Chapter 11

Since my mom is home, I didn't have to walk Jason to school. So after my mom dropped Jason off, she drove me directly to school. We made small talk along the way but otherwise the car ride was silent. I don't know what's going on in her mind, but there's an entire war happening in mine.

The red brick building comes into view, making me sigh. "Ah, I remember when I hated school like you," she muses, slowing down. I stay silent as we wait for the car in front of us to move. "Have you decided on what college you want to go to?" she asks.

College. The one topic everyone in high school needs to consider. There's so many questions and decisions to make on that one topic alone. First of all, do I even want to go to college? Can I even afford it?

Then there's the question on what you want to major in. And that usually follows after knowing what job you want. There's so many jobs out there in the world...how am I going to single one out? There's nothing I want to do. Maybe rule a kingdom but that's definitely out of the question. Plus I didn't pay much attention in governments class so there goes that plan. Not that it was a good plan in the first place.

"I don't know," I murmur, looking down. I know how badly my mom wants me to go to the college she went to. The problem with college is that the only majors available involved math and science, both which I'm horrible at. Well, not terrible, but not excellent either.

"Honey, you don't have much time-"

"Yes I do," I argue, and she gives me a look.

"Braska, you're a senior. By now everyone has already decided on what they want to do with their life. What about you?"

"I'll think about it," I tell her, getting out of the car and starting to make my way towards the building. I can't stand being there any longer with my mom grilling me about my college decisions. She's right though, almost everyone I know has a plan for their future while I'm still struggling with mine. Maybe I should take a year off and really find out what I want to do with my life. Ugh, why is this so hard?

Somehow I got to school earlier than I usually do so I have nothing to do but go to my locker. Lucas has early morning practice and Haley gets here by the time the late bell rings, but she does get here.

Seeing a flyer about college makes me grit my teeth. They talk about how important and great it is but have they seen the amount of money needed? Tuition for one year in some colleges is higher than the cost of several small islands. Heck, if I had the choice of getting an island or going to college I'd be building my hut.

There's only a few students in school who are either reading a book or talking to their friends. I don't try to greet any of them and quietly make my way towards my locker. I'm getting the books I need for my first few classes when I see a sight that brings more terror to me than a field of spiders.

Zoey Grayson.

Her eyes meet mine and a smirk appears on her face. The top she's wearing shows off her flat stomach while her tight jeans leave no contour to the imagination. Her hair is straightened down to her breasts and her makeup is perfect. Even I can admit that she looks like she could win Miss America.

Too bad her personality is as pretty as a deformed cow.

She's leaning against her locker surrounded by a bunch of guys ignorant to the fact that she's about as nice as Cinderella's step mom. Her two closest friends aren't actually that bad, if anything they're just easily influenced.

I've met them both before they were brainwashed by Zoey and they were nice girls, sometimes. Raine and Justice are nice when they aren't with Zoey but the second she's within hearing distance, they instantly become devils reincarnate. We could be talking about how cute kittens are but as soon as they hear the sound of her voice, it's like a switch turns in their heads and they immediately start insulting my dry and brittle hair.

My theory is that Zoey is somehow blackmailing them since most girls are terrified of her. Others worship the ground she walks on but according to Zoey, they aren't pretty or popular enough to be associating with her.

She whispers something to Raine while pointing to me. Apparently she wasn't whispering that quietly since everyone around her starts laughing while looking over at me. Great, I wonder what hilarious joke about me she told them now.

I shut my locker before walking towards my homeroom fast. I don't want to risk the chance of hearing whatever she said about me to her group.

***

I'm doodling random shapes on my notebook when the chair in front of me suddenly gets pulled. I look up to see Zoey giving me a fake smile before sitting down. Kill me now.

"So how was having an entire week without me?" she asks, tilting her head a little. Like heaven.

Instead, I keep my mouth shut and look back down to my notebook filled with random sketches. As long as I don't feed the beast then the beast won't attack. All those anti-bullying assemblies better know what they were talking about when they said to ignore the bully.

"Fine, be rude. Anyways, I was just telling my friends about how you ran away from a guy at the mall," she says, picking her nails. Guy? What guy? I never ran away from a guy. I ran away from her and straight into heaven's own version of a guy but I never ran away from one.

"I never-"

"I mean I get it. Some guy was hitting on you," she rolls her eyes as she says that, "and you got scared because you weren't into him so you ran away."

"But I-"

"Hey babe. What's up?" Clyde says, sitting down next to Zoey and leaning in for a kiss. I grimace and turn back down to my notebook. I don't want to see some gross makeout session between her and her boyfriend. I think he's her boyfriend, why else would they be kissing? I could have sworn she was dating Rodney before her week absence but whatever.

"Not now Clyde. Can't you see I'm talking to this cute little thing here?" Right, call me a thing. As if I'm an object and not a human being.

"Aww, she's blushing! Why, don't want to see two people kiss? You might learn a few tips," Clyde says, giving me a wink. Gross, I can't believe I crushed so hard on him in seventh grade.

"She doesn't want to see straight people make out," Raine buts in. I bury my head in my notebook and try to tune them out. However, that soon turns out to be a difficult task.

"You know Nebraska, you don't have to hide your sexuality from us. It's the 21st century! We all know the truth anyways. Plus I got my proof at the mall."

"So is your lesbian crush Haley?" Raine asks, making the entire class laugh and shout comments trying to top each others like:

"What's why she hands out with her so much!" She's my best friend.

"I've seen them go to each other's house!" Creep.

"Bet they probably film each other!" Now that's just gross.

The laughter subsides and I'm extremely glad for that, until Justice decided to talk. "Wait, if she's a lesbian, then a lesbian crush is just a crush for her right?" she asks, and Zoey shrugs.

"Who knows, who cares. Except for this one!" The whole class starts laughing again while I blink away some tears that threaten to escape and try to focus back on the sketches. Their words start to mix together and become jumble due to the headache that I'm starting to get.

The chair beside me is pulled and I instantly know it's Haley from the shoes. Haley being here only makes everything worse since the class starts hooting while Haley just sits there looking lost while taking her notebook out. "What happened?" she whispers towards me.

"Look, she's staring at Haley's bo-" I get up and run out of the room without hearing the last part of that sentence. The teacher is usually late so I make it out of the classroom easily and towards one of the bathrooms and lock myself inside the stall furthest from the door.

Tears are freely pouring out of my eyes as I try to wipe them away with my sleeves. I start scratching my wrist while shutting my eyes hard to try and get all their voices out of my head. But the harder I scratched, the louder they got.

Eventually, I reach my limit and sink to the floor. I then realize that this is the second time I had cried in less than five days...all because of Zoey. She did this to me. She has so much power over me and I hate that.

I clench my fists together while my nails dig deeper into my skin. I tighten my muscles as their voices start filling up my head.

Wow she's such a slut.

She looks so ridiculous, just look at her!

What kind of name is that?

She'd crush the competition for most ugliest.

Damn she can't wear clothes like that!

Her brain's the only thing she's got going for her.

Her friends all pity her and that's why they hang out with her. They laugh at her when they're alone.

Can you believe she expects to get a boyfriend?

No wonder her mom left her.

I lift my head from my arms and grimace at the sight of blood in my left palm. Not finding it in me to care about that, I grab toilet paper and wrap it around my hand while leaning my head against the tile walls. With every insult ever thrown at me, the lowest blow involved my mom. I don't know how, but Zoey found out that my mom is away. She probably didn't know that she's only working away and thought she left.

Either way, it was a low blow.

I clean myself up and flush the bloodied tissues down the toilet. It took three flushes since there's a lot of them and I don't want to clog the toilet. I leave the stall and wash my face and hands. The water stings a little but I'm used to it.

Before walking to class, I walk to my locker and put on a light blue sweater where the sleeves were long enough to cover my hands. I pull the sleeves down over my left hand and start walking towards my second period class since there's no way I'm going back to homeroom.

Luckily, I only have first period with Zoey.

***

"Hey," I greet Haley during lunch. Luckily, most of my classes are advanced so no one from my homeroom was there, not even Haley. It's a good thing since it meant no one could talk to me about what happened earlier.

"Look, whatever Zoey and her friends did to you, I'll get back at them for it. Lucky for them, we had a substitute teacher. Also, I told Lucas and Levi-"

"You told the two what happened?" I groan, walking with her away from the lunch line. Instead of leading me towards our table, she leads me to the field near the forest that's next to the school. It's a great place to hide from the sun if it's too hot.

"Relax, I didn't tell them the details; I don't even know the details! All I know is that Zoey said something and got the class to laugh and you to run. I told the substitute that you were sick so you might not want to show up the rest of the day," she says, wincing when I give her an incredulous look.

"Why would you do that? I already went to my history class!" I tell her, as we sit down by one of the trees.

"But Mrs. Porter doesn't even take attendance seriously! I had her as a substitute a while back and she just marked everyone as late. I remember being so pissed at her for that."

I shake my head at her. "So you want me to just skip school the rest of the day?" I ask. I'm not what someone would consider a rebel, but I'm not that much of a goody-two-shoes either. Just because I work hard for my grades doesn't mean I do everyone someone tells me to do.

"Think of it as a break. One of the steps on the preventing bullying campaign is to avoid your bully anyways. Think of this as a way of avoiding that demonic clamhead."

"Demonic clamhead?" I ask, slightly amused at her choice of names. "You have sworn before Haley."

"Whatever. Anyways, go home and I'll just email you the notes later tonight," she says, with a small shrug.

"I can't. My mom's home, remember?" I remind her. If my mom finds out I skipped class, she'll kill me. She doesn't monitor my attendance but the school does call if a student is missing without an excuse. Haley already fed them the sick excuse so they shouldn't be calling.

"Oh right. Then...ooh I know! Go to the mall. It's my safe haven, maybe it could be yours too," she says, standing up as the end of lunch bell rings.

"Thanks Hales," I say, giving her a hug. With that, we part ways with her heading back towards the building and me heading towards the forest, which has a path to a small street that leads towards a road for the mall.

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This isn't edited so yeah I'll get to it later.

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