Going to school here is horrible, as things often are these days. Leaving all my friends back in Destiny still stings. Plus, back there I knew the bullies. There was Ross and his buddies, and I knew how to avoid them. Not that he picked so much on me as on my sister, but still.
I know about bullies.
But here they’re not content with calling you names and tripping you up in hallways, not just stalking you on social media and posting insults, but tearing your locker open and filling it with used condoms, ripping your backpack to shreds, cornering you and lifting your skirt, just short of raping you right in front of everyone.
The latter only happened once in Destiny, and it still haunts me.
Sydney, my bestie, has suffered from them as much as I have, or so she says. But she has three boys protecting her, and she says I should do the same. Find a protector.
Easier said than done.
There is this one boy, though. I’ve been following him from a distance all the way from the school bus stop. I started doing that at the beginning of the school year, but I don’t think he noticed until recently.
The strategy is simple: choose a tall, muscular, mean-looking boy walking in the direction of my house and stick close to him. Pretend I know him, that we’re walking home together.
Keep the bullies at bay.
If the boy is alone, bonus points. It means he won’t show off to his buddies by picking on me, won’t gang up on me.
This boy seemed perfect. New to the school, a loner—I’d noticed him during break—and obviously living in my neighborhood.
And not bad looking, either.
Okay, so that’s an understatement. He’s frigging hot. Which makes it all the weirder that he doesn’t have a following as he hoofs it home from the bus. Buddies chatting with him. Girls fawning over him.
Well, except for me. I’m his most loyal following.
I watched him first, of course. A lot. Took loads of mental notes—on how he limps sometimes, how his eyes track everything, how his lip curls when someone stands in his way.
Just... hot.
And here I am again, following him.
Just then he flicks the cigarette he’s been smoking—well the joint, I can smell weed as well as the next person—and turns to look at me.
I freeze and do my best not to show it, barely slowing down. I smile instead.
His expression does something weird. It stills, though his eyes seem to darken. He stumbles a little, almost coming to a stop.
Taking advantage, moving before I can think about it too hard, I cross the street and join him.
“Hi,” I say, “I’m Augusta, but you can call me Gigi. Augusta Watson, your neighbor? What’s your name?”
He doesn’t say anything for a long while, until we’re almost at my house, his hooded eyes flicking sideways at me all the way.
And right before I skip away to the promise of a warm lunch and an afternoon listening to music and doodling in my notebook, he talks to me in his deep, warm voice and I’m gone.
Crushing on him so hard.
He doesn’t tell me his name, but I know it. Jarett. Jarett Lowe.
I wanted him to say it. To offer it to me, a pledge, an understanding. I think I’d fallen for him already, from a distance, but that one word, his name, seals it.
I didn’t know it then, didn’t know this was the boy who would one day break my heart.
***
At school, I look for him but rarely see him. Once I catch him during break, right outside the school fence. He’s alone, one booted foot braced on the fence, head tilted back in the watery sunshine, smoking. The watery sunlight gilds his cheekbones, his lashes.