“Cut them off!” someone shouts, malice oozing like pus from their mean words.
I am going to throw up. My head swims in a sea of dizziness, and the darkness claws at my throat, begging to be let free.
Not now! Please, not now!
Molly goes down first, her hand ripped from mine as we pass a stone building I can only assume holds field equipment. I don’t know whether to keep running or save her. I don’t know if I can save her. For a split-second, I freeze, a victim of my own indecision. That is all the time they need, and I am slammed into the wall beside Molly so hard the world rolls again.
A boy dips his head to look Molly in the eyes. Her gaze flits to the ground and to me and then back to the ground again, anywhere but at him.
“Who’s your friend, Mols?” the boy asks, his words husky and hoarse like he’s speaking to a lover and doesn’t have his hands pressed against the wall on either side of her face.
Molly whimpers, actually whimpers, and I feel like I am lost in the Land of Oz. Only where did I end up after the tornado came? Because this ain’t Oz and it sure as hell isn’t Kansas either.
A few students keep walking, their heads buried as they clutch their textbooks to their chests and pretend like they don’t see what’s happening.
Wait. What is happening?
Straight, golden-blonde hair falls into the boy’s face. He can’t be older than seventeen, still having the round pudginess in his cheeks of a child. His eyes are an electric blue that would be beautiful if I found anything other than disgust in his gaze. He regards me like I am lower than the dirt on the bottom of his loafers.
“Are you with her?” he asks.
I know he’s referring to Molly, though he doesn’t look at her.
“Am I with her?” I say. This guy can’t be for real.
He looks at me like it must be hard being this slow.
“Are you with her?” he repeats, his words rushed in his frustration. “Are you friends? Make your choice now before I make it for you.”
Sunlight stings my eyes, but I refuse to look away from the waste of worm food in front of me. I may be scared, but he doesn’t have to know that. No one deserves this shit, no one, no matter what they’ve done. And I’ve already decided if this is the price I have to pay to be Molly’s friend, then I will open my wallet willingly.
No one deserves to feel all alone.
“Can it really be called a choice if you take away my vote?” I ponder aloud. “You might want to rethink your choice of words next time, bud. ‘Cause you sound a good nine George Washingtons short of a ten-dollar bill.”
The students who have gathered around the boy erupt in snickers. One guy openly chortles and spits his granola bar in chunks across the grass. A red-head in the middle of a group of girls you know just from looking at them are the queen bees of the Academy holds up an iPhone and snaps a pic.
Great. There goes my candid shot for the yearbook. I barely suppress my eye-roll.
The boy sneers, his upper lip disappearing into his fleshy gums.
“You will regret that, bitch,” he warns, leaning in further so that his putrid breath heats my face.
“Jesus,” I say, fanning my nose dramatically. “Are you scared of Dracula or something? Choose something other than onions and garlic for breakfast.”
Students snicker again, but I don’t. The boy’s fists curl, his knuckles blanched bloodless. He’s going to hit me. Good thing my brother showed me how to take a punch.
The darkness thunders on the horizon inside my brain, threatening to arrive. I draw in a steadying breath. Just when I think Führer Fetid will strike, a voice falls from the sky like my guardian angel sent down from Heaven to save me.
“Move,” the voice says, though I can’t see the speaker. My shoulders sag in relief as the blonde boy retreats and the students part like the Red Sea at the command of Moses.
I would like to say my body refuses to breathe because I’m in shock from my guardian angel’s act of kindness, but that’s not true. The boy, if you could call him that because his haunted gaze ages him beyond his years, strides forward to stand in front of me.
Obsidian hair falls into his pewter gray eyes. He is tan, tall, and beautiful. His cheekbones could have been chiseled from marble, and you can tell from the insouciant expression he wears oh-so-well that he doesn’t give a shit about any of them.
His tie, a brilliant navy blue embossed in silver with the Academy’s logo, hangs loose around his neck. The top five buttons of his white dress-shirt are undone, though it is tucked into his gray slacks, the official uniform for males at the Academy. He has no pudginess in his cheeks, probably nowhere on his entire body.
Wait. I shouldn’t be thinking about his body.
Three guys flank my guardian angel, two at his left—one with auburn hair that skim the tops of his ears and a tall blonde whose Thor bloodlines run deep—and one at his right, a broad-shouldered guy with his black hair shaved short. They are all beautiful, born into luxury from the lazy way they hold their heads high, to the self-assured confidence that oozes from their pores. But I lock my gaze on my angel.
He steps forward, an indiscernible expression on his face. He is so beautiful it hurts to look at him. He is a Michelangelo masterpiece, and I am a commoner, lost in the sea of bourgeois. His perfect lips turn
