Trigger warning: brief bullying841Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTWQEQsdHEo
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Paige watched Mark stand in the middle of the hallway like a lost puppy after she told him off like a cold-hearted bitch. Then when he turned to the other direction and walked to his class, she tried to tell herself for the millionth time that this was for the best.
Staring at his still great ass, she admitted sex with him would’ve been fun, knowing he wasn’t at least a virgin. And he might’ve made her laugh and forget about her life problems just for a little while.
But it was all just a crush that would soon die off. He wasn’t in any of her classes, he was a grade lower than her, and they rarely saw each other during passing periods. Avoiding him was going to be a piece of cake.
For now, though, she allowed herself this one last time to see him in her dirty daydreams. As she entered her English class and sat in her assigned seat, she bit her lower lip as she thought of Mark biting it. He’d whisper pillow talk in her ear and she’d say her own to him. And if he was being good, she’d shift her attention to his--
“Happy Tuesday, everyone,” Mrs. Turner said as the class quieted down. “Just one quick announcement before we get started.” When she motioned Christy to come forward, Paige’s heart stopped beating. How did she not notice her coming into the classroom?
“This is Christina Vargas, and she’s from…”
“L.A.,” Christy responded for her.
“It’s about an hour from here, right?”
Christy half-shrugged. “With L.A. traffic, maybe two.”
“Right.” She patted Christy’s shoulder. “Well, you can take that empty seat on the second row to the left, and we’ll get started.”
She headed toward a seat a few desks behind Paige, which meant Paige couldn’t watch her back around Christy at this time around. On the outside, Paige feigned indifference as Christy smirked at her, but on the inside, she was a huge mess of disgust and anxiety. There was no way Christy’s schedule change happened to be a coincidence. Paige knew it was possible Christy figured out her schedule and then bribed her own counselor or something. Maybe a sob story about her difficult home life and having a job at the restaurant.
This was the same exact reason why Paige needed to cut off all contact with the Vargases. She already had Hell waiting for her at every turn.
Mrs. Turner turned on a PowerPoint presentation for the class to take notes on, and Paige was close to falling asleep as she laid her cheek against her fist. It didn’t help that the lights were off and her teacher sucked at making her lectures interesting.
Then the next thing Paige knew, everyone had to pair up for an activity. She looked around for a partner until a guy--whose name she remembered was Ian--approached her. “Wanna be partners?” he asked.
Only knowing him as a guy in some of her past classes, she grinned at his green eyes and cute smile. He was a good start to moving on from...the brother of her enemy. “Sure.”
He scooted a desk closer to her. But since neither of them did the reading, they copied off another group’s work and spent the rest of the time joking about a party they realized they both went to last year.
“It was Mila’s party, right?” Paige asked.
“Yeah.”
“You were there too? Well, I guess I just have super bad memory, so…” She rolled her eyes at herself.
“I think you were dating Kai.”
“Oh, yeah.” She remembered Kai’s ginger roots being the only thing they had in common.
“I was pretty sad ‘cause I had this huge crush on you.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah. But I didn’t wanna start anything when you were with Kai.”
She didn’t exactly know how to respond, with this guy being so forward about his feelings. Well, past feelings. She wondered if he still felt the same way.
But before she asked, Christy came out of nowhere and said, “Hey, what did you guys put for the motif question?”
Paige just gave her the dirtiest look she could muster while Ian fumbled with his paper. After he told her the answer, she wrote it down and sat her flat ass on Paige’s desk.
“And what’s your name?” Christy asked.
“Ian. Christina, right?”
“I go by Christy.” She seemed to get an eyeful of him. “But feel free to call me whatever you want.”
“Like what?”
She looked him up and down long enough to probably make him feel uncomfortable until she leaned in to whisper in his ear. His jaw slowly dropped as she pulled away from him. He wasn’t taking her seriously, was he?
“You know, there’s a football game coming up,” he said.
“Really?” she asked. “When?”
“This Friday. You down to come with me?”
Oh my God.
“Maybe give me your number and I’ll let you know when I know.” She winked.
As he put in his number on Christy’s phone, Paige still couldn’t believe what was happening. Just like that, she missed her chance with Ian in less than a minute. He probably forgot she was even there too. Did he have the attention span of a gnat?
At least she knew he didn’t have his old crush on her anymore. It didn’t mean anything when he sought her out for the class activity. It didn’t mean anything when he confessed he used to crush on her.
Why did every single boy she knew act the same way?
But more to the point, who did Christy think she was? When the bell rang to end first period, Paige glared daggers at Christy as Ian followed her like a clueless puppy to her desk where she packed up her things. Did Christy really just snatch a guy right out of Paige’s hands?
Paige stuffed her things in her purse like it pissed her off and stomped to the door. All she could think about was how she could get back at Christy, somehow. She didn’t really exact revenge against old friends left and right. She only knew how to deal with boy drama, which she had to admit she still kind of sucked at.
A loud guffaw sounded from down the hall behind her. It was hard to not recognize that laugh anywhere. And when she turned around, she felt the familiar need to bash Carter Adams’s brains in.
Supreme Douchebag, which was the nickname she preferred to call him by, had his blonde hair still parted the same way and cut the same length. She saw his teeth were still crooked as he laughed with his buddies, who were Dave, AKA Beta Douchebag, Gary the Asexual Follower, Andrew the Spoiled Brat, and of course, James the Phony. The group was, in many ways, the pest problem of the school. They leeched off of the humiliation of others and thrived on gossip like it was their lifeblood. The only way to get rid of them was with an exterminator, but getting them expelled wasn’t something she could do completely unscathed.
And it wasn’t surprising Carter was the natural leader of this group of immature assholes. People like him hadn’t grown up since middle school.
“James!” Christy screamed as she ran to him and pulled him into a hug.
Paige’s blood suddenly ran cold. Why was Christy acting like she’d known James as long as Paige did? Was she already acquainted with Supreme Douchebag and Company? What the fuck was going on?
Christy and James talked for a moment, but Paige was too far away and the hallway was too noisy for her to hear. Then Christy held onto him in a more-than-friends way as he had his arm around her.
This was too confusing. Too insane. What lengths did Christy have to go to for a three-year grudge?
She could feel the immense fear she once felt in her middle school days. Seeing Christy Vargas and Carter Adams in one place was a nightmare coming to life.
How long would it be before Christy found out about all the lies Carter spread about Paige?
“Slut!”
“How many guys did you sleep with?”
“You were so mean to Carter.”
“You’re such a dirty skank!”
Paige walked faster and faster down the hallway so she could stop hearing the millions of insults and sneers kids were shouting in her ears. She looked behind her to see even people she didn’t know staring at her. Carter couldn’t have started this. Would he really be that awful?
In that instant she found him among a group of people in the cafeteria. She went to the table, but then regretted ever existing when she heard, “...cheated on me with three other guys on the same day.”
Her vision grew blurry as she sniffled. She thought he was at least her friend.
When his eyes spotted her, he stood up right away, and a look of irritation spread across his face. “And there she is. The Ginger Slut.”
She tried to ignore the scoffs and insults the kids threw at her as she stormed toward Carter. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
He looked at the group, turned back to Paige, and then shrugged. “If you want me back, it’s not gonna work.”
Paige felt like throwing up, but she managed to keep the vomit in the back of her throat when she took him to a corner of the cafeteria.
“How could you make up all this crap about me?” she nearly yelled as the tears finally came out. “Are you messed up?”
“You dumped me. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does!”
“It didn’t sound like you cared.” He crossed his arms.
“I just don’t love you anymore! And it got weird when your dad started dating my mom.”
“So you dumped me just because of my dad being with your mom? Paige, they’re not getting married.”
“What if they do? We’d be like a brother and a sister dating.” She cringed at the thought of that.
“Oh, I get it now. Our parents matter a lot more than how I feel. And it was the right time to dump me too. You never cared about me.”
She shook her head as a tear dripped from her cheek. “I do care about you. You do matter to me. I just want to be friends now.”
“I get it now,” he repeated as he took a step away from her. “You just wanted to fuck me. That’s the only thing you care about.”
A sob broke her breathing. “It wasn’t like that, Carter.”
“Did you know you taught me sex? You made me feel like the best person in the world, and then you threw me away like trash. You really are a slut.”
“Carter,” she whispered, but he was already heading back toward the group. She left the cafeteria before she could bear their stares any longer. She was going to explode if she held back her tears for the rest of the day.
The bathroom was thankfully empty, so she gripped the sides of a sink and let the tears flow down the drain. She always saw herself to be in the background and free from any school drama. But now that she was the center of everyone’s attention, she had never felt so terrified and ashamed in her life. She already dealt with enough, even after spending every single day regretting Christy’s arrest.
Without Christy, how could she have known the biggest monster in her life was a man that both loved her mom and turned Paige into a monster too?
She stared at the bathroom mirror and took in the eyeliner trailing down her cheeks. What if Carter was right? What if she really was a slut with the way she treated him? She really was awful.
Her whole life, she just never learned how to be a better person.
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