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So technically the first time I saw—really saw—Stassi Hutton was when she stepped off the bus that first day.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her no matter how hard I tried.
I was entranced.
Hypnotized.
She’d practically sprouted overnight, these long limbs and a heavenly waterfall of silky, sun-streaked blonde hair that bounced on her shoulders as she walked with her head held high. There were traces of the old Stassi, of course—she still wore braces and these big, clear-framed glasses that covered most of her face and looked more like lab goggles—but she’d grown.
She wasn’t the bratty kid sister I remembered.
As the fall semester went on, it turned out Stassi Hutton wasn’t just smart—she was brilliance itself. From the minute she came to Sapphire Shores High, she made waves. Teachers loved her, always gabbing about her in the hallways when they thought no one could hear them. Gushing over her latest English paper or how quickly she was catching on in advanced algebra.
Ever the overachiever, Stassi joined the Math club, Science club, chess club, and all the other academic groups she could squeeze into her jam-packed schedule, and she didn’t care that those were for the nerds.
She even wrote a research paper that got published in some scientific journal, somewhere.
Every day, on my way to hockey practice, I’d see her in the computer lab typing away like the nerd that she was.
Despite her brilliance and the fact that her study face (squinted eyes, serious expression, bitten lower lip) made my shirt collar tighten whenever I passed by, I was annoyed at her.
While everyone else played the popularity game at school, Stassi couldn’t be bothered.
When all the other girls were selling their souls and their dignity to claw their way up the popularity ladder, Stassi couldn’t care less about where she ranked. With her daily uniform of zero make-up, jeans and t-shirts, hair in a ponytail, and her true-blue best friends at her side, she was perfectly content to be in her own little universe.
And it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to play the popularity game—she thought we were idiots for even rolling the dice.
She wanted to be an outcast.
And she was an outcast … with confidence.
Okay, maybe I was a little jealous, too.
I was the guy all the girls wanted.
The master of the game.
I didn’t have to lift a finger and people came flocking my way, kissing my ass just to stand in my shadow.
I was a god and everyone else revolved around me.
And yet Stassi Hutton didn’t even look at me.
Not once.
Not a single damn time.
After months of being ignored, I finally caved, offering to drive her to school—only to be told she preferred to keep riding the Nerd Express.
Tired of playing on her terms, I was desperate to get under her skin. At that point, any kind of attention—positive or negative—was a win for me.
It started with an anonymous email, something corny and barely fit for a middle schooler … something like roses are red, violets are blue, your glasses make you look like you’re 82.
I followed it up with a bunch of anonymous texts I sent through this app I downloaded. Most of the time I said stupid shit along the same lines, but I always signed them the same.
Yours Cruelly, x.
I was used to her being unbothered by everything, so I didn’t think she’d care. I didn’t think she’d bat a single eyelash. No woman who’d go in front of the Math Olympiad wearing those little pi-adorned sweatshirts in public would give half a shit about a stupid rhyme.
All I wanted was a reaction.
A response of some kind.
Only the one I got wasn’t what I expected …
A few weeks later, Stassi traded in her goggle glasses for contacts.
Then she started to wear make-up.
Curl her hair.
Wasn’t long before the braces came off.
And after that, every guy in school suddenly wanted her.
Being nice, pretty, and intelligent was a rare trifecta at Sapphire Shores high.
By the time my senior year rolled around, she’d met Jonathan, her first boyfriend—and the bane of my existence if only because he had the one thing I couldn’t: her.
My plan had backfired.
I’d created a monster—a gorgeous fucking monster who still went about her life as though I didn’t exist.
And in the process, I’d also created a monster inside me, one that obsessed about Stassi Hutton far too much than was healthy.
At some point during my senior year, I stopped sending those cruel messages and turned my thoughts toward MIT, if only because I needed a distraction or I was going to go insane.
After I received my acceptance letter, I thought for sure, with my future on the horizon, I’d forget her.
And then she did that damn thing …
The night of my high school graduation, during a “Don’t Let the Door Hit You In the Ass” party my parents had before sending me off to Boston, she leaned into me, almost casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if she hadn’t spent the last two years pretending I was cellophane. At that point, I’d almost gotten over her. But I’d never been so close to her. I didn’t know she smelled like vanilla coconut cake … like something I’d want to literally devour.
