Chapter 3

Sarah looked up at Ethan. His approach was smoother than Chad's, less obvious than Brittany's. He wasn't offering clothes or forced friendship, but help with something she genuinely needed.

She thought of her father, working himself to the bone. She thought of the sacrifices, the quiet desperation that fueled her ambition. Northwood was a battlefield, and she was outgunned. But Ethan Hayes, with his easy charm and access to resources, could be an unwitting weapon.

"I wouldn't mind some help," she said, her voice carefully neutral. "It's due tomorrow."

A calculated alliance. That' s what this would be.

They began regular "study sessions." Ethan was, to her surprise, an excellent tutor. He explained complex concepts with a clarity her overworked teachers rarely managed. Her grades, already good, began to climb. Her practice SAT scores edged higher and higher.

She noted details about him: the small, faded scar above his left eyebrow from an old football injury, the way he tapped his pen when thinking, the faint scent of expensive cologne. He was, objectively, attractive and intelligent. A dangerous combination if she let her guard down.

But her guard was up, forged in years of being the "other." She remembered her first year at Northwood, a blur of confusion and quiet humiliation. Her clothes were wrong, her accent was wrong, her very existence seemed to be an affront to the established order. Her grades had initially suffered, not from lack of intellect, but from the sheer weight of trying to navigate a world so alien to her own. She was consistently in the top 20%, but never the top 5%, where Ethan and Tiffany resided.

As her resistance to the Crew's other members continued, Tiffany's direct bullying intensified. Fake social media profiles appeared, posting embarrassing, fabricated stories about Sarah. Her textbooks were defaced with cruel graffiti. Someone even put a dead mouse in her gym locker.

Sarah endured it. Complaining to Mr. Henderson, the well-meaning but ineffectual school counselor, would do little. He saw her academic potential, but he didn't see the sharks circling. He' d just offer platitudes and maybe a pamphlet on coping mechanisms.

She knew this was Tiffany trying to break her spirit, to make her more vulnerable to Ethan' s eventual charm.

Ethan, during their study sessions, never mentioned the bullying. He acted as if he were oblivious, the perfect gentleman scholar. Sarah played along, focusing on the calculus, the physics, the literature. Each correct answer, each improved test score, was a small victory, a piece of ammunition she was stockpiling.

She knew Ethan was the "surprise," the main tool in Tiffany' s game. But she also saw him as an opportunity. He had resources, connections, knowledge. And she was going to use every single one.