Chapter 4

The Parkers enrolled me in Northgate Prep, the same elite private school Ashley and Brandon attended. It was a world of crisp uniforms, legacy admissions, and casual cruelty.

I immediately became a target. Ashley, playing the part of the concerned sister, would "help" me in the hallways.

"Everyone, this is my sister, Hailey," she' d announce to her popular friends. "She' s just from a small town, so she' s a little shy. Please be nice to her."

Her friends, led by a sharp-faced girl named Jessica, would then proceed to be anything but nice. They' d "accidentally" knock my books out of my hands. They' d whisper loudly about my cheap shoes as I walked past. They treated me like a piece of trash that had washed up on their pristine shore.

I didn' t care. I spent my classes reading comic books I' d hidden inside my textbooks. I turned in blank homework assignments. I failed every quiz.

My new deskmate was a guy named Leo. He was quiet, with dark, watchful eyes. The other kids called him a troublemaker, a "bad boy," but he mostly just kept to himself, looking bored by the whole performance.

One day, Jessica cornered me by the lockers.

"So, your mom works in a factory, right?" she sneered, her voice dripping with contempt. "Does she smell like chemicals all the time? Is that why you always look so greasy?"

She reached out to grab a strand of my hair.

Before she could touch me, a hand shot out and clamped around her wrist. It was Leo.

"Leave her alone," he said, his voice quiet but cold as ice. He wasn' t even looking at Jessica; he was looking at her perfectly manicured nails, a few inches from my face.

Jessica snatched her hand back like she' d been burned. "What' s it to you, Leo? Defending the charity case?"

"It' s annoying," he said, finally meeting her gaze. "Your voice. It' s giving me a headache. Go away."

Jessica and her friends scurried off, whispering furiously.

Leo just shrugged and turned back to his locker, as if nothing had happened. He hadn' t done it to be my hero. He' d done it because they were bothering him. But it was the first time someone in this school had shown me anything other than contempt. It was an unexpected alliance.