My God. How could anyone hate me this much? What had I ever done to them?
And that's when I heard it. The first moo.
The boys' rowing team stood in a cluster by the grand staircase, some of them cupping their hands around their mouths as they let loose with the cow noises, exaggerating the sound and drawing it out as I passed by.
"Mooooooo."
Tears burned at my eyes, and I tried with all that was left of my shattered heart, body, and soul to keep them at bay. The last thing I needed to do was exacerbate the situation and let them all see me cry.
I spottedhimby his locker, which was right near mine. He was standing there alone, and for some unknown reason, my eyes drifted to his, hoping to see what, I didn't know. Sympathy. Horror. Some kind of reaction.
Part of me had always hoped he'd be like the popular guy in a movie who suddenly grows a conscience and tells everyone off for bullying the fat girl. No one could be this cruel.
But I was wrong. Because he didn't have a sudden change of heart. He didn't go around in a rage and tear down posters, yelling at all of his cronies for being assholes. He didn't come to my defense, not even a little.
All he did was look at me. His eyes—cold, emotionless, like I wasn't even there—locked onto mine. There was nothing in them. No apology. No remorse. Just... nothing. And in that moment, I knew.Hehad to be the one behind all of this.
Who else at St. Lucius would dare do something this big, this in-your-face, this much of a fuck you to me and the entire system? It had to be the most popular guy in school. Only he would attempt this.
And then, the confirmation came. My eyes drifted to his open locker behind him.
A huge stack of the horrific posters sat there, so many they spilled out onto the floor, one zigzagging back and forth in slow motion as it floated down.
His eyes followed mine, but there was no reaction. Nothing but indifference. He didn't care.
He didn't care that my entire world had just been torn completely apart and he was the one responsible for it all.
A hand on my wrist startled me into turning away from him, nails digging into my skin. I whirled around to find my friend Kayla standing there, her face stricken.
"Oh, my God," she whispered in horror. "He'sthe mastermind behind all this?"
I couldn't speak, the lump in my throat strangling me.
Her other hand on my back tried to steer me away, but I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't anything. Ripping my wrist from her grasp, I ran away, ignoring the looks, the laughter, the posters streaming past me, even the teachers who had started to tear them down.
And I didn't stop until I burst through the side exit into the cold winter air, my hands gripping the fence like a prisoner begging to escape.
I woke up gasping for air, my pillow damp with sweat, my heart still racing. I gulped in lungfuls of oxygen, my fingers curled into my sheets like I was trying to rip down posters.
It took minutes for me to return to present day Manhattan.
I'm safe. I'm home. And I'm not that seventeen-year-old girl anymore.
And yet, I could still hear their laughter ringing in my ears. I could still see Tristan Hawthorne standing in front of his locker, his eyes looking right through me, burning me even though I was already on fire.
It'd been years since I'd had that dream, years since I'd even thought about that day that had changed everything for me and ruined my senior year of high school, not to mention how it'd left me raw for years after.
My parents had offered to let me finish out the school year with a private tutor at home, but something inside me had declined that kind gesture, with only half a year left at St. Lucius. I'd miraculously stuck it out, leaning hard on my tiny group of friends, most especially Kayla.
A nanny I'd had years ago had told me that in times of despair to always look for the good people, the helpers, the ones who tried to make the world a better place.
And that had been the best advice to cling onto because there were a few who had stuck by me, including a sympathetic teacher who had tried her hardest to stop the constant whispers and laughter and bullying that followed.
She'd been the one who'd marched Tristan to the principal's office. She'd been the one to insist that he be expelled.
And he had been.
Miraculously, the school had taken my side. It didn't hurt to have a billionaire for a father, or a mother who'd donated a ridiculous amount of money to St. Lucius over the years my sisters and I had been there.
