Page 5 of Game On

I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. I glance behind him and see that Dawn is slack-jawed and staring at me with wide eyes. When I turn back to him, the intensity in his gaze isn’t faded. In fact, it’s possible it’s even more sharp like a point of a knife. I hike my bookbag up and try to stand straighter, but don’t get anywhere because he’s not backing down. “I go here.” I curse at myself. Could I sound even more tame? How about,This is my fucking school now, too. Deal with it.

“You go here?” he asks, his lips thin. “Since when?”

I do stand up then. He’s not going to move back at first, except our lips are precariously close together, so he steps aside, but still manages to loom over me. I run my hand down my arm. “Since this morning.”

His eyebrows draw together. The cafeteria has gone quiet. I don’t need to look around to know that we probably have the attention of the whole school. If they only knew this would be the first of many times. “What happened to your fucking private school, Dale?”

Alec and Sloan come up behind Ryan then. They see me there, and Alec says, “Oh, shit.”

Oh shit is right, I want to say. “None of your business,” I tell him.

“This is Rockport. Everything’s my fucking business.”

My body heat dials up a few thousand notches. It’s not just because we’re standing so close together, it’s because I can also feel the heat of a hundred pairs of eyes on me. It’s unnerving. I only feel comfortable when I’m holding a basketball when I have this much attention. Or so it seems. “I guess consider everything but me your fucking business then.”

He shakes his head, a slow smile coming to his face. “This is—” He cuts off and laughs. The sound is dangerous on his lips. I tell myself not to look, but I do. My whole body flushes for another reason. It remembers what his lips felt like on mine, but that was all just a mistake. A terrible mistake. He steps back, his arms going out wide. “Look at this, Rockport High.”

I feel sick to my stomach. I was right. Everyoneislooking at us. They’ve surrounded us, and the people who don’t have front row seats are standing on chairs to see what’s going on. Ryan has exactly what he always wants—an audience.

“A rich little snob from Broadwell coming to slum it with us.”

I swallow. The only friendly face I can immediately see right now is Dawn’s, although she’s looking on in horror. Lake has pushed in front of her, so I’m surrounded by The Rock Ballers. My heart beats painfully in my chest. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen when I left home this morning.

He smirks. His voice is low when he talks next, but it reverberates around the room with finality. I have no doubt everyone in the room hears it, whether they’re standing right next to us or all the way in the back. It’s only a matter of time before this gets through the whole school. “Tessa Dale is a nobody. She doesn’t exist. Period.”

Ryan’s the first to leave, not even giving me a second glance. Everyone files out after, Lake even slamming his shoulder into mine. One-by-one, everyone else disperses too. It feels like everyone files out right in front of me, none of them giving me the time of day. Lake’s not the only one to act as if they don’t see me standing right there either. Several run right into me, including the girl who hung off Ryan as soon as he walked in. “Welcome to Rockport High, bitch,” she sneers.

4

The rest of the school day ends exactly like I think it will. I am invisible. But not in the way I wanted to be. I wanted to slip by unnoticed. Now, everyone notices me, but they make a point to either go out of their way to ignore me or slice hateful glances right through me. I guess being invisible is only fun when it’s on your terms. It’s far lonelier when everyone goes out of their way to make sure you know you don’t exist.

I practically run out of the school, not even bothering to grab homework or books from my locker. I can still feel Ryan’s steel eyes on me from earlier in the cafeteria. It’s like he branded me. My head is so filled with him that I don’t automatically see Dawn until she stands from the hood of my car. She whistles. “You sure landed on the wrong side of things.”

She startles me, my heartbeat kicking up a notch before I notice that it’s just her. She didn’t ignore me in gym. She didn’t talk to me at all, but she didn’t go out of her way to ignore me either. Then again, I was trying to ignore everyone, so I wouldn’t have been the best company either.

She walks around to the passenger side of the car and looks expectantly over at me as she tugs on the door handle. “Come on, bitch. If you think I’m going to let a whole day go by without you spilling your guts, you’re wrong.” She smiles to let me know she’s joking.

I move forward, unlocking the car. Dawn slips in the other side easily, dropping her bookbag in between her legs on the floor. She looks around the interior, eyebrows slightly raised. I clear my throat. “How’d you know this was my car, anyway?”

She turns toward me with an incredulous stare. “Broadwell,” she says. “I’m new here and even I know that screams rich bitch.”

I look around the parking lot even though I already know what I’ll find. Yes, my Mustang is the best car in the parking lot, but, it’s not the only nice car in the parking lot. There’s the Jeep from earlier this morning. Most likely Sloan Ivy’s car. His dad’s a senator. They make him go to Rockport to prove a point—and also because he deserves to play for the best team in the state. He easily could go to Broadwell though.

Starting the car, I ease out of the parking lot. It’s not my imagination when I see everyone looking at me instead of my car like this morning. “You sure you want to hang out with me?”

Dawn laughs. “No one scares me.”

I smirk, then rev the engine like I accidentally did this morning, peeling out of the lot. I figure, if they’re going to stare, I might as well give them something to look at.

Dawn rolls the window down and screams out, “Yesssss!”

I’m laughing by the time we hit the streets to the small town. Down in this area, they have the mom and pop stores and family-owned restaurants. It’s actually quite quaint—nice—but I also don’t miss the gold and blue colors of Rockport High everywhere.

Dawn points to a small pizza place. “There,” she says.

I frown at her. “I had pizza for lunch, remember?” I pull into the angled parking in front of the shop anyway. We both hop out, and I grab my wallet from out of my bookbag before heading toward the front door. I look around. Students are just now cresting the hill walking toward this way. “Is this a local hangout?”

She shrugs. “Fuck if I know. I’m new, remember?” Dawn sees my hesitation, so she comes around and pushes my back. “Come on. If there’s anything I know about bullies, it’s that you can’t let them see that you’re scared.”

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