Without Me

Chapter 27

"This is Mystic Falls High." Landon motioned to the narrow, color-less hallway that stretched ahead of them.

"Is this what public school is like?" Lizzie crinkled her nose. The metal lockers and discolored walls felt ... barbaric. Nothing like the rich luxury of the Salvatore School.

"Pretty much, yeah. Wait until you see the bathrooms." Landon pointed down the hallway. "Gym is that way, cafeteria's to the left. It's not as fancy as you're imagining, I can assure you."

"No smoothie bar?"

"Absolutely not."

"And no waffle station?"

"Not a chance."

Lizzie smiled. The school looked bleak. She wouldn't lie about that. But her veins thrummed with low magic, and maybe that meant things were looking up for once. It was away from her family and away from her friends, but this could be the fresh start she had always wanted. A place to try again, completely fresh. She could let the magic drain from her and live as a human.

"Your first class is gonna be your worse," Landon said. "It always is. But it gets better as the day goes on."

Lizzie nodded. She didn't think anything could be worse than her first class back at the Salvatore School, but she didn't say that out loud. Here, she wasn't going to say that name at all. This was a blank slate, and she had no intention of bringing up the past to stain it.

"We have it together at least," Landon noted, looking at their schedules. "I guess all late transfers get shoved into the same class."

"Makes sense," Lizzie lied. At the Salvatore School, late transfers got to sit down with Emma to talk and pick which classes they wanted to take and how many would fit their schedule best. Mystic Falls High didn't seem to think that that was important.

"It really doesn't," Landon said honestly.

Lizzie hated the soft feeling in her chest. She narrowed her eyes. "Just like you."

Landon smirked. "And here I thought you were being nice to me."

"Why would you think that?"

Landon shrugged. "I guess it just felt like we were getting somewhere."

"Don't be an idiot." Lizzie rolled her eyes, but let Landon lead the way to their classroom.

As they sat and stared at the back of their teacher's head for an hour, Lizzie let her mind wander far away from math. She kept trying to convince herself that she could be happy here. That she could make a home in that tiny apartment or be happy coming to this dreary building for eight hours and learning boring human subjects everyday. The longer the class dragged on, the less sure she became.

Leaning back in her chair, she decided to change routes. Less thinking of the negatives of this place and more thinking of the positives.

Her father wasn't here. She didn't have to worry about seeing him in class everyday and having to watch what she said to make sure he never found out who she was. She didn't have to suffer with him so close to her yet so far.

She didn't have to worry about Hope getting suspicious of why she felt weird things when she looked at Lizzie or why saying her name felt so familiar. There was no way she could figure it out now. Hopefully, she would be out of sight and out of mind.

She didn't have to worry about Josie or Penelope humiliating her in front of everyone or all the other students staring at her as she walked through the hallways, remembering what she did. Here, she was no one.

At least, she thought.

Maybe some naive part of her had thought Dana and Connor were the only two bullies at Mystic Falls High. Evidently, she was wrong.

She had barely made it out of the classroom door when Sasha and what seemed like the rest of the cheer squad behind her appeared seemingly out of nowhere. They smiled politely at her.

"You're new here, right?" Sasha asked.

Lizzie smiled and nodded obliviously. "Yeah. Just transferred today."

Sasha's welcoming smile dropped wickedly fast. "It's obvious."

"What?"

"Let's just go," Landon murmured, taking her hand.

"Aww, look." Sasha jumped at the opportunity presented to her on a silver platter. "It's Kirby's girlfriend. That actually makes so much sense."

Tears were already burning in Lizzie's eyes. She yanked her hand away. "We're not dating."

It didn't matter. Sasha just smirked and looked the two of them up and down. "Right."

"What did I even do to you?" Lizzie demanded, drawing up all her height. "You didn't even know I exited before today."

Sasha giggled, shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe you're just an easy target."

Maybe she was.

Maybe that was the problem all along.

With nothing left to say, Lizzie angrily stuck her middle finger in Sasha's face, storming past her.

"Lizzie, wait!" Landon struggled to keep up. "Just wait -"

"Go!" she said, shaking him off. She brushed tears off her face and spoke through gritted teeth. "You're not gonna want to be around for this next part."