoke. “I'm sorry that happened to you, Misty.”

I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “It's over now. But anyway, I'm sure Arabelle just wants to change Mark's perception of their breakup. First it'll be amicable, then mutual. Eventually she'll try to get him to say it was her idea. Even if he never tells anyone else, she'll want him to reassure her. It's really about her feeling better. Like it was her choice. Or at least that's how it was for my dad.”

Mark shrugged. “Even if that's not her plan, it doesn't matter. I mean what will it help to talk about it? She'll never change. I could break the whole thing down for her, and she won't accept there's something wrong with anything she did.”

I thought back to how my dad had always felt justified in his actions. Even if Mom did nothing to provoke him, his behavior was always expected. Always rational. There really hadn't been any reason for her to explain things to him either. It just opened the door for him to bring us back that night. She never gained anything from the possibility of him finally understanding what he did wrong.

I worried that if Arabelle did get Mark alone, she might steal him away from me. Then I shook my head, chastising myself. He wouldn't make it that far. He had friends, and family, and his own life. Even now, if he were alive, Mom wouldn't take my dad back. She had too much to lose.

Claire got the conversation back on track. “Well it's good that she's letting things go, mostly. I was worried she might bother Misty more once she couldn't get to you.”

“I mean, she's still obnoxious,” I said, to more laughter. I relayed the scene from this morning, and how people were ignoring her to focus on their own drama.

“I don't think she grasps how transactional her mini-me's are,” Claire said. “Which is odd, since she hasn't done anything to gain actual loyalty. But when she has nothing to offer them, why would they pay attention? It's not like she's going to get their crushes to say yes for them.”

“What's weird was how she was bragging to the other girls. Doesn't she want the guys to think she's a hot commodity?” The boys coughed at the aged term. I frowned. “Mark basically said he wanted her because other guys did.”

“What I said was she was willing and would make me feel special for being with her.”

My frown deepened. “And why did you think that?”

Mark sighed. “Because other guys wanted her.” Claire rolled her eyes.

Zane smiled. “She's always going to be obnoxious. Does she have a second personality trait to fall back on?”

“Manipulative,” Mark mumbled.

“I doubt she'll try that one on Misty,” Zane replied. “It's not like she can hold sex or popularity over her. Misty's got both of those on her own.”

I rolled my eyes. “I think that's going a little far.” On both counts.

“My point is you can't gain anything from her. You got Mark on your own, because he genuinely admires you, and you've got a variety of people around the school who like being around you. She can't convince you to leave Mark, because there's nothing she has to trade.”

“So now what?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Mark said.

“If she's always going to be obnoxious, but has stopped targeting me, what's next?”

“Well that's just it, Misty,” Claire said. “Nothing is next. You get to live your live without being harassed daily.”

“No, what happens to her?” I insisted. “What's her next move?”

She just shrugged. “That's not really any of our business, honestly. Hopefully it won't affect us, but we should look out for those it does. She just keeps being a bitch and we get on with our lives without her.”

I huffed. “I guess I just wish she would get her comeuppance, you know? Isn't that what's supposed to happen? The bitchy popular girl gets what's coming to her and is miserable for the rest of her life.”

Claire's expression softened. “I think what you don't understand is that she's already miserable.”

I shook my head. “How? She's getting everything she wants.”

Claire laughed breathily. “Is she? What does she actually get out of making girls like you miserable? Or playing games with guys like Mark.”

I shrugged. “Access, I guess. She has the money and the influence to do whatever she wants without consequence.”

Zane leaned in, grinning sardonically. “To be fair, she already had that. That's why she gets away with it all.”

Claire pointed to Zane. “So what does she have because of the games? What's coming from her rather than her parents?”

I thought again. “Influence?”

Claire rolled her eyes and huffed. “Influence to do what?” she snapped.

Mark reached a hand out to her. “Hey…” he said in a soothing voice.

“No, seriously. What does she have the power to do? What decisions has she made?”

Zane hung his head. “Here we go,” he sighed.

“Is she in the student government?” she said, pointed back an forth between she and Zane. “No.”

Zane snorted. “We're on the student council, and we don't have the power to do anything.”

“We just sent the superintendent that proposal to bring healthier foods into the cafeteria menu!”

“Yeah, and he responded by cutting out anything that wasn't pizza or some variation of fried potatoes. Thanks, student council,” he said, grimacing and pumping a fist.

Claire pointed at the wall, or through it, to whomever was on the other side. “Erin directed the spring musical last year when the drama advisor got mono.” The Mark and Zane raised their eyebrows at this. “Half the play was under her influence. She even choreographed that opening dance sequence.”

Zane squinted. “I don't think that really counts…”

“Then what does count, Zane?” she snapped again.

He held up his hands in surrender. “I'm just saying that we don't have a lot of power or influence now. I think what we have is the illusion of those things.”

Mark cut in before Claire could respond. “Which I think illustrates Claire's point really well.”

She looked back a him, lost. “It does?” she said in a small voice.

Mark nodded encouragingly. “We as students don't have a lot of choice on a day-to-day basis, right? And Ara hasn't really increased her options by making enemies at every turn. She hasn't accomplished anything or opened up access beyond what she had through her parents' connections. I mean, who even genuinely likes her?” he asked me.

“Not who wants to be her,” Zane said.

“Or sleep with her,” Mark piped in, looking a tad chagrined.

“Everybody,” I insisted. “That's why they call it being popular.”

Zane chuckled. “That word can have many meanings, depending on the context.” He smiled at Claire until her eyes lit up.

“Plurality,” she whispered.

Mark shook his head. “You've lost me.”

Zane opened his hands toward us, looking almost like a politician. “She won the homecoming crown last semester, right? As a sophomore. Which implies that enough people like her enough to let her rule us, or whatever. But those kinds of votes rarely have high student participation.”

I blinked. “What?”

Claire took over. “We have, what, about a thousand kids here? And do you know how many votes were submitted?” I shook my head. How was I supposed to know that? “Two hundred six. That's it. Just over twenty percent of the student body. And we had to throw out a ton of votes from students who had outstanding detentions. So less than that even. Do you know how many votes she received for homecoming queen?” I shook my head again, and she sat forward, as if taking me into her confidence and letting me in on a precious secret. “Fifteen. That's it.”

“How did she win, then?” I asked, looking from her to the boys, who didn't look as surprised as I felt.

Zane grabbed the figurative baton from Claire. “We use a plurality system instead of simple majority. We couldn't get a win otherwise. Half the votes were for write-ins. People vote for themselves or for friends who didn't get enough nominations. Most students don't like the people nominated and write in joke votes like Ferris Bueller or Napoleon Dynamite. They don't care who wins, as long as it's not the jerks who got on the ballot.”

“Okay, but you picked her for a reason,” I said, trying to keep the accusation out of my tone.

Claire smiled indulgently. “Fifteen votes was more than anyone else got. All the other nominees cleared about ten each. Even the quarterback only raked in a dozen. His own teammates voted for Donald Duck in protest of not being nominated themselves.”

“So why does she do it, then?” I asked.

Zane leaned back and pulled Claire into his side. “What's the point of school, Misty?”

I regurgitated the line they fed me each time I enrolled in a new district. “To receive an education.”

“Okay, but we all know we're not actually learning anything. It's glorified babysitting. The ones who do well spend a lot of time with outside reading. The rest of us are here for our friends.” He kissed the top of Claire's head.

Well I usually don't have friends, I thought. So I mostly go to school to stay out of juvy.

“We go to class because they make us. But we wouldn't be able to spend time with each other without it. Through sports and clubs and council, we socialize. The teachers don't like it, but it's really all we have to live for right now. It's how they keep us in line too. Nobody wants in-school suspension, because they isolate you, even during lunch. Ultimately, we're here for each other.

“But Arabelle doesn't have any friends. Or at least not real ones. Most of the girls who follow her around think she'll pass along her access so they can be a brat to their own hit list. Or they think fawning over her will inspire Arabelle to be less nasty to them. Either way, it's all opportunistic. She has minions with their own agendas, not an actual social circle.”

“So why does she go to school, then? I doubt she's doing any outside reading to get into Harvard,” I said.

Claire smiled. “She just networks. Mark told you about her trail of heartbreak. She scoops up boys who want sex and uses them to gain notoriety. She's the one everyone sees run out onto the field after the game-winning touchdown or get scooped up by the point guard during the halftime show. She's not even a cheerleader. Her only right to the spotlight is through other people. She's just practicing.”

“For what?” It's not like she was going to be an NBA wife all the way out here in the middle of nowhere.

Claire laughed, then sighed. “She wants to be a trophy wife when she grows up.”

I stared at her, open-mouthed. “Who would want that?”

She shrugged. “Someone who doesn't have the confidence to be anything in her own right. It's not uncommon. There's a lot of girls who think their best life is hanging on some hot, rich guy's arm and going to big parties in a shiny dress. You can see it if you know what to look for. Some beta brat will follow Arabelle around, hoping to pick up one of her sloppy seconds for a chance to feel like the queen bitch for a month.”

Zane piped in again. “Or a plain-Jane nobody who doesn't usually get attention. She'll say she's better than the popular girls, but the second she gets your money and some freedom from her parents, she starts acting exactly like them, and expects you to play the part of Ken Doll.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You've dated a Barbie?'

He nodded. “Not intentionally. I thought she was this lonely bookworm who liked quiet nights in and drinking tea. But after I gave her the esteem boost she was looking for, she dipped into the trashy clothes, cheap makeup, and everyday drama of her idiot friends. She just didn't have the assets Arabelle was born with to do it early on. But she got there in the end. Lying the whole time about how she 'wasn't like that' and asking me over and over to reassure her of it.”

“Every girl grows up being told the most we can be is a trophy wife or princess,” Claire said. “It's something you have to grow out of, not something girls grow into when exposed to money and attention.”

I huffed, “Sounds like a lot of girls don't grow out of it.”

Claire gave me a sympathetic smile. “More than we'd like, for sure. It keeps the system running to have betas fawning over the alpha bitches, and wannabes becoming them. Keeps us all working toward that goal, rather than subverting it.”

“So she does win,” I say, feeling dejected.

Claire barked out a laugh. “Well, not exactly. Arabelle isn't really trophy wife material. What politician or millionaire would trust her to host benefits and organize galas? She's not a conversationalist or clever or funny. Mark will tell you that she doesn't have much of a personality beyond her snotty attitude.” She sighed. “No, all she has is boobs and semi-natural blond hair.”

Zane shook his head. “Her hair is definitely natural.”

Claire shook her head. “No, she gets her highlights done.”

Mark rolled his eyes as they wound each other up for another squabble. Zane leaned away from Claire and repeated. “No, they're from the sunlight.”

She turned away from him, rolling her eyes. “Putting lemon juice in your hair and sitting in the sun all afternoon is still artificial bleaching, Zane. That's like saying dyeing your hair with Kool-Aid is untreated color.”

“Well, yeah. Fruit juice is natural,” he mumbled.

Claire whipped her head back around, glaring at his stony face until one side of his lips turned up. “You are so … ugh!” She was struggling to keep a straight face also, smirking at him in annoyance and humor.

Mark and I chuckled. “So she's got fake hair and real boobs,” he prompted.

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted…” she began. “Arabelle will marry some upper-management douche who realizes she's got nothing to offer once her good looks start to spoil. He'll cheat on her with his secretary and she'll threaten to leave him. He'll call her bluff and she'll spend the rest of her life bitching with other women about how her ex-husband ruined her life.”

“Ohhh… So he'll punish her,” I said. Claire hung her head.

Mark wrapped an arm around me. “What she's trying to explain is that nobody has to. She's doing it to herself, every day.” He pointed to Zane. “She doesn't spend time with friends she can really talk to, or even trying to make any.” He twitched his fingers toward Claire. “She's setting herself up to be dumped by someone just as shallow and uninteresting as her, so you can't even say she's working toward a happy future.” He turned to me. “She's always going to be miserable. Nobody really likes her and even those who spend all their time thinking about her are really just trying to exploit her for sex or access.”

“Mom says she's just tearing me down because she's jealous.”

Zane shook his head and shrugged. “Even that might be a stretch. There's no reason to believe she values what you have enough to be jealous. She could make friends if she wanted. She just chooses to compete with everyone instead. Girls like her don't join interest groups because they have none. They don't stick with sports because they won't commit to others. You don't have anything she wants. You don't even really have anyone she wants. Arabelle just wants Mark to get to us.” He laughed. “And literally everything she's done to get on our good sides just pushes us all further away. She's so clueless, she doesn't even know what other people want from her.”

So she loses, but she does it to herself. Well that's not satisfying at all, I thought. All the teen movies show some sort of revenge for all the misery she caused. Some way the witty, humble protagonist gets even. This is just one sad, longterm, self-inflicted demise.

Claire reached out and grabbed my hand. “I know you're looking for some grand, public humiliation for her. Some way to destroy everything she holds dear. But you need to trust that it never turns out right for the rest of us. It's better to just let her keep decimating herself each day of her life.”

I dropped my gaze and pursed my lips. “That's stupid.”

They all burst into laughter. Mark was the first to recover, wiping tears from his eyes. “It's better this way, I promise. Nobody can hurt you like yourself.” He turned to Claire and rubbed her shoulder. She stood up and walked into the kitchen. Mark followed her, leaving me alone with Zane.

“It's okay to be a bit petty about it. When Cameron and I were in junior high, he used to make fart noises during my history presentations. Like,” he put his hands to his mouth and demonstrated a very loud, very wet raspberry. “You don't have to be obsessed with them to watch the wreckage pile up. They're very public people. I enjoy watching him moon over Arabelle every day, while she talks over him. They're not fart noises, but her interruptions are just as effective at shutting him down.”

I nodded and got up, wanting to see what Mark and Claire were doing in the other room. I hovered at the threshold, and he took her into his arms and kissed her forehead. He whispered something to her and she mouthed, Thanks. Then I heard her murmur, “It's just hard to wait.” She looked up and gave me a watery smile, eyes bleary. She composed herself and wiped the tears from her face. “I'm going to go clean up.”

Mark watched her go with a soft smile, then looked at me finally. “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said, shortly. “What was that about?” Again, I had trouble keeping the reproach out of my voice.

He walked closer to me and kept his voice low. “Claire had a frenemy in middle school who was a lot like Arabelle. She still gets postcards from the girl anytime she's invited to a destination wedding.”

“She gave the girl her address?” I said, incredulously. I couldn't imagine giving Arabelle any way of contacting me.

Mark sighed. “They were friends once and Claire hasn't moved since her family came to town. The online messages are worse though.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Claire will block her account, and the brat will just make another one several months later, with all the old highlights. Always sending requests with photos of her new life.”

“That's terrible. Why does she do it? Start over, I mean.”

He shrugged. “I don't think she has many more friends than Ara. It's easy to make a new account, port in the old albums, and create a new follower base. Especially with the amount of bikini pics she uploads.” His eyes bugged out, but I couldn't tell if he was impressed or concerned by that fact. He pulled me into his side. “It's hard for Claire to hear it happening to you. She meant everything she said about Ara being the cause of her own misery, but it's hard to remember that when she has her own stalker forwarding on a façade of happiness every semester.”

I looked down, my voice tight. “What if she's actually happy?” I said, pleading for him to deny it. “What if she's not actually punishing herself?”

Mark gave me a tight smile. “Ash and Jeff went to one of those white sandy beaches with their families this summer. The ones on private resorts that charge extra for minors. They saw her there with a photographer, for about twenty minutes. She came, she posed, and then she left. It was the most picturesque summer vacation you could imagine – blue water, white-crested waves, and a sunset like you wouldn't believe. And she missed it all, back to the ocean the whole time.”

He leaned back against the counter and pulled me toward him again. “How happy can you be if you're missing out on the best parts of life? Jeff came home with polaroids of the girls splashing in the shallows, his parents making googly-eyes at each other in the golden light, and playing softball with a handful of college girls.

“All of the shots were shit. They were blurry or out of focus. One picture of Jeff's parents showed a great streak of sand across his mom's face. They couldn't even hang them on the wall, they were so mediocre, just made prints and put them in a scrapbook. But when they showed us after the trip, both families were glowing. They laughed about things outside of the frames or random people they met in the background.”

“They must have had a good time,” I whispered.

“They all swear they're going back next year. But that other girl? She emailed her photos to Claire soon after, touched up and all that. They were gorgeous. Stunning. Her skin glowed like a goddess in all of them. The lighting was perfect. Not a hair or piece of sand out of place. But she didn't experience any of it.”

He turned to me and clasped his hands in mine. “These moments we share together, all of them, the messy ones with your mom's yoga coven and the practices you spend doing homework, watching me kick a ball and sweat everywhere. These are life, and you're happier for living it. Ara never wanted to do any of it. She wouldn't watch scrimmages even, because everyone who came was below her notice, and therefore below noticing her. She wouldn't come over for a movie night or out to a private dinner. Everything had to be public. I think the sex would have been in front of others if she could have gotten away with it. She lives to be seen, but in the process misses out on seeing life completely. It's too blurry and out-of-focus for her manicured lifestyle. There's too much sand flying everywhere.

“I know it's hard for you to see from the outside, but there's no need to punish her. There's no need to pity her even, because her unhappiness is all self-inflicted. Even dragging you down has gotten old for her. She'll be on to the next victim soon, whoever that may be. She gets bored easily and misses out on every lovely, wonderful thing she has access to. And hyper-focusing on her downfall only distracts you from your own life. Has you running in her footsteps to compete with her, like all those not-like-other-girls who wind up just like her in the end.”

He leaned down a bit and whispered in my ear. “Stay with me, in this moment, in this life. Make it about us, about you. Make it about Claire and Zane and Ash and Amber and everyone who makes life worth living. Arabelle isn't the villain of your story, she's just a side character who the author got sucked into giving too much page-time. Pick a better obstacle to overcome.”

I looked up into his eyes, which were as dark as I'd ever seen them. I could almost read his mind, urging me to take that step. Believe I wasn't jumping off a cliff or abandoning some life's dream of tearing down the person who tore me down first. His hands clenched my arms and held me tight, refusing to let go until I made the move to go cold-turkey on what would ultimately destroy me and everything I held dear.

“I –” How could I show him I finally understood?

Mark looked into my eyes like he saw my thoughts running past them. He gave me a gentle smile, then pulled me into his arms. “I know.”

“It's so much easier being angry at her. What am I supposed to do now? How do I become happy?”

I felt his shoulders shrug as he held me. “Try a different tactic. I mean, it's not like your old one ever worked.”

I made a face. “Of course it worked. They didn't bother me anymore.”

He snorted softly into my hair. “But what happened after? Once they were gone, did you get to enjoy their absence?”

“Well, no. We had to move to protect me.”

He pulled away a little and looked straight at me again. “Exactly. You were moved to another school, with another asshole. You didn't even get to enjoy it.”

“Oh yeah…”

“So that didn't work. Try something new. I'm not saying to just sit there and take it. If she starts up again, say something. But give your life a purpose beyond hating the people who hurt you. Stop running and figure out what you want to do with yourself now that you aren't fleeing bad choices from your past.”

He stood there looking at me, waiting for an answer. “I could learn to cook? I've been thinking for awhile it'd be nice to take that off Mom's list. She doesn't have a lot of free time outside of caring for me and work.”

He nodded. “If you want, I know someone who can help with that. You two seemed to hit it off earlier.” He nodded to the platters laid out on the counter. “And you said something this weekend about starting a garden?” He gave a cheeky grin, and I realized he would actually enjoy spending time with me away from the team. “You don't have to do everything alone.” I smiled and nodded. Then he led me back into the living room where Claire and Zane were, and we sat with them for awhile, holding hands.

I thought he would bring up another way I could self-improve, but he started chatting about his soccer starting up for real in a month and how he'd have to start training outside of practice. I was happy for the break, and for a chance to listen to his life and plans for a change.