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“Nothing to do with you.” Peyton shot her a saccharine sweet smile.
“You know just because you’re the school slut, doesn’t me—”
“What the hell did you call me?” Peyton stepped into her space.
“Well, if the name fits… I heard Sean already dumped you for Layla. I guess he prefers a bit of class, after all.”
“You fucking bi—”
“Okay.” Ashleigh wrapped her arm around Peyton and yanked her backward. “She isn’t worth it.”
Lindsey smirked, checking her perfectly manicured nails. “So pathetic.” Her eyes flicked to me. “But I guess it’s no real surprise since you both hang around with the school freak.”
She might as well have punched me in the chest. The air sucked from my lungs as I tried to swallow over the lump in my throat.
Lindsey and her friends sauntered off, giggling at their leader’s vicious words.
“You should have let me hit her,” Peyton huffed indignantly.
“And let you get suspended? Uncle Jase would love that.”
“She deserved it.”
“People like Lindsey will get their karma one day,” Ashleigh added. “They always do.”
I glanced down the hall to where Lindsey and her friends were just about to disappear around the corner. I wanted to believe my cousin’s words, but I was proof that karma didn’t always come back around. Sure, Chelsea and her family had fled Rixon after my dad threatened them, but Lindsey was still here. She’d stood by that night, laughing and pointing as much as the other girls. Then we’d all started Rixon High and she’d flourished into this popular, outgoing girl while I shrunk further into the shadows.
It didn’t seem fair.
But as Mom liked to constantly remind me, life didn’t test us to reveal our weaknesses, it tested us to reveal our strengths.
It was a definite work in progress though.
If my therapist was here, she would tell me to focus on the things I could control. My breathing. My actions. The thoughts I allowed space in my mind.
Channeling both their words of advice, I took a deep breath, hitched my bag up my shoulder, and headed for math where I only planned to think about two things:
Algebra… and Kaiden.
* * *
After final period,Peyton and I headed to the football field to watch the team practice. She said I had a legitimate reason to be there, given my dad was coach and all. And since there had been a pop quiz in Mr. Jenkins’ class, which meant Kaiden and I had been unable to pass any notes back and forth, I went along with it.
“What’s Xander doing here?” Peyton motioned to where Xander was standing with my Dad.
“I heard Dad and Mom talking about him doing some work with my dad and the team.”
“For real?”
“Yeah, I think it’s his attempt of getting his life back on track.” Xander was everything his older brother wasn’t. Reckless. Impulsive. Unfocused. For as long as I could remember, he’d coasted through life working dead end jobs to make ends meet.
Xander Chase was a lost soul, but it was like the elephant in the room. No one really talked about it.
“Suddenly, hanging out here is looking up. Crap, I mean—”
I pinned her with a hard look. “What happened to ‘gross, he’s like thirty?’” I mimicked her.
“A: I do not talk like that, and B: I can appreciate the male form without wanting to jump his bones.”
