Redwood High

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.