Present
How the hell did he get my number?
No, don't go there, Sarah. I'd known for a long time that Hayden was capable of anything. He was used to getting anything he wanted.
That night I couldn't sleep a wink. I kept imagining the worst scenarios, waiting for mom to appear and tell me my nude photos were all over the Internet. I might not be able to set foot in school ever again.
I didn't reply to his message, because even the slightest action could've provoked him. I'd checked a few accounts of East Willow High students, trying to catch any sign of those photos, but I couldn't find anything. As far as I could see, unless Hayden decided to publish them secretly on some foreign website, he didn't post them at all. He didn't send me any other message, and I didn't know if that was a good or bad sign.
I could never figure Hayden out. He was too unpredictable and impulsive, and his actions could be inconsistent. One moment he was cold, the next he was fuming with white-hot rage, and it was overwhelming. To top it all off, there was still that issue of our last encounter before summer. He had a score to settle, and to think he would let me off the hook would be a serious mistake.
The first day of school arrived all too soon, and I wasn't ready at all. I didn't want to go back to that Hellhole. I didn't want to face all those people.
I entered the kitchen and found my mother making breakfast. She wasn't a morning person, so she rarely spoke a word to me before her first cup of coffee. I looked at her exhausted face and saw dark circles under her eyes, clear proof that my ears hadn't deceived me—she'd indeed come home at three in the morning. She hadn't showered so she reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, and her hair was unkempt. Disappointment clouded my mind yet again.
How many times had I imagined her as a normal mother—cheerful and full of love? The first day of school was awful every time partly because of such depressing mornings. She was here, but it was like she wasn't. She didn't prepare me breakfast and didn't wish me good luck.
She wasn't one of those overprotective mothers who wouldn't let their children go outside unless they kissed them a hundred times, hugged them so tightly they could barely breathe, and checked twice if they took everything they needed.
These days she was terribly moody, whether she was sober or drunk, and I didn't know how to help her. I wasn't sure if she was annoyed because of me or if there was something else bothering her.
Since I wasn't hungry, I just took an apple from the kitchen counter, impatient to get out. "See you tonight?" I asked because she had an evening off.
"Yes." She didn't even glance in my direction. "Have fun in school."
And that was it. Have fun in school. She said it like she didn't know how horrible school was for me.
"I'm going now," I said, dejection coating my words as I snatched my keys out of the bowl in the hallway.
"Later," she replied.
I stopped, expecting her to say something more. There was a foolish part of me that still hoped she would show that she cared. Was she even aware that today was my first day as a senior?
She didn't say anything else, and I stepped outside, trying to suppress my tears. When did it become difficult to tell her "I love you"? When did our signs of affection stop? I wanted to hug her and kiss her, but it was so difficult—like there was some invisible barrier between us, and it was impossible to cross it.
As usual, the first thing I did when I got outside was to check if Hayden was in front of his house. It was my survival tactic I'd developed over time. I always tried to go to school before him in order to save myself from experiencing any potential embarrassment in the early morning. Luckily for me, he had a tendency to wake up late, and today was probably one of those mornings. Nevertheless, I couldn't let my guard down even for a second.
I sprinted to my old red Ford Escort, which was parked next to my mother's white 90s Nissan Sentra, hoping Hayden wouldn't go to school at all.
One could dream.
**************
The only high school in our small town, East Willow High, was a huge complex made of three wings, the athletic center, and a large parking lot. The modern building was a mixture of distinctive gray bricks and glass, its shape and structure standing out among maples that turned the most beautiful shade of red during fall. All windows were wide, providing a lot of light, and I loved the soothing brightness they gifted this otherwise gloomy place.
I parked my car at a remote part of the parking, which was as far as I could get from Hayden's parking lot. I took my time walking to the main entrance, the knot in my stomach getting tighter with each step closer to those glass doors.
A flock of students was packed inside, and it felt like it had been only yesterday that I saw everyone last. They were all the same, some of them displaying new hairstyles, combined with new fashion trends, and some wearing highly expensive fall pieces, which would strengthen their position among popular and rich kids. Sadly, people respected those who exuded money.
This was one of the things that made me different from them. I never followed trends, and even if I wanted to, poverty was like a cage that limited all my choices, laughing into my face at the possibility of buying anything pricey for myself.
So, I didn't know what the current fashion or the popular color was. My T-shirts and jeans were plain, baggy, neutrally colored, and paired with ordinary white sneakers. I didn't do hairstyles, preferring to wear my long wavy brown hair down or in a ponytail. My clothes might be drab and ugly to others, but they didn't attract any attention. They helped me feel invisible.
I tried to pass next to the seniors who had gathered close to the front doors, bumping into someone's shoulder in the process.
"Hey, watch it!" this person snarled at me, smacking my shoulder. It hurt, but I didn't even look at him. I just mumbled that I was sorry and dashed forward, attempting to be less noticeable.
School had always been like that—I tried to be out of the way and hoped no one would mess with me, but this was difficult when all they saw in me was a moving target.
They saw me as a creep, and they felt it was okay to insult me just because I was weaker than the rest. I never fought back, thinking—hoping—it would stop, and they would finally conclude that bullying me wasn't worth their time.
I came to my locker half expecting to find it covered in paint or graffiti and exhaled in relief because it was clean. However, this didn't mean that someone couldn't have put some trash or whatever else inside. I entered the combination on my lock, planning to open my locker carefully.
The first day last year taught me this particular caution when I opened my locker and was welcomed with open bottles of soda lying down, the liquid trickling from the upper shelf to the lower creating a large puddle. Not even a second later, they poured out and splashed all over the floor and my sneakers. I spent hours cleaning that mess after class.
This time, I stepped backward and then opened my locker. It was empty. A heavy sigh escaped my lips. Some students snickered behind me.
"Expecting something?" one guy mocked me.
"Maybe we can put a snake in her locker next time," the girl on his right side said to me and put her forefinger over her lips, as if she was mulling over something. "The more poisonous, the better."
They sniggered, and I turned to my locker so they wouldn't see how embarrassed they made me feel.
At all times, I put an indifferent mask on my face, pretending such hurtful words didn't affect me at all, but blush betrayed me each time.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my mood rapidly declining. Senior year hadn't even started, and I already felt defeated. At least nobody had messed with my locker, so that should comfort me a little. I placed all my books inside save for my notebook and the textbook I needed for calculus, which was my first period.
In a hurry, I almost bumped into Masen Brown, Hayden's friend. I cursed myself for not watching where I went, moving aside to walk away, but of course he didn't let me. He stepped in front of me and grinned with malice.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Sars, my least favorite girl! How was your summer? Did you actually get out of your cave and have some real fun?"
I involuntarily cringed when I heard that horrible nickname again. Hayden and his close friends had been calling me Sars for years, referring to an illness that was contagious and could be fatal. They had used to say that East Willow High should be afraid since I was a walking disease that could contaminate the whole school with her lousiness.
"Masen, let me through." My voice was barely louder than a whisper.
He didn't even pay attention to my words. "I guess you don't even understand the concept of fun. Are you still a virgin?"
Of all Hayden's friends, Masen was the biggest man whore. He was known as the "heartthrob" of East Willow High, and it was a common fact that he never dated. He preferred hookups with new girls each week. There was a long list of Masen's chicks that had the "honor" of sleeping with him only to be left heartbroken when he refused to be with them again.
He was around six feet tall, and his blonde hair and icy blue eyes were the "killer combination" for the female population around here. That was what they said, anyway, since I found him neither charming, nor beautiful. For me he was just a Casanova—a womanizer who knew how to charm others to get what he wanted. But inside, he was rotten.
"Of course you are. No one would fuck such trash." I winced at his choice of words.
He disliked me from the start and the feeling was mutual. He was keen on poking fun of me for being unattractive, wearing ugly clothes, and having zero sexual experience. Everyone knew I never had a boyfriend, which was something Masen liked to remind me all the time.
The students around us started paying attention, and I wanted to disappear into thin air. How many times had I wished to fight back and finally make them stop torturing me?
"What? Cat got your tongue? Now you aren't so brave like you were the last time, are you?" He hovered over me, his mean eyes boring into mine. "Why don't you tell me to go to hell too? Hm?" I took a step back, but he followed, and I felt intimidated.
I managed to find my voice. "We'll be late for class, Masen."
"We'll be late for class, Masen!" someone said in a mocking voice and sniggered. "Boo-hoo! Nerdy is afraid she'll be late for class!"
Masen laughed and winked at me. "We don't want you to be late for your class, Sars." He stepped aside, allowing me to leave at last, and I embraced my escape eagerly.
I moved, but I failed to notice Masen's extended leg, and I crashed to the floor. Masen and the group of students laughed as they walked away, adding to my humiliation.
My body hurt everywhere, but I pretended I was completely okay. Everywhere I looked, I saw prying eyes, and they made my skin prickle. They spoke in hushed whispers, waiting for me to finally lose it, but I refused to satisfy their twisted minds. I picked up my calculus textbook and the notebook from the floor and dashed to the classroom, not shedding a single tear.
**************
I was hoping there would be some divine intervention which would enable me to have my classes without Hayden or any of his friends. According to yin and yang, everything was about balance. I endured three shitty years here, so my yang period was way overdue, right?
Unfortunately, as soon as I stepped into the calculus classroom my hope was extinguished because I found Christine Thompson and her best friend, Natalie Shelley, at the back. They noticed me and started talking in hushed whispers. Their evil eyes bore into me, allowing my anxiety to proliferate, and I could sense there was some confrontation ahead of me, but I didn't know what to do to elude it.
To say Christine and I weren't friends anymore was an understatement. Soon after Kay died, it became clear to me that she and I had never been friends for real.
It was convenient for her to hang out with me because I was Kay's best friend, and Kayden and Hayden were the most popular guys in school. This didn't mean I was a part of the popular students list. Hayden made sure I was excluded from it.
He and the rest of the school kept harassing me, and Kayden wasn't even aware of that, because I didn't want to admit to him how much of a loser I actually was or make the relationship between him and Hayden even worse. I pretended everything was okay, hiding the abuse his brother and others put me through every day.
Christine was one of the first people who had turned their backs on me after Kayden's death. She and Natalie were the most responsible for spreading the rumors about me being a murderer, and soon the whole school started blaming me for it, gung-ho about venting out their frustrations or bearing malice toward the easy prey.
Those months were a living nightmare for me. They hated me so much, bullying me at each corner, and there was even a period when I was so sick that I couldn't go to school. I was absent for weeks at the time, and I barely managed to end the year with high grades.
Natalie was Kay's girlfriend, and to this day, I couldn't understand what he'd seen in her.
Natalie was even meaner than Christine, and that was putting it mildly because I was certain she had no limits to hurting others, showing how truly mentally unstable she was. She went downhill after Kayden's death, becoming only a shell of the previously spoiled, frivolous girl who had eyes only for Kayden. I had firsthand experience of how far she could go to hurt others, remembering very well her words from the day of Kayden's funeral.
She made it clear to me that day, just like Hayden, that she would make me pay for Kayden's death, adamant on making my high school life even worse than it already was. I was terrified of her, and I never knew when to expect her next attack. Christine always made sure to join the abuse.
That was one of the reasons Natalie and Christine got along very well. They had same interests, which included gossip, boys, and torturing weak people like me.
Christine had short black hair and olive green eyes with skin so fair that she looked like a porcelain doll. Natalie was pretty, but Christine was mesmerizingly beautiful, so it came as no surprise that she'd caught Hayden's attention a long time ago.
From the beginning, it was clear to me that Christine and I were complete opposites, but I didn't question our friendship at that time because she was the first person who openly approached me and wished to be my friend. I didn't want to risk losing her, no matter how foul she was, deluding myself with naïve thinking that she was a real friend.
In the end, when everything came crashing down, I figured out that it was better to be alone than with the wrong people.
I wanted to keep my distance from her, but that wasn't possible when we shared the same class. I was late for calculus courtesy of Masen, which meant everyone had already taken their seats, and only three seats were unoccupied. I went for the one in the first row—far away from Natalie and Christine.
"Nope." The girl sitting to my right stood up and put her hand over the vacant desk. "I don't think so. My friend will come any moment, so you can't sit here." A few people around us erupted in giggles, which was followed by the mocking whispers around the classroom.
I tried not to think about my embarrassment and everyone's eyes on me as I scanned the room for another available seat. I continued to the desk in the third row, which was next to the window, but the same situation happened when another senior prevented me from taking that seat. Another round of laughter coursed through the room, reinforcing my mortification.
Were they going to prevent me from sitting in this classroom? What was the catch now? I'd have to stand during the lesson? There was no way Ms. Roberts would allow that.
There was only one seat left, and I plodded to it with great reluctance because the desk was next to Christine's. I could feel her watching me like a lion watching its prey.
"Look at her," Natalie said loudly, drawing my attention to her eye circles. Not even her makeup could hide how tuckered out she was, reminding me of the rumor that she was popping pills for insomnia. Another rumor was that she'd collapsed due to fatigue and anxiety during cheerleading practice last year, but somehow, I couldn't feel any sympathy for her.
"Look at those horrible clothes. She looks like she lives in a sewer," she added.
I arrived at my desk, doing my best to ignore the continuous laughter and nosy stares. Just a few more minutes and the class would start. Just a little more and their attention would be directed elsewhere.
I put my things down on the desk and sat.
A second later, I crashed down when the chair gave out beneath me and broke into several pieces. My head landed hard on the floor, which sent an explosion of pain through my skull, and my vision went black for a few moments.
I could hear the laughter through the haze in my head, and it bit at my mind, inducing more shame that intensified the pain. Natalie and a few others even picked up their phones and snapped the pictures of me sprawled out on the floor.
"She actually sat there!" someone said.
"She didn't even notice it was broken!" I heard another one. "She's so stupid."
"This was a great idea, Natalie! I'm posting this on Instagram!"
She was heinous. All of this to hurt and humiliate me, and they all reveled in it, seeking it like their next meal. It was like I wasn't a human being. It was like I didn't deserve to live.
Suddenly, breathing became difficult. My chest was constricting in pain, and everything was a blur. I felt like I was going to faint, and I truly hoped for that to happen.
I hoped I could faint and finally escape this nightmare.
--------------
Hello, hello!! *shares her evil popcorn*
Thank you so much for reading! Let's head to the next one!
Love ya,
Vera