Chapter 1
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“Oh damn!” I gave myself one last look in the rearview mirror before grabbing my backpack from the passenger seat and jumping out of the car.
A look around the parking lot did not brighten my mood one iota. It was as if everyone was waiting around for me to show up.
It was getting harder and harder to show up here and the weekends, which used to come around way too fast when I didn’t want it to, when school was my happy place, now seems to drag ass just to be contrary. Fuck my life!
I pretended interest in my phone so I didn’t have to see the stares. This way I won’t have to slap the shit out of the first person to say the wrong damn thing to me today. It was that kind of day and it hadn’t even started.
It didn’t use to be like this. A month ago I’d race to get here. I couldn’t wait to see my friends and hear the noisy chatter of the other students as they gave each other quick rundowns of the night before.
Usually I’d be covered in friends by now, but not today. I made it all the way inside and to my locker before the whispers started.
I had to force myself to ignore and just carry on, but what I really wanted to do was turn around and go home, pull the covers over my head and sleep until this was all over.
‘I guess she’s not so high and mighty now, look at her.’ There were other things said that I didn’t hear, but there was no missing the wild laughter that followed me down the hallway.
Each time I saw someone on their phone I got a sickening cramp in my tummy and my palms broke out in a sweat.
I’ve been holding it together these last few weeks, but I’m not sure I can do this much longer. It was getting so this place was beginning to feel like a prison, one I couldn’t escape from.
I escaped into the classroom long before it was time for class to begin and tried to play a game on my phone to pass the time.
It was no use, you can run from a lot of things but you can’t run from your own thoughts. I didn’t miss the students that walked by and looked in at the spectacle of me sitting there alone. Or the way most of them whispered behind their hands.
When was this shit going to end? I have one more month of high school and then I don’t have to see any of these jerks again, but that month is going to kick my ass.
I felt him as soon as he entered the room and as much as I told myself not to look I couldn’t help myself.
My heart hurt so much when he kept his head turned and if my knees hadn’t gone weak I would’ve jumped up from my desk and left the building.
This wouldn’t be so hard if I hadn’t been the one to screw up, if I could take the high road. But I was the one who’d made the biggest mistake of my life and lost the only boy I knew I’d ever love.
I formed his name on my lips but no sound came, and then the room begun to fill and I lost my chance. I wanted to cry but I don’t think there were any tears left.
It’s been two weeks and I still cry myself to sleep at night. I can’t talk to anyone about what’s bothering me, the person I thought was my best friend after him was part of the problem, and my mom who I can share anything with was never to find out what an ass her daughter had been.
I got a cramp in my tummy at the thought of mom and dad finding out what I’d done. Dad would lock me in my room and throw away the key, and mom would just give me one of her disappointed looks that was almost worst than an open hand slap across the face.
I didn’t hear a word the teacher said and was the first one out the door when the bell rang. I hoofed it to my next class and did pretty much the same.
If I hadn’t already taken all my classes and been accepted to a good university I would be in fear of my grades, but we were just going through the motions now until time ran out.
Lunch was the usual horror it had become since the incident. No one sat with me; I’d become contagious.
I wanted to jump to my feet and yell at them all to look at me, to see what their silence was doing to me, how it made me feel. But I knew I wouldn’t.
Instead I sat there chewing the same piece of lettuce for three minutes. I felt sick when just that little bit hit my stomach and just gave up the pretense of eating altogether.
I wanted my mom, was tempted to call her and spill my guts, but I couldn’t. I can’t bear to disappoint one more person I love.
It didn’t help that Brandon seemed to be just as miserable as I was. It didn’t help either that all the girls I’d once called my friends were now vying for his attention.
Anger mixed with the sadness and I just wanted to die. I never knew you could feel this lonely while surrounded by so many people.
Even though there was laughter and loud talking, the silence inside was deafening. There was only one thing on my mind, the same thing that had been there for the past two weeks, the thing that had destroyed my life.
Did they think I couldn’t see them staring, whispering, pointing? Did they think I didn’t know what was the topic on everybody’s tongue?
