Blake Jones. Even his name itself gave me the shivers.
He represented a long, distressing story, one that had started on my first day as a senior at this school. He’d bullied me from the moment he laid eyes on me and made my life at East Willow High nightmarish. I’d experienced bullying in middle school and at my previous high school, but that couldn’t compare with what I went through with Blake, not by a long shot.
Blake had been crushing me day by day. He tainted my self-image to the point where I disliked everything about myself—from my looks to my personality—and even with therapy, I struggled to remember that I shouldn’t care about his insults and should love myself the way I was.
My therapist, Susan, reminded me time and again that I was a beautiful and special girl and Blake was likely only projecting his insecurities onto me, but logical thinking didn’t mean much each time he hurt me and brought me to tears.
I was a coward. I was the type of person who would run away at the sight of danger or wait for others to save her, which Blake liked to point out often. He would call me a wimp and double his abuse, just so he could see me crack and beg for his mercy. I constantly lived in fear of his abuse or retaliation if I stood up against him in any way.
I never told anyone about the time he broke into my locker and stole my pads and my period leaked through my jeans by the time my classes finished. The walk out of school was horrifyingly humiliating. Blake was there to document it with his phone, of course.
I also never told anyone he dumped a cigarette butt into my meticulously curled hair as he passed me by, telling me I would catch on fire. Washed over with horror, I tried to remove the lit butt before it burned my hair, only to find out he’d already put out the cigarette before he threw it in. I spent hours crying in my room, unable to understand how someone could traumatize people like that.
Then there was the time he broke into my locker again and left a pile of trash. I reported him to the principal, but he told me I didn’t have proof it was Blake who did it and refused to do anything against him. This didn’t come as a surprise, as he hadn’t helped me after my “welcome party” six months earlier either. The school didn’t have cameras, and since no one had stepped up as a witness, it was my word against Blake’s. Blake’s father was Enfield’s mayor, so it was clear whose word had more value in this corrupted school.
Blake had been outraged because I tattled on him to the principal, so he’d gotten back at me by photoshopping my face onto a picture of a woman in a corset and stockings with a whip in her hand and her foot planted on a mini fridge. He sent this to one of his football buddies, who posted it on his Instagram and captioned it “Food Slut.” The nickname stuck with me in the following months, reminding me that each time I fought back, Blake was there to make things even worse.
I never knew why he hated me. I never did anything to him, yet he constantly inflicted more and more fear in me until I was close to giving up on my new life in Enfield and returning to my hometown to live with my aunt and uncle. However, I’d made best friends here, and I didn’t want to disappoint my parents by giving up.
Blake had stopped bullying me at one point. By some miraculous twist of fate, he stopped harassing me after New Year’s, and I thought I could finally have my days free from his cruelty, but then I was proved wrong because he was back at it again lately. I should’ve known peace wouldn’t last.
Now, Marcus had a front seat to my humiliation, and I wished the ground would swallow me up. Or swallow Blake, whichever would be better. The class couldn’t finish soon enough.
“Fats,” Blake whispered into my ear. I turned rigid because his lips were almost touching my earlobe.
It had been a bad decision to wear a braid today.
“Turn around.” His breath caressed my neck, and my stomach flipped.
I pursed my lips as I stared at one spot in my textbook. His fragrance messed me up. It was unfair that he smelled this good.
“You’ll turn around, unless you want me to tell your wannabe boyfriend you’re a bad kisser.”
My cheeks reddened at the reminder of one of the biggest mistakes of my life, accompanied by a stab of pain in my chest because he’d called me a bad kisser.
I glared at him over my shoulder. “Will you stop it already? And he isn’t my wannabe boyfriend.”
He formed a malicious smile, raising his phone, and snapped a photo of my sneer. “Look at you.” He snarled at the photo, as if he was looking at an abomination. “You’re a walrus. Now, I only have to use the dog filter and send it to your wannabe boyfriend. I’m sure he’ll pee his pants from laughing.”
My eyes widened. I reached for his phone in an attempt to delete it along with the other photos he’d taken earlier in class, but Blake wasn’t our football team captain for nothing. His reflexes were extraordinary.
“Ah ah ah, not so fast.” He held his phone out of my reach.
“Miss Metts, this isn’t Starbucks,” Ms. Gentry chided, breaking into my bubble of rising anger. I whipped my head around to look at her with burning cheeks. I was mortified that she was taking me to task in front of the whole class. “If you don’t pay attention in my class, you can leave.”
“I-I’m sorry, Ms. Gentry. I’ll pay attention.”
Her eyes narrowed as she scowled at
