My father, Bruce Weller, was a lawyer and had left for work long before I was out of bed. I was thankful for the peace and quiet each morning. I was not a morning person by any means, and Dad most certainly was. We didn’t talk much as it was, but having to deal with his chipper—well, chipper compared to me—attitude first thing in the morning had never been something I enjoyed.
It was just the two of us after my mom died in a car accident five years ago. I was thirteen years old, and my father has spent those last five years, avoiding me and doing the bare minimum when it came to parenting. Yes, he was there when I needed him for school-related functions, and I knew that he loved me; he just had a funny way of showing it sometimes.
His days were spent at his office. I couldn’t imagine he did much of anything while he was there. Though he earned enough to keep us living comfortably, Collins Point wasn’t exactly a hotbed of illegal activity, and I couldn’t imagine many people needed his services. When he wasn’t at the office, he was either falling asleep in front of the Discovery Channel, or finding unnecessary repairs around the house to make worse. Mr. Fix-It he was not.
I grabbed a granola bar from the cabinet, shoved it into the front of my bag, and grabbed my keys as I slid on my sneakers. I locked the front door and pulled it closed, listening for it to slam shut as I made my way down the steps and into the light rain.
I jumped over a puddle on my way to my car, wrenched open the door, and threw my bag onto the passenger seat as I plopped into the driver’s seat. Then I slammed the door shut and smoothed my hands over my hair just in case, shoving the key in the ignition and backing out of the driveway.
I pulled into the school parking lot ten minutes later, keeping my eyes on the pavement in front of me as I drove to my favorite parking spot. I felt the familiar stares and sucked in a deep breath, shoving my car into park and grabbing my bag.
My car was an ancient Dodge Neon that made more noise than your average motorboat, and I was the weird quiet girl. I was thankful that I didn’t need glasses or braces because my life would be over if I had to deal with that on top of weighing more than one hundred and ten pounds.
Stepping out of the car, I slung my bag over my shoulder, pocketing my keys and slamming the door. I kept my head down as I walked behind Brittany Feldman, Steve Forrester, Adam Leveque, and Grace Alcott to the front of the school. Thankfully, they didn’t pay me any notice, and I made it to my locker in peace as I breathed a sigh of relief, twirling the lock and yanking open the door.
I stuffed my bag into my locker and grabbed the books I would need for my first period human physiology class. When I got to class, I flipped through the back pages of my notebook for the homework I’d stored there the night before. When I didn’t find it, I groaned and slammed my book shut. By the time I got back to my locker, groups of students had formed around the area, so I kept my eyes on the floor. It was always quiet over in this corner; everyone else who had nearby lockers usually went to talk to one of their friends on the other end of the hallway, and for that, I was thankful. The less people I had to interact with, the better.
I’d never been a very social person. I was shy and being in a school as small as this for my entire life had left me with no self-esteem whatsoever, because I’d never been thin or outgoing, and they took great pleasure in reminding me daily.
I could get pissed off. Sometimes I had fantasies about whining to my father and asking him to find a just reason to sue any of their parents, but adding fuel to an already hot fire would only make things worse for me.
I just wanted to get through my senior year with as much dignity as I possibly could, and pissing off everyone in my way wouldn’t help.
I rummaged around in my book bag, and got nervous when I came up empty. The warning bell rang, and I yanked my books out of my locker. Balancing them in one hand, I searched the bottom and hoped and prayed that it had gotten pushed to the back when I’d left yesterday. When that didn’t work, I huffed and shoved the books back into the locker, ripping open the front pocket of my bag and searching through that as well.
I finally found it, breathed a sigh of relief, and held it tightly in my hand as I slammed my locker shut. The only other person in the hallway now was Evan Drake, his usually neat brown hair sticking up all over the place as he attempted to push his book bag into the locker already crowded with his baseball gear.
Apparently he’d gotten in late.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, pulling on the strap of his book bag and yanking back.
Papers flew out of the open top and fell effortlessly to the ground. He stood there, his chest heaving and his breathing audible
