I approach the shivering gaggle of girls and look down at them. “Hey, you. Stupid bitches.”
“Hey! Ali-Ali, you called them stupid bitches, too!”
“Shut it,” Duke snaps, giving Mel’s head another light slap.
……I can tell he’s had a lot of practice keeping Mel in check.
“Girls—why are you such a blubbering mess? Do you think if you cry hard enough, somebody’s going to come to your rescue? Sorry, but your tears aren’t worth a damn thing. You had the audacity to be so despicable when you didn’t have the guts to suffer the potential consequences? You’re worse than trash.”
I taunt the girls with the sort of language the daughter of a noble would never use. And the girls must be quite gutted. Their eyes are vacant, as if they’ve lost all emotion.
“Trash…,” Liz murmurs quietly, staring hard at me.
Looks like she’s angry at me now. Good. Now Liz the saint has finally made her grand return. This is the Liz I’ve been longing to see. I want to be reviled by eyes overflowing with life, not the vacuous gaze she had earlier.
I know that she will come to the defense of anybody, even those who bad-mouth her. Could it be that I know Liz better than she knows herself? Don’t falter, Alicia. Now is the time to let the culmination of fifteen years’ hard work show in the most epically villainess moment of your life.
“Got something to say?” I ask Liz, with a slight tilt of my head and a big smile.
Her brows furrow. “Did you just call them trash?”
“Yes, I did,” I answer.
Liz’s eyes widen.
“Liz, I hope you aren’t going to defend the girls who lied to you,” I coo, baiting her. “Precisely put, those girls are lower than trash.”
“They may have done a bad thing, but calling them trash is a line that shouldn’t be crossed!” An impressive scowl fills Liz’s face as she snaps at me.
“Oh my, what an emotionally moving statement that was.”
“Are you patronizing me?”
“Quite the contrary—I’m praising you. I could never defend anyone who bad-mouthed me.”
“Make no mistake, I haven’t forgiven them…” Liz suppresses the shaking in her voice. “I’m just very angry that you would use a word like trash to describe them.”
I inhale and exhale to compose myself. “But the world would be better without them.”
“Without who?” Liz dares me.
I glance at the girls. “Without them.”
Baffled embarrassment fills Liz’s face.
“If everybody treated them like they didn’t exist…they certainly would deserve it.”
The girls are no longer angered or saddened by my words. They are terrified. And they keep glancing at Liz for rescue.
Wow…what an exhilarating turn of events. Nothing would make me happier than Liz gaining more worshippers. Ah, but then again, it would be a little annoying if Liz’s platitudes brainwashed them.
“I’ll admit, what they did might have been terrible.”
“Not might have been—it was terrible.”
“Why must you always speak like that?” Liz suddenly looks at me with pity. “They regret what they have done. What good is it to keep blaming them?”
It is apparent that Liz’s calm, clear tone of voice has convinced most of the people in the classroom to endorse her view.
“Liz, you only see the good in people at the cost of ignoring the bad,” I tell her.
“And what’s wrong with that? A charming eye is made by seeking out the good in others.”
“Whaaat the heck?! Are you stupid or something?” Mel’s laughter echoes around the classroom. “On the flip side of the coin, you can never win a war unless you look for the bad in people. Why don’t you just become a nun already?”
“You just insulted nuns everywhere,” Gill quietly quips back.
“Awww, okay, what about—an angel?”
“Yes, that does have a nicer ring to it,” Gill replies. “So does that make Alicia a devil?”
“But you knowww, it really does make you wonder who’s actually the devil and who’s actually the angel.”
“I can’t argue with you there.”
“You two really are a great pair,” Henri interrupts Gill’s and Mel’s banter.
If he is going to butt in, I wish he would say something to stop their conversation. But Gill does seem to be rather accepting of Mel. I get the sense that their wavelengths are similar.
But more to the point—their banter is totally erasing all the dramatic tension in this scene! Then again, I don’t have to go along with their little comedy act. I told Liz once before that not all people are good. And it seems she’s forgotten that lesson.
Those girls are rotten to the core. They need to own up to what they did wrong; otherwise, the cycle will simply repeat itself…
“This isn’t fun anymore. I’ll take my leave.”
But no sooner do I say this than Eric’s antagonistic growl booms through the classroom. “Running away, then?”
“Running away? From what?” I ask.
“Liz always tries to see the good in people and love anyone, no matter who they are. And you refuse to acknowledge it. You’re just jealous that her soul is purer than yours.”
Eric glares at me as he speaks. He’s been glaring at me a lot, hasn’t he?
I slowly walk over to him. Oooh, I wonder if we’re about to start something…
Feeling a giddiness in my heart, I look straight at Eric and say, “At the risk of sounding contrarian”—I pause, beaming broadly—“I have never been jealous of anyone.”
Eric snorts. “What’s so fun about looking down on others? I used to think you were such an earnest, hardworking girl. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“Why, thank you.”
“You think that was a compliment?”
“Yes.”
After all, he is basically saying that I’ve made great strides as a villainess.
Eric’s gaze grows sharper and sharper. The classroom is once again filled with thick tension. I feel sorry for everyone. Every time I show up, the air is hardly breathable.
But the bigger the audience, the better for me. After all, I want my villainess glory to be observed by as many people as possible.
“Here’s the thing about Liz,” Eric says. “She never runs away from what lies before her.”
“Excuse me?” I blurt out dumbly in reply.
“Liz faces every challenge head-on. Every person, no matter who they may be. This is the girl who reached out in kindness to the nobles who detested her. She sacrifices herself to save others. Even when that wild wolf appeared on this very campus, though she was terrified, she protected us all. That’s because she cares; she cares so much that not even fear can stop her.”
“Hold up—a wild wolf appeared on campus?”
I have a long list of questions I want to ask, but the wolf is at the top. Isn’t a wolf appearing on campus just too nonsensical?
Eric ignores my question and quickly continues, “Whenever she has a spare moment, she goes into town to play with the children—she’s always trying to make this kingdom a better place. And what are you doing? You’re always mocking people…… You are the trash.”
As he tells me this, Eric’s eyes are brutally cold.
Oooh, my goodness. My trash talk has been thrown right back at me… And barely after Eric spat that out, I feel the most incredible murderous gaze from behind?!
Slowly, and with great trepidation, I look behind me. Henri, Gill, Mel, and Duke—their collective murderous gaze is powerful enough to flatten everything, myself included. So this is where the phrase “If looks could kill” came from.
Every single body in this classroom is covered in goose bumps—I am sure of it.
“Umm…I’m all right,” I say, to pacify them. “Please stay out of this.”
I gather my wits about me and turn back to face Eric. His eyes are wide and focused on what is behind me.
Oh dear…I’ve completely lost Eric’s attention. Then again, anybody would shift their focus to a hate tsunami like that.
“Tell me, Lord Eric, if Liz would sacrifice herself to save anybody, wouldn’t it be more correct to say that she is the fool?” I say something intentionally aggravating to get Eric’s eyes back on me. “A person who can’t get their priorities straight is a major fool. Even though she knows she’s an important figure in this kingdom, she lowers herself to protect noblewomen who hate her guts? A true wise woman would never martyr herself. Nobody the whole world over could possibly replace her.”
“And there isn’t anybody who could possibly replace you, Alicia dear,” Liz says earnestly, a deep crease between her brows.
“Oh, but there is,” I retort. Liz’s eyes widen a little. “There’s an endless supply of replacements. There’s no such thing as the chosen one. Everyone wants to believe they’re special, and I’m one of them, but in fact, I’m not at all special. If you search for intelligent people, you’ll find plenty of them, and you’ll find plenty of people good at magic. But none of them possess your gift, Liz.”
My words quietly echo through the classroom.
“My gift…if that’s all you see in me, then you may be right. But…each and every one of us is special and irreplaceable.”
“No, Liz, that’s only true of you. That’s why you can’t just wax poetic on your ideal world—you need to be the change you want to see.”
“You cocky little brat…,” Eric jumps in, his voice shaking. “You could never begin to understand Liz. She’s fine the way she is. She doesn’t need to change. If anything is lacking, then we will be her support.”
His eyes filled with rage, he continues, “Liz faced her own fears to fight for us. She’s a strong and beautiful woman.”
Shouldn’t you direct this speech at her and not me?
Liz’s eyes go even wider, and her face flushes until it is nearly the color of an apple. I can see the dewiness forming in her eyes.
Okay, kids, get a room. Well, then…I said what I wanted to say, so let’s end it here. This really isn’t fun anymore. It’s starting to drag.
I look behind me and assume my most badass tone. “Let’s leave this dreadful place.”
The onlookers still don’t seem entirely convinced, but I just want to get out of this classroom and relax.
“You don’t understand Alicia, either.” Duke’s quiet, deep voice echoes through the classroom.
Since I turned my back already, I don’t know what kind of look is on his face, but it is easy to picture. That is probably the last thing Liz expected Duke to tell her. And who could blame her? Liz is blissfully ignorant of my way of thinking.