Furious
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In memory of Nancy Redwine
Furious and forgiving in all the right ways
Contents
“I tell you, ladies … you don’t know how good it feels till you begin to smash, smash, smash!”
—CARRIE NATION
PROLOGUE
In times past,
all dramas started with a prologue, the
before
before the beginning.
Enter the character to tell you what you need to know.
Enter me, Ambrosia.
Here is what you see. Someone tall and straight, dressed always in black, unruffled in every way down to the clean, classic lines of my designer clothing. I am not perfect by contemporary standards. My almond-shaped eyes—a legacy from my ancestors—sit a little too close together, giving me a penetrating gaze. My nose is too pointed and prominent to be considered an iconic profile in this culture of perky and pug-nosed Anglo-Saxons.
Yet mine is the face that all other female faces at Hunter High are unfavorably compared to. Beauty is
not
merely in the eye of the beholder. It exists beyond fashion and trend, and everyone feels drawn to it, to what’s deep and unshakable.
From this description, you think you know me, right? I’m the girl who has it all—the looks, the grades, the boobs, the family connections. But my face, this mask of self-assurance, covers a seething anger.
Because in truth, I have nothing worth having. When someone has wronged you and gotten away with it, when the guilty walk free, that miscarriage of justice makes your very soul writhe in agony.
Let bygones be bygones?
Come to peace with the past?
What rot!
Animals may forgive and forget, but not a human. I will never find relief, not until a certain someone pays for the crime and suffers as deeply as I have.
I’ve been waiting ages, and finally all the elements are coming together. What a rare alignment of sun and stars and flesh it is. It’s been up to me to find the talent, coax it, feed it, and slowly cultivate it into its full dangerous bloom.
I have two-thirds of what I need. I wait for the missing piece to reveal itself.
I can already taste the iron tinge in my mouth, blood calling out for blood.
It’s time for me to close the book on the prologue. But there’s one more crucial thing you must understand:
This story started long ago, when the wrong that haunts me was committed and left unpunished. When a spoiled and selfish young prince picked up a knife and decided that it was his gods-given right to plunge the blade deep into someone’s back.
That someone was me.
PROLOGUE,
THE BOOK OF FURIOUS
1
When you’ve got
an overbite and only one real friend and you’re what grown-ups euphemistically call “a late bloomer” (meaning I’m short and skinny where I shouldn’t be skinny and I
just
got my period), you pretty much accept that every day is bound to be a series of humiliations, large and small.
So given the sucky reality of being me, of being Meg, it’s really something to say that in my almost sixteen years of living, despite my many episodes of blowing it big-time, this particular day turns out to be the most humiliating one of my life.
More humiliating than when I was five and going to scary kindergarten for the first time and had to be pried loose from my foster mom. I was screaming and got a bloody nose from freaking out, and all the other kids were just sitting there—cross-legged and staring.
More humiliating than finding out too late that an eighth-grade girl should never stand at the school entrance and hand out valentines to all 167 members of her class. Especially when the cards are personally signed and individually addressed.
Even more humiliating than last week, when I must have had a brain drain that erased everything I ever learned from my previous humiliations. That’s the only explanation for how I could walk right up to this guy Brendon—this popular guy with adorable eye crinkles when he smiles—and blurt out that I had a two-for-one mini-golf coupon and maybe he might want to go with me sometime. I love mini-golf—I mean, who doesn’t? But Eye Crinkles only stared at me blankly, like he’d never seen me before, even though we’ve been in a ton of classes together for the past three years.
And now his friends make pretend golf swings whenever I walk by.
So probably you’re thinking, what could be more humiliating than that?
Hold on. It gets far worse.
A brief setting of the scene. Third period. 10
th
grade Western Civ, my favorite class this year, even though Ms. Pallas makes you work your butt off just for a B. All the usual characters are there. Our teacher is standing to the side of the room, arms crossed, listening to our first oral presentations of the semester. I am in my usual seat—not too close to the front, not way in the back either—right in the middle where it’s easy to get lost in the pack. Next to me, my best friend, Raymond, is totally engrossed in whatever genius thing he’s writing in his notebook.
In front of the class, one of the Double D twins, Dawn or DeeDee, is giving her presentation. Not to be mean or anything, but her report on ancient Sumerian civilization is crap. I’m just being truthful. I can’t imagine that she put in any more than twenty minutes to plagiarize from Wikipedia. Doesn’t she have any pride? Ms. Pallas won’t let her get away with it.
Anyway, the thing I remember next is getting distracted by what’s going on outside the window. This is taking place in a coastal town, a slice of surfer paradise wedged between the Pacific Ocean and a redwood forest. The geography here makes the weather unpredictable: sunny one minute, and then warm air hits cold ocean, which makes the fog roll in, and that’s what happens right then. It’s like the whole classroom gets whisked to a different place and a different day without anyone leaving their seat. Poof. It’s gray, dreary, and Jane Eyre–ish, which is fine with me. I’m not exactly embracing life these days.
And I’m not going to lie. As I watch the weather change, I am trying very hard not to think about that guy with the eye crinkles who happens to be sitting a mere few seats to my right. Only, of course, my mind-control technique is backfiring. All I can do
is
think about him.
What’s the matter with me? Wasn’t living through that embarrassment once enough? Why do I keep replaying it? For about the two-millionth time, I put myself through every mortifying detail. The pounding heart. The sweaty palms. My own voice confessing my love of mini-golf. The condescending look on his face. The heat rising to my cheeks. My stuttering apology for bothering him.
How could I have been so stupid?
Could I have made a more pathetic cry for love?
Why did I pick such a popular guy?
What was I thinking?
Why do these embarrassing things always happen to me?
Why me? Why not to other people? Why not to
him
?
Just once
, I say to myself.
Why can’t he feel what it’s like? He should try being me for once. He should feel every aching throb of longing for me that I feel for him, and then get shot down.
I let that idea sink in very deep, and—I’m not going to lie about this either—it gives me a real charge, a jolt of pleasure, to think about getting back at him in some way. I decide to stay with my fantasy, go with it. I let myself get really worked up at him, then even angrier. Why not? Who am I hurting?
So while Dawn or DeeDee drones on, and outside the fog turns to rain—not drizzle rain, but
rain
rain that slaps the windows in sheets—I let myself hate that boy with all my might. I savor every sweet detail of revenge that my mind conjures up. I let it become real.
First he will come begging to me for a date. He’ll be all shy and scared, and I’ll listen as he fumbles his words.
Then … and then … I won’t answer. I’ll just wrap both of my hands around his neck and pull him close and kiss him. I’ll kiss him so hard that he won’t know what hit him.
This fantasy is so much fun. It feels so good that I have to stop myself from cackling out loud like a crazed chicken. I actually put my hand over my mouth. It’s kind of scary how good it makes me feel, but scary in a very satisfying way.
And when he looks at me, dazed with love, I’ll ask, “So, change your mind about mini-golf?”
He’ll nod eagerly, hopefully, practically in pain with love for me, and I’ll shoot him down. Bam! I’ll yawn and say, “That was the most boring kiss ever. For you, Brendon, the mini-golf coupon has expired. Permanently.”