by Summer Rose
“I changed my mind, okay? You don’t need a car.” Her sharp tone cut through the air around us, causing my spine to go rigid.
I nodded, and the rest of our breakfast time was silent.
Twenty minutes later, my mom’s BMW rolled into the Redwood High School parking lot. As I reached to open the door, I felt her hand rest on my arm.
I turned to look at her. “Yes, Mom?”
Her face took on a remorseful look. “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier, Katrina. It’s just… I don’t know this town that well yet, and I need to be sure it is safe enough for you to drive around in before we get you a car.”
I placed my hand over hers, understanding the real reason she had snapped. After all, my father’s car had ended up off the road and at the bottom of a lake.
“It’s okay, Mom. I understand,” I reassured her with a smile and a quick kiss on her cheek before opening the door and stepping out.
“Katrina!”
I turned back.
“Make friends, okay?”
I nodded, not so sure of myself, before striding towards the entrance.
“Make friends, huh?” That was the one thing I sucked at the most.
CHAPTER FOUR
M y head was spinning, and it had everything to do with the piece of paper I had clutched in my hand. I adjusted the strap of my satchel and walked down the hall for what seemed like the millionth time. How hard could it be to find room 401?
It would have been nice if the receptionist had given me directions alongside my schedule. Instead, the red-headed woman - who couldn’t even pretend to be bothered - had merely handed the paper to me as her gaze focused on the computer game she was playing.
“Ugh,” I groaned out in frustration, but then I spotted a sign that pointed the way to a row of rooms containing 401.
Following the sign, I scanned for 401, but I stopped when I reached one particular room. Not because it was the right one, but because of its occupant.
A boy dressed in clothing similar to mine - except for his heavy dark boots - stood peering into a beaker filled with green liquid. Judging from the ingredients he had lying around on the desk, I knew exactly what kind of experiment he was conducting.
I pushed open the door just as he muttered something under his breath and impatiently shoved back his brown hair. He stiffened when I stopped at the desk next to him.
“If you add the ammonia after adding the rest, it’s going to keep giving you that slimy green color,” I told him. “You have to add it before.”
The boy slowly raised his head and stared at me with deep green eyes that held so much intensity that it felt like I was transfixed under a spell. “I hadn’t thought of that, thanks,” he said.
I blinked. He was British, very handsome and British. “Um, I’m new here. Would you happen to know where Room 401 is?” I asked quickly, not about to be distracted from my original mission.
“Oh, that’s where I’m headed.” He quickly scrawled something into a tiny open book on the desk before closing it and picking it up, along with a backpack. “Come on. I’ll take you there.”
I followed him out the door and we headed down the hallway.
“I’m Aaron, by the way,” he said, turning to make sure I was still behind him.
“Kat,” I offered, with a shy smile.
“Nice to meet you, Kat. I hope you enjoy Redwood.”
We made it into the classroom precisely fifteen minutes late. Despite this, the calculus teacher didn’t say a word to Aaron about his lateness, which made me raise a curious brow. I, on the other hand, was asked to introduce myself to the entire class, something that I had been dreading all day.
“Hello, my name is Kat. I recently moved here from LA,” I said in a quiet voice.
I proceeded to take my seat on an empty chair beside a boy with curly red hair and beautiful gray eyes with thick-rimmed glasses. I knew immediately that he was a nerd as he diligently wrote down everything the teacher said in his large notebook. However, contrary to the general opinion that nerds were unattractive, this particular one was drool-worthy.
After the class ended, he turned to me with an outstretched hand.
“Hi, I’m Liam.”
I took his steady hand, muttering, “Kat.” Like I said, I was never good with people.
“Making friends with the new girl already, Eddison?”
Another boy appeared beside us, looking like the ideal image of a high school quarterback: blond hair, blue eyes, six feet tall. He was wearing a look that exuded the confidence that could only come from popularity.
Liam rolled his eyes in a bored manner.
“This is Mason. He’s a total jackass, but he’s my friend so you can trust him.”
Well, that’s new. At my old school, popular kids didn’t hang around with nerds, let alone be friends with them. Redwood was indeed an entirely different place.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, cherié,” Mason said with a flirty smile that had no doubt made many girls go weak in the knees.
“Back off, guys. I saw her first,” said Aaron as he came to stand before me with a slightly playful smile on his lips.
Mason sent Liam a look of surprise as he clapped Aaron on the back. “Did he just make a joke?”
“I think he did.”
The two burst out laughing while Aaron blushed.
A smile involuntarily formed on my lips as I watched the dynamics between these three boys. I was vaguely aware of glares coming from girls in the class before my eyes traveled to the far corner of the room and met with familiar dark ones.
Jake Grayson was in my class too.
CHAPTER FIVE
I was two weeks into life at my new school. So far, I had been spat on, gotten drinks thrown at me, had my personal belongings destroyed or hidden, and been outright insulted by most of the girls in my class. I was essentially bullied every day.
Why do you ask? Oh, simply because I had made friends with the most popular boys at Redwood High.
Liam, Mason, and Aaron had taken me under their collective wing, helping me get out of my shell and become comfortable with them. We had instantly connected and became a group. We did everything together; from going to classes, getting lunch, and heading back home. It was more friends than I had ever had before.
So far, I had learned that my newly made friends were the most coveted boys in the school, including Liam, who had a girlfriend.
Aaron Levine was the intelligent one, always so serious and deep. He wasn’t much of a talker, but when he did speak, everyone listened. He also made efforts to be playful and “fun,” and who wouldn’t with Mason as a friend?
Just as I had guessed, Mason Welsh was the school quarterback and also the player of the group. He oozed so much confidence that sometimes he didn’t even need to speak before he got a girl to go out with him.
I had seen him do it a couple of times, all of which left me dumbstruck. He was also the fun one - the one who loved to party and be on top of everything - but that didn’t deter his education. The boy was extremely smart.
Liam, however, was a classic nerd: real and faithful. Intelligent, quirky, quiet, corny, nervous all the time. But his looks and friendship with the other two boys had pushed him up to the top of Redwood High’s food chain.
One would think the same would go for me, but while I’d become quite popular thanks to my friendship with all three of them, I was hated by the girls, even down to the goth ones who usually didn’t care about such things. I had appeared from nowhere and stolen their boys from right under their noses. I was ‘that bitch.’
I usually wouldn’t care; after all, I had excelled in being invisible at my old school. But it didn’t involve me being harassed every single day. I couldn’t talk to my mom about it because I didn’t want her to worry, and I couldn’t speak to any of the teachers or principal because they would just call my mom. Hell, I was a big girl, and I could handle it; besides, I had my boys.
“Incoming,” sai
d Mason while we were seated at our usual table in the school cafeteria.
I knew it couldn’t be one of the three menaces that had taken a particular interest in harassing me ─ they called themselves ‘divas.’ And they were here to make my life miserable. They never did anything to me when the boys were around.
However, when I raised my head to see who Mason was referring to, I groaned. It was Tiffany, another popular girl in school, also known as Liam’s girlfriend.
I didn’t hate her - she was by far the nicest girl I had met in the school - but she and Liam were going through a spat of constant small arguments, and I felt another fight coming. I didn’t mind their arguments; couples were supposed to disagree with each other. I just didn’t like how irritable Liam became after those fights, which always led to him projecting his misery on us.
“Hey, baby.” Tiffany sat on Liam’s lap, planting a deep kiss on him that made him grin before she turned to wave at us. “Love your top, Kat.”
And that was said with the utmost sincerity.
I returned her smile.
“Thanks, Tiff.”
She, like me, preferred her name shortened, and I diligently upheld that.
She turned back to Liam. “Look, babe. I signed us up for Homecoming King and Queen.”
Her smile got even bigger, and she looked like she might start jumping up and down in her exquisite heels.
I exchanged knowing glances with Aaron and Mason.
“Tiff, baby. I told you I don’t want to do this. I’m just not interested,” Liam groaned.
She merely rolled her eyes. “It’s not a big deal, Liam. I don’t know why you have such a problem with it. All you have to do is show up.”
“You know I’m not good with crowds, and I’ve told you several times that I don’t want to be involved in your popular girl activities, okay?”
Just like that, another argument ignited, and while Aaron sent me a ‘save me’ look, Mason simply watched with growing interest.
I rolled my eyes and finished my sandwich quickly, hoping for the bell to ring and allow us all to escape, when something caught my eye. I wiped my mouth with the tissue Aaron had waiting for me and smiled my thanks. “I have to go. I’ll see you guys in biology,” I said, ignoring the look of betrayal on Liam’s face.
I chuckled to myself as I strode past the tables on my way out of the cafeteria. Just as I was about to exit, I heard the familiar voice of Leila, one of the three menaces that made my time in Redwood High close to unbearable.
“Hey, fatty, it looks like those jeans can’t handle all that extra flesh of yours. I sure hope they don’t rip,” she snickered, alongside her other three friends.
I rolled my eyes, ignored her, and walked on. Leila was the school’s head cheerleader, and she thought that meant she automatically had a right to Mason. Sure, they’d dated for a while, but Mason - who never dated a girl for long - dumped her unceremoniously during summer break just before I arrived in town. It was clear that she had thought they would start dating again once school started back up, but now that I was in the picture, she seemed to think that I was the one stopping Mason from getting back together with her.
It would have been slightly better if I was in a relationship with any one of these guys. Even Tiffany, who had reason to feel threatened by me, wasn’t because she knew we were all just friends. I didn’t understand why the girls were so horrible toward me when the guy I was really attracted to wasn’t even on their radar.
I smiled when my eyes found their target and proceeded to take my seat on the bench beside him. His dark eyes stared into mine.
“What do you want, Dawson?” Jake snapped after squashing the stick of the cigarette he had been smoking under his heavy, chained boots.
“Hey, we match,” I observed, my smile still in place as I referred to the similarity in our footwear.
He simply stared at me like he couldn’t wait for me to get the hell out of his face. My confidence dwindled, and my smile dropped. “I just… I saw you headed here, and I wanted to…” I trailed off.
Ever since I’d arrived at Redwood High, I had noticed a lot of things, but the one that stood out the most was Jake Grayson’s persona. Unlike my boys, Jake was in a different element entirely. Everyone at school knew him, but no one talked to him. Even the teachers stayed out of his way. It wasn’t that he got into trouble, which was unusual because he was your typical bad boy; he was a total outcast.
I stood up to leave when it became clear that my brain had suddenly developed an inability to conjure words, and my mouth simply refused to project.
“Come on, Katrina, just speak up. I don’t bite… at least not at first.” He smirked.
I glared at him for using my full name when secretly I liked the way it rolled off his tongue. It was either Dawson or Katrina, and my whole being craved the sound of my name on his lips.
I sat back down - my confidence renewed - and faced him. “Why don’t you eat with the others at the cafeteria? Why don’t you speak to anyone at school? Why do you keep to yourself so much? Why do you ignore me here?”
“So many questions, Katrina.” He released a slow grin; that along with his wind-ruffled hair made him look so incredibly sexy. “Which one should I answer first?”
I swallowed, suddenly feeling the heat rise above my neck, which was funny since we were seated on the bleachers. “Why do you ignore me? Whenever I try to talk to you, you just walk away like I’m invisible,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too bitter or disappointed. Or both.
“I talk to you at home, and I’m talking to you now.”
He raised a perfectly arched brow.
For the third time that day, I rolled my eyes. “You only say ‘hi’ to me when my mom is around, and you’re talking to me now because there’s no one around to see us,” I countered.
“Well, it’s in your best interest not to be seen talking to me, Katrina. We wouldn’t want you to be tainted now, would we?” he spat out bitterly.
“Tainted? What’s that supposed to mean? Did something happen to you?”
For some reason, my question made him laugh briefly before his face turned blank again. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“I’m just trying to be friends with you, get to know you,” I protested.
“Well, I already know you, Katrina. Rich girl, who has got everything, in a new town prancing around the school and enjoying popularity while feeling sorry for the poor boy who no one talks to.”
His words hurt because they were anything but true. My eyes stung, but I willed the tears not to fall. “You don’t know me, and I do not feel pity for you.”
He stood to his full height, his form casting a shadow over me. “I don’t care what you feel for me, Kat. Just stay the hell away from me.”
He turned around and left me sitting there as the tears finally fell from my eyes.
*****
After dinner with my mom that day, I heard something hit my bedroom window. When I looked down, it was Jake throwing stones at it. I opened the window and watched him climb the tree effortlessly and jump into my room.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, with my hands folded across my cotton pajamas.
He stared me up and down. “I’m sorry about earlier… at school. You didn’t deserve to be yelled at like that.”
I nodded, not entirely satisfied. But I’d take what I could get. “Okay.” When I started to turn, he continued.
“My dad used to hit my mom…”
Well, I hadn’t expected that. I turned to face him and took his hand before dragging him to sit on the rug by the foot of my bed and motioned for him to continue.
“One particular day, it got so bad that I was sure he was going to kill her. I ran inside, took an ax, and rammed it into his head with all the strength I could gather. The cops ruled it as self-defense,” He sounded defeated like he didn’t believe it was self-defense. “I was fifteen when I killed my father, and I don’t regret it.”
&
nbsp; He stopped and watched me for a while, but I gave nothing away.
“Redwood is a small town, and everyone knew what I had done. Suddenly no one wanted their kids around me, and no one wanted to be associated with my mom and me. I lost my friends too, and that’s how it has been ever since. If people see you talking to me, they’re going to…”
I didn’t let him finish his sentence before I wrapped my arms around him in a hug. “I’m your friend now, and you won’t lose me,” I whispered into his ear with conviction. I felt him smile.
We spent the rest of the night talking, and then, suddenly, it was morning again.
CHAPTER SIX
“I t’s good to have you back, man.” Mason grinned as he slapped Jake hard on the back.
Jake glowered. “What the hell was that for?”
“That’s for thinking we didn’t want you as a friend anymore because of some stupid, small-town gossip,” Liam said.
Aaron nodded. “I concur.”
All five of us were seated at our usual table in the school cafeteria. The other students stared in shock as Jake Grayson joined our group. Ever since I had learned that the boys were Jake’s childhood friends and had stopped hanging out with each other because of his father’s death, I had made it my sole mission to get them back together.
It turned out the boys had reached out to Jake after the incident, but he had been so wrapped up in his own despair and self-loathing that he had unknowingly pushed them away. He mistakenly thought that all three of them would treat him the same way as the townspeople, so he separated himself from them.
Finally, I had gotten them to put their egos aside and talk things through, putting us in the exact moment that we were now in.
“Well, it’s good to be back,” said Jake, with the most genuine smile I had ever seen on his lips. It made his face light up, and he looked even more handsome than normal if that was even possible.
We couldn’t stop people from staring at him like he was an alien or avoiding him like the plague; that was going to take time.