Love at First Fight (Geeks Gone Wild Book 1)

by Maggie Dallen

  “Doesn’t this all seem a little grade school to you?” she asked.

  I nodded, tearing my gaze away to look back at the line forming behind us. “Big time.”

  “As if we can’t be trusted to sit next to our friends,” she added with a scoff.

  The implication that we weren’t friends annoyed me more than it ought to. I mean, I knew what she meant. We weren’t close friends, not anymore. We had our own circles, just like we had our own interests.

  I knew very well that she’d rather sit next to Matt, and I’d rather sit with… I glanced over at Julia who was already over her pouting and chatting amiably with Alex Grant, a guy who looked over the moon to be the center of her attention.

  Well, I guess I was just happy to avoid more small talk and meaningful looks.

  A little while later we headed into the auditorium. Single file.

  Exactly like grade school.

  I ended up in an aisle seat with Margo beside me. The moment we sat, she sank into her seat and into herself, her arms folding over her chest as she stared at the stage.

  The guy on her other side was talking to the person on his other side and I…well, I had no one else to talk to. The way she was sitting looked uncomfortable, like she was trying to shrink down and disappear. Of course the guy on her other side was another football player and neither of us could be considered petite. Maybe she was feeling claustrophobic.

  I shifted my legs to give her more room. “We could share, you know.” I glanced down at the armrest between us.

  She smiled, but it wasn’t the genuine one I’d been hoping for. It was a tolerant little smile—the kind I imagined she’d give a great aunt who commented on how nicely she’d grown.

  “I’m okay, thanks.” She turned to stare straight ahead, arms still crossed.

  Well, okay then. It wasn’t like we had anything to talk about, anyway. I should’ve been glad for the reprieve from small talk. Still, it felt stiflingly quiet in our little section of the auditorium as everyone around us laughed and chatted until the principal stood on the stage and called for the room’s attention.

  The welcoming speech was the same as last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. Toward the end it turned into an extremely premature graduation speech. He was addressing us—the senior class—and his tone turned sentimental and sappy as he expounded on all the ways this year would be the highlight of our academic careers here at Grover High.

  I shifted uncomfortably as he went on and on about the friendships we’d made and all we’d learned. As he talked the long-awaited slideshow started. Everyone around me perked up. The speech might still be boring but at least we had something to look at other than Principal Kramer’s bald shiny head.

  Some giggles rose up from the crowd, along with a few shout outs, as our classmates recognized themselves or each other. Most of them looked pretty much the same. Selfie shots of one student or groups of friends. The odd couple shot got in there, along with more than a few kissy faces. A lot of students seemed to have taken advantage of the analogue nature of this slideshow and scribbled words or hearts on their photos—a sort of old-school Photoshop. One couple drew a heart around their faces, some groups of friends wrote things like “Friends Forever!” and “Let’s go Grover High!”

  It was corny, but kind of fun to watch. More fun than watching our principal talk, at least. He was wrapping up his speech and shuffling some notecards on the lectern as the last slide came up and froze.

  Oh my God.

  I heard Margo’s gasp beside me but it was quickly drowned out by the sounds of our classmates laughing and clapping. There on the giant screen was a bikini-clad Margo standing beside Suzie. An upside-down Suzie. A Suzie who was doing a kegstand. Someone had written along the bottom in all caps, “#GeeksGoneWild” followed by some exclamation points.

  “Oh. My. God.” Margo’s whisper was filled with horror.

  I turned to see her staring wide-eyed up at the screen like she couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. Her cheeks were a fiery red and she elbowed me and the guy on the other side of her as she grasped the armrests, her knuckles white.

  I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or angry…or both.

  “Margo—” I started, but she shook her head.

  The principal had turned around and teachers rushed the stage. “Take that down,” one of them called out. And just like that the image disappeared.

  But the talking didn’t stop.

  Nor did the laughing.

  Chapter Six

  Margo

  Was I embarrassed? Yes. Hell yes. Having the entire student body see me half-naked was more humiliating than any naked dream could ever have prepared me for.

  But it was their laughter…it was the sound of cruel, sheep-like laughter that turned the humiliation to fury. Because as soon as the shock faded, one thing became utterly clear. Someone had done this. Someone had gone out of their way to make me and Suzie look like fools.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out who.

  Rage simmered inside me as I sat there staring at the horrible photo. Poor Suzie. She was going to lose it.

  Part of me wanted to look around and find her, but I couldn’t seem to stop staring.

  And then it was gone. Someone had mercifully ordered it to be taken down, but now I could feel the eyes on me.

  I was almost relieved when Principal Kramer turned and found me in the crowd. He pointed a finger at me and then the door. The signal wasn’t subtle. My office. Now.

  Like I said, almost relieved. The grim expression wasn’t exactly heartwarming, but at least it gave me a reason to run away without looking like I was running away.

  In all reality? I was totally running away.

  “Margo.” Jason grabbed my hand as I tried to shuffle past him. I looked down at him and he opened his mouth to say something.

  I jerked my hand out of his to stop him.

  I didn’t want to see the kindness in his eyes any more than I wanted to hear whatever kind, supportive words he’d planned to say.

  This was his fault.

  Well, not really.

  But it was his friends’ fault, of that I was certain. It all clicked into place as I looked down at this guy I’d once known so well.

  It was his teammates. His groupies. His followers. Joel and the others were his friends and there was no doubt in my mind that Joel was behind this.

  I mean, really. Who else would it be?

  Jason’s warm brown eyes were filled with understanding and patience and…ugh. It would be so easy to forget that he was one of them.

  “Margo, I’m so—”

  “Shove it,” I muttered. I pushed my way past him, keeping my eyes straight ahead as I ignored the stares and the whispers and the laughter.

  Suzie was already in the office when I got there and there were tears in her eyes. “My mom is going to kill me.”

  I wrapped an arm around her as I sank into the seat beside her. “No one’s killing anyone. This isn’t our fault. Anyone with half a brain will understand that we are the victims here.”

  Famous last words, right?

  It quickly became clear that Principal Kramer did not have half a brain, if he had any at all.

  From the lecture we got, one would have thought we’d set ourselves up because we were looking for attention. He honestly seemed to think that it was our idea to sneak that photo into the lineup.

  My attempts to convince him that we were not the guilty party here only managed to make things worse. Our principal had worked himself into a tizzy and I had little doubt that his anger was at least partly due to the fact that “this little stunt,” as he kept calling it, had ruined his perfectly planned speech.

  Oh, boo hoo.

  Suzie stoically sat through it all as I silently fumed.

  This was all Joel’s fault. If it hadn’t been him, it was one of his dumb friends.

  Principal Kramer finally let us leave but only after uttering t
he final dreaded words. “We’ll be contacting your parents about this.”

  That was the only time I heard Suzie utter a sound, and it was a pathetic whimper. When we left, I wrapped an arm around her again. “You going to be okay?”

  She nodded. Her expression was miserable but she held her chin up high. “I’ll make it. You?”

  She looked up at me and I forced a smile that fooled no one. “I’m always okay. And so are you.”

  Nudging my side she gave an equally forced laugh. “That’s right, I forgot. I’m such a badass.”

  We both laughed a little at Matt’s words. It was the kind of laugh that bordered on hysteria and had more to do with adrenaline than actual laughter. But it was that sort of forced humor that got us through the rest of the day. Well, that and our friends. Matt and my band friends were at my side when Suzie wasn’t, and when I passed Suzie in the hallway later that day I saw that her computer science club friends were doing the same for her.

  We might not have been what anyone would call “popular” but we had friends. Real friends.

  Jason tried to talk to me again later that day but I turned away abruptly, pretending I couldn’t even hear him. Was it my most mature moment? Possibly not. But being nice to Jason right now was just beyond my capabilities. I got it—he was nice. But nice only went so far, you know? Sure he felt bad for me, but did he feel bad enough that he’d turn on his friends? No. He’d always choose them over us.

  Over me.

  But it didn’t matter because I too had friends—he just wasn’t one of them. At least not today when the crowd he sat with at lunch were still laughing and pointing in me and Suzie’s direction. And especially not when I saw him heading off to practice at the end of the day, all buddy-buddy with Joel and his crew of idiots.

  Suzie and I watched him and his moron teammates exiting and they saw us—we were displayed like hunting trophies in front of the principal’s office as we waited for our parents to show up.

  We might as well have been dead deer because it was just a matter of time before our parents murdered us.

  Well, Suzie’s mom would probably go in a murderous rage. My parents? They were harder to predict. Suzie and I barely spoke to one another as we waited. What was there to say?

  My parents arrived first and my mom was a talker, trying to rationalize my behavior and get me out of trouble. My dad, meanwhile, refused to look me in the eyes.

  Suzie’s mom was as quiet as my dad when she showed up. Her mouth was set in a grim line as she listened to my mother’s justifications about how we’d made a youthful transgression and how we’d learned our lesson and how we should really be focusing on who had slipped that photo into the slideshow.

  Finally, at least there was one voice of reason in this room.

  Unfortunately she was drowned out by the principal and then Suzie’s dad, both of whom were intent on finding out where that keg had come from.

  Suzie was impressively mute.

  It was killing me that she wouldn’t rat out her jerk of a brother, but I also got it. Sort of. Suzie wouldn’t have been Suzie if she’d thrown her brother under the bus to get out of trouble. So, she stayed mum and the two of us filed out with our parents in miserable silence.

  The principal’s final verdict hadn’t been so horrible in the end. We weren’t suspended or anything and he promised it wouldn’t be in our transcripts as long as we stayed out of any future trouble and signed up for volunteer hours at the tutoring center as retribution.

  Not so bad, really. Although the worst was yet to come. For Suzie it was the punishment that her mother had in store. And for me? Well, I wasn’t looking forward to hearing what my parents had to say on the matter, but that paled in comparison to the other fallout I knew to expect.

  There was no way our band leader, Ms. Horowitz, wouldn’t find out about it, and there was no way she would let an infraction like this go unpunished. Suzie’s parents were harsh, but my band leader was better known as Ms. Hardass by my peers. I’d never minded her strictness before, but now?

  Now I was absolutely dreading our next band practice.

  My parents and I followed Suzie and her family, so we caught the verbal blow that had Suzie shrinking into herself.

  “We trusted you,” her mother said softly. It was the first words she’d said since they’d arrived and it was a lethal blow.

  Suzie’s head sank and I wished I could run ahead and say something to support her but that was the moment my parents decided to turn on me. Gone was the supportive motherly mode and the silent father. Before we even reached the car they started in on how disappointed they were in me.

  “I didn’t even drink,” I said as we piled into my dad’s SUV.

  I wasn’t sure if they hadn’t heard me or they just didn’t believe me.

  “What was with that swimsuit?” my dad said.

  My mother shook her head with a sigh that spoke of disappointment and shame.

  I cringed. I opened my mouth to remind them that the swimsuit in question had been purchased by my mother for last year’s swim party at my cousin’s house. No one had seemed to care that it was a bikini at the time.

  “It wasn’t like I wanted the whole world to see me in that thing,” I said instead. I should have fought more in my defense but I was too busy spiraling into a pit of humiliation that I’d been avoiding all day.

  They fell quiet after that and we spent the rest of the ride home in tense silence.

  My parents ended up confiscating my phone “until future notice.” Not unexpected, really, but still a bummer. Especially because I needed access to my friends now more than ever. They tried to take my laptop but I reminded them that I needed it for schoolwork, so now I was under strict orders to stay off social media until further notice as well.

  The thing was, my parents knew a little about social media, but not enough that I couldn’t evade them if I wanted to. It was times like this that I was grateful my parents weren’t more tech savvy.

  I tried to ping Suzie online after dinner but her phone went right to voicemail and I knew without a doubt that she’d lost all privileges. Even access to her beloved computer games, no doubt.

  Poor Suzie.

  Although a little while later I found myself wishing that someone would take the Internet away from me because I couldn’t seem to stop myself from going online, even though I knew—I just knew—it would end in more misery.

  I wasn’t wrong.

  Matt, God love him, tried to stop me. The moment I logged in to Facebook, I got a ping. You okay?

  Me: I’ll survive.

  Matt: Have you talked to Suzie?

  Me: She’s under house arrest.

  Matt: Yeah, I figured.

  There was a pause and I saw those dots blinking, the ones that let me know he was typing and then pausing and then typing again. My stomach sank at his hesitation.

  Matt: Have you been on Snapchat or Instagram yet?

  Me: No. Why?

  Did I even need to ask? Once again, too much time passed. I chewed on my lower lip as I waited for him to continue. When he did my stomach dropped to the floor.

  Matt: It went viral.

  Me: THAT PICTURE?????

  Matt: No! No.

  I fell back in my seat. Well that was something, at least. I didn’t for one second think that the absence of that photo online was out of the goodness of anyone’s heart. More like, posting it would be the absolute dumbest form of self-incrimination. Whoever had the photo was apparently smart enough to know not to brag about it online. One rat and they’d be in as much trouble as me and Suzie. Maybe more. Our school was pretty strict on the no bullying rule, but apparently there were some who were willing to push the envelope.

  Matt: That particular photo hasn’t surfaced, but the hashtag…that’s gone viral.

  I growled a bit at the thought. #GeeksGoneWild. Joel was such an idiot. I waited for Matt to continue, and when he didn’t, I sighed with impatience.

  Me: Just hit m
e with it, Matt.

  Matt: They found other pictures. Old school photos and yearbook pics…

  Me: Of me and Suzie?

  Matt: Yeah.

  Me: Eff.

  Matt: Yeah.

  I guess neither of us knew what to say after that because we both fell silent. That’s when I did the stupidest thing of all. I went on Instagram and searched #GeeksGoneWild.

  I really shouldn’t have done that.

  There was a photo of me in my full band uniform, beaming proudly. It was from last year’s yearbook and it was a terrible photo. My eyes were half closed like I was mid-blink and my smile was too big so I looked insane.

  Everything in me hurt to look at it, and it hurt even worse to see the comments underneath. Oddly enough it hurt even more to see the photo of Suzie that someone had found. It was from two years ago, at least, because she still had her braces, her red curls were out of their normal ponytail and frizzing out around her face.

  She’d always been on the skinny side, but in this photo she looked gawky and gaunt. My heart hurt on her behalf and I forced myself to click out of the site, grasping onto the fact that at least Suzie hadn’t seen this.

  I kind of wished my parents would come up here and take my computer away. I still had Facebook up in case Matt reached out again. I shot him a quick note: Heading to bed soon, ttyl.

  Matt: Night.

  Then after a brief pause, Hey, Margo?

  Me: Yeah?

  Matt: I’m sorry.

  I paused with my hands over the keyboard, finally settling for a shrug emoji. I didn’t feel at all nonchalant about what had gone down today but at least I could pretend, right?