Free Kane Richards Must Die by Shanice Williams

thought about how much I affected her, a smug grin on my face.
    After a couple of seconds of her heavy panting on my shoulder, her hot breath burning through the fabric to my skin, she regained some of her strength and tugged against my hands slightly, trying to get free. I held on tighter.
    “Why can’t you just let me go?” she whimpered, and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t just talking about my hands. I wished so badly that I could just tell her, but the more selfish part of my head was stronger than the confident part at the moment. So I stayed silent, squeezing my eyes shut, and wishing I could man up and get some courage. When I opened my eyes and finally focused on our surroundings I noticed that people had actually stopped midstep to stare at both of us, all wide-eyed and whispering. I could see all the chicks looked pretty angry, including the red-headed chick that I had walked away with earlier. As bad as I had felt about Suranne, I’d needed some release to get my stress levels down so I’d let her lead me off to the janitor’s closet.
    But the whole time I was thinking about how Suranne’s face had twisted in pain when I had hooked my arm around the other chick. I just couldn’t erase the pictures from my head. And the burning ache in my chest only got worse as soon as she got down on her knees. After a while I just got pissed off, pushed her off me, and walked to class.
    “People are looking Kane, please, just let me go,” Suranne pleaded, the last three words strained as her voice broke slightly, like she didn’t have the strength anymore.
    No, Suranne, please just wait for me
.
    But my body let her go and she stumbled away from me, sniffling quietly and treading unsteadily back to Lawrence’s car as he glared daggers at me and put his arm possessively around her.
    Whatever.
    I spied the rest of the lot and noticed that all eyes seemed to follow Suranne’s movements until Lawrence’s car peeled out of the lot. Then their eyes snapped back to mine.
    “Fuck off,” I muttered lowly as I got into my car and started the engine. The familiar growl permeated through the small space. I put the car in gear and screeched out of there as the eyes of the entire school burned into my mirrors before disappearing altogether.
    I realized that for once, the guys weren’t cheering and murmuring about how I was the man. They were looking at me like I was crazy. Like I had somehow lost my touch, no longer desired by the entire female population.
    At that moment, as I came back to focusing on the road in front of me, I knew that when I returned to school tomorrow, I was no longer going to be
the
Kane Richards. And if it meant that I would be able to get my girl in the process, then it meant that I really didn’t give a shit.

16. TEXT MESSAGES
Suranne
     
    T he car was silent apart from our breathing and the occasional sniffle from me. Lawrence fiddled with the radio for a while, but didn’t find a station that appealed to him, so he turned it off.
    After a few more minutes of silence, he turned to me slightly. “Suranne, are you OK?” he asked softly, turning his head back to the road and then glancing at me quickly.
    I nodded absently, my mind still thinking about how my whole jealousy payback thing had backfired. For some reason Kane always seemed to have the upper hand.
    “So, what do you wanna do once we reach my place?” he asked lightly, trying to remove the dark cloud that had filled the space between us. Shaken out of my daze my head snapped up, my tone of voice instantly contrite.
    “Oh crap, Lawrence, I’m so sorry but . . . would you mind just taking me home?” I pleaded softly.
    He turned towards me, shocked, before concentrating back on the road. “But . . . you said─”
    “I know Lawrence, but . . . please . . . I just really wanna go home.” Tears slowly started to gather at the corners of my eyes again.
    “OK,” he sighed heavily, and took the next turn towards