Snippet #2218312

For a moment, Donald was at a loss for words; he wanted to be mad at her, he wanted to shout at her and hit her as if, by doing that, his shame would go away, but she did have a point. Nothing in the text suggested that Tori agreed or even knew about her friend's feelings, and she did not look like someone who had just been caught red-handed. He might have imagined too much. Still, it would be unthinkable for him to turn back now, to meekly give in moments after shouting so madly and with so much certainty. He hesitated, wondering whether the best course of action was to just keep accusing her and be guiltily pleased by her desperate denials of something he knew, or hoped, her to be innocent of, when he was struck by a sudden realization that sent him into another fit of fury.

How did Kitty know? He had asked Victoria not to tell anyone, and he did not think that would be an easy thing to guess. Maybe her phone's speakers had been on - no, he would have heard the echo of his own voice that way, and more background noises. She blurted it out as soon as she hung up the phone, plain and simple, assumed Donald. Somehow, that felt just as much as betrayal as being ridiculed did. It was a rather important secret; he could get in trouble if the rumor spread, and if there was one thing you could expect in a high school was that rumors would spread. His girlfriend was a smart girl - far smarter than he was, in fact, which he was loath to admit -, and she had known that very well when she decided to confide that bit of information to her best friend. Kitty, Kitty... he rummaged his mind for that name. He did not know much about her. Victoria and she had been friends since way before they started dating, so he could remember hearing that name a few times, but it had never been anything substantial. Shopping, chatting, hanging out after school, those things girls did together. He was not even sure if he had ever met her. That was definitely not enough to determine whether she was the gossiping type. He would need to keep his eyes on that one from now on, and also push her away from Tori if he could. She sounded like someone who could brainwash her away from him if he did not act soon.

But it did not matter if "Kit" would inform anyone else or not, at least not as far as his judgement of Victoria was concerned. Regardless of the consequences, she had let someone else know about a private conversation of theirs and a request that he had explicitly called a secret, all that in an interval of ten minutes or less after the phone chat. That was unacceptable in and of itself. So that's why the little gossip was late, he supposed. And I fell for all that talk of pretending to be sick. He would not be surprised if the whole school, or even her parents, knew by now. For all he knew, they might have phoned the police already!

He was almost completely convinced of his hypothesis. The only thing that did not quite fit in was why Victoria would tell everyone if she was intending to come anyway. If she had just wanted him to get screwed, she would have simply informed the principal and got on with her business, letting the adults deal with the situation. But she had come, and was now right in front of him. Why would she bother missing class, responsible as she was? Perhaps it was only a trap. She wanted him to do something incriminating, so she could hand him to the police. There could be cops out there this very moment, waiting to break into his house and seize him. Or she could be recording their meeting. He would better proceed with caution.

"So", he began, trying to hold in his anger. "You blabbed."