Page 1 of Forbidden Match

Prologue

Molly

It’s not like I expected my freshman year to be easy.

I just didn’t think it’d be that hard, either.

Since my older brother Sam was a popular seniors at school, I figured it’d be smooth sailing. I didn’t realize just how popular he was, though. Sam’s tall, handsome, outgoing, and just good enough at everything he does, with an attitude just cocky enough to match. People have always been drawn to him like flies to honey without being put off. No one is ever a stranger to my big brother, not students nor teachers.

The shoes I had to fill felt way too big.

We’re the complete opposite of each other in pretty much every way. While he looks like Superman’s stunt double, I’m almost a foot shorter than him. Instead of the lustrous dark hair that always does what he wants, I’m stuck with unruly chestnut hair that never stays styled, no matter how much hairspray I use. He’s a star athlete with good grades and academic standing, whereas I get in trouble for daydreaming or sneaking in the next chapter of a book in the back of class.

Meeting new people makes me anxious. I have a hard enough time making friends without having to live in his perfect shadow. Maybe things wouldn’t have been so hard if my best friend Antoinette hadn’t moved away last summer. Instead, I’m felt like I was constantly getting lost in this new, big school. There were strange faces everywhere and everyone already seemed to haveall the friends they needed. I couldn’t seem to get a foot in the door, let alone catch a break.

Finally, after the first week, I admitted to my family how miserable I was. Their response was unanimous— “Just join some clubs! Put yourself out there!”

When you have your mom, your dad,andyour brother all telling you the same thing, you do it. With Sam being in several clubs (and the president of one of them), not to mention being on the basketball team, I figured he was probably on to something.

And that’s how I ended up trying out for the cheer squad.

It’s not like it’s completely out of my comfort zone. I’ve been taking ballet, modern dance, and gymnastics for as long as I can remember. Keeping up with the routines should be easy enough, right?

At tryouts, the coach praised me so hard I thought I’d burn up from all the eyes on me. Even though it felt good, I know not all of those eyes were friendly. What I didn’t know is that my success put a target on my back. Because I made the squad, one of the squad captain’s younger sisterdidn’t. Haley made it her mission to make my life miserable.

Overnight, my high school career went from stressful-but-otherwise-fine, to absolutely awful. I began to experiencing bullying like never before. I was used to being invisible, forgettable. Now I had someone out to get me. Everything from my clothes going missing during cheer practice to people slipping below my lifts so that I ended up dropped and bruised. There were even notes turning up with my things, nasty threats about me being on the squad and where I needed to go instead.

If it weren’t for my own stubborn will—and the pride my family felt in me putting myself out there—I would have quit. Instead, Istuck it out. Of course, the whole point of joining the cheer squad was to make new friends. With the hate campaign in full force, that never happened, but at least I got to have fun learning new routines.

Now I’m here, the week of homecoming, trying to keep my wits about me with all the stress piling up on my shoulders. There’s the big game I have to be at because of cheer, but there’s the constant harassment I’ve been enduring. I’ve been thinking about quitting all week, but I don’t know how to tell my coach about it. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that there’s a dance happening on Saturday to end the week of celebrations and I don’t have a date or friends to go with.

When I finally get to my locker at the end of the day to switch out my books for homework, I look up to see some kid from my chemistry class turned up giving me a shy smile from a few feet away. He even has a flower in his hands, and he looks nervous, but he’s moving directly toward me. No way, there’s no way this boy is going to ask me out, right? Maybe he is. Maybe someone’s finally disregarding my status as a pariah.

Just as I get my hopes up, my older brother enters the picture.

“What the hell is this? Get lost,” he grunts at the poor kid, sending him scrambling as he steps in front of me.

I try to protest and push past Sam, sending the boy an apologetic look, but Sam’s never been scared of me. He’s built like a brick wall and he’s just as stubborn as me, so we end up just glaring at each other while the boy glances between us, looking confused and maybe even a little scared.

“She doesn’t date,” my brother finally grits out, which finally sends the shy boy packing.

As if my brother embarrassing me wasn’t enough, his best friend Levi has suddenly caught up with him and is now snickering at my expense.

Instantly, my face is on fire. My eyes start to prickle. I turn around to start fiddling with the lock on my locker to hide my overwhelming shame.

Of all the things I’ve had to live with over the past several weeks, this is what my final straw is? If the tears I’m fighting back are any indication, it really is. This sucks. I can handle my brother being smug and overly protective, but I can’t handle Levi being smug about it on top of that.

Levi leans against the locker next to mine as I finally get the lock on mine to open so that I can make myself look busy. I ignore the hateful note written in neat cursive that falls out onto my face—another love letter from my bullies—as Levi and Sam heckle the poor kid who’d approached me. If my brother were to be a stand-in for Superman, then Levi is more like Thor’s. He’s just as tall and built as Sam is, but with sandy blond hair and sapphire blue eyes that seem to see straight through to my soul. Levi and Sam have been friends for a couple of years, ever since they met during basketball tryouts their freshman year. For that whole time, I’ve grappled with an annoying attraction to him. Compared to my brother, he’s moody, brash, and brusque. To top it all off, he doesn’t seem to know I’m alive most of the time.

I wish I could say the same.

I’m being utterly humiliated by my jerk brother and he’s just standing there, looking all big and muscular and cool … I can’t stand it. As soon as the kid who tried to ask me out is out of sight, I turn around and smack Sam in the chest.

“Oh my god, Sam! it’s bad enough that—”

I cut myself off before I can out the cheerleader who’s been heading my torture campaign. If Sam found out, he’d make everything worse by getting involved. I can’t have that.

“It’s enough that I can’t make a single friend. Now you have to chase away the first boy who’s shown any interest in me?”

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