by Emily Walker
A boy dressed in clothing similar to mine except for his heavy dark boots stood peering into a beaker filled with green liquid and 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 shoved back his brown hair in impatience. 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 possessed 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, a very handsome British guy. “Um, I’m new here. Would you happen to know where Room 401 is and direct me, please?” I said 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 that had been on the floor. “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. And 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 which I had been dreading but did anyway.
I proceeded to take my seat in an empty chair beside a boy with curly red hair and beautiful gray eyes with thick-rimmed glasses. I immediately knew that he was a nerd when 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. And 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, I thought. At my old school, the popular ones didn’t hang around the nerds, not to talk of being friends with them. Redwood was indeed a different place entirely.
“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 formed on my lips involuntarily as I watched the dynamics between these three. I was vaguely aware of glares coming from the 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 5
I was two weeks into my new school. All seemed to be going on well. Or at least, I felt so.
‘It could have been worse,’ I kept saying to myself.
But I couldn’t hide the idea that it might have been better. Or it could be better. Maybe it was normal. Or abnormal. 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. Basically, I was bullied every day. And I thought it was normal.
Why do you ask? Oh, simply because I was friends with the most popular boys in 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 from going to classes, getting lunch, and heading back home together. 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 getting a girl to go out with him.
I had seen him do it a couple of times, all of which left me dumbfounded. He was also the fun one who loved to party and be on top of everything. That didn’t in any way deter his education, though. The boy was hella smart.
Liam, however, was a nerd real and faithful. Intelligent, quirky, quiet, corny, nervous all the time … yet his looks and friendship with the other two boys had pushed him up to the top of the school food chain.
One would think the same would go for me, but while I’d become quite popular due 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 the ‘bitch.’
I usually wouldn’t care; after all, I had excelled in being invisible at my old school, but not when it involved the everyday harassment I endured. 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,” said Mason while we were seated at our usual table in the school cafeteria.
I knew it wasn’t 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 again. They never did that whenever any of the boys were around me. 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 the nicest girl I had met in the school – but she and Liam had had slight differences, and I felt another fight waiting to occur. 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 wanna do this. I’m 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 invol
ved in your popular girl activities, okay?”
Just like that, another argument ensued, 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 gotta go. I’ll see you guys at biology,” I said, ignoring the look of betrayal on Liam’s face.
I chuckled to myself as I strolled 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, fattie, it looks like those jeans can’t handle all the extra flesh. 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 during summer break just before I arrived in town. It was clear that she had thought they would start dating again when school resumed, but now that I was in the picture, she seemed to think 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 of these guys. Or even in any way into them and getting bullied because of it, but I wasn’t. Even Tiffany, who had reason to feel threatened by me, wasn’t because she knew we were just friends. I didn’t understand why the girls were horrible toward me when the guy I was 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. Dark eyes stared into mine.
“What do you want, Dawson?” Jake bit out 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 just an outcast.
I stood up to leave when it became clear that my brain had suddenly developed an inability to conjure words, and my mouth had 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 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 with his wind-ruffled hair, made him look so gut-punching sexy. “Which do you want to be answered 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 here? 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 you, 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 each other,” 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, and when I looked down, it was Jake throwing stones at it. I opened the window and watched him climb the tree effortlessly then 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 Jake 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 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. I was fifteen when I killed my father, and I don’t regret it.”
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 suddenly it was morning again.
Chapter 6
“It’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 town reservations,” Liam said.
Aaron nodded. “I concur.”
All five of us were seated at our usual table in the school cafeteria. The other students were staring in shock since Jake Grayson had joined us. 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 detest for himself that he had unknowingly pushed them away. He had thought all three of them would treat him the same way the townspeople did, so he had separated himself from the first.
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 norm
al if that was possible.
We couldn’t stop people from staring at him like he was an alien or avoiding him like the plague, but it was going to take time.
“Jake’s back, baby,” Mason hollered, and Liam joined in while Aaron looked on with a dazzling grin of his own.
My eyes met Jake’s, and when he mouthed, Thank you, I replied with a nod. My boys were all together.
The bell rang, and we all walked to the gym for the fourth period. As soon as the boys moved over to their section, it was like an alarm had gone off, and I was suddenly accosted by Leila and her gang.
She approached with her arms crossed and her friends behind her. “Well, well, if it isn’t Miss Whore…”
“Excuse me?”
“All three of them weren’t enough for you? You just had to have the bad boy too, didn’t you? What’s it like fucking all four of them, huh? Are you that much of a slut?”
“Miss Hamilton! That language isn’t tolerated on school grounds, especially not to a fellow female. Do you understand?” said Mrs. Peters, our gym teacher, who had suddenly appeared from nowhere and had overheard that last sentence.
“Yes, ma’am.” Leila directed a glare at me before turning to walk away with her friends.
“Back to the routine, everyone,” Mrs. Peters yelled, blowing her whistle as we all took positions. We were doing a gymnastic routine, and my post was at the top as six other girls held me up, two on each level.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Leila crashed into us, and from the look of pure contempt she had thrown at me, it was clear that her action was intentional.
As expected, the girls holding me up staggered, and I could feel myself falling. There was no time for me to even yell, and I landed with blinding pain and the sound of a crack.
Screams filled the air around me, but I couldn’t tell who was yelling. Briefly, my eyes opened, and even though the images swirled before me, I could still make out the people that stood before me.
Liam, Aaron, Mason, and Jake … and they all looked furious.