Evan Drake was one of the guys that tormented me on a daily basis. He was gorgeous and he knew it, which made it ten times worse. His face was flawless and always clear of any acne, and his jawline and cheekbones were works of art. Square, chiseled, and made more for a male model than a high school student. He dated whomever he wanted and never looked twice at anyone that wasn’t on the cheerleading squad or within the realm of popularity. He was “Mr. Perfect,” according to everyone in the entire school, and I’d harbored a major crush for as long as I could remember. Unfortunately, he was anything but “Mr. Perfect,” and it was something that I struggled with daily.
I hated myself for it, because I didn’t understand it. He tormented me and said the most horrible things but there had been a time when we were much younger—barely out of kindergarten, I think—when we were playmates. Our mothers had been friendly with each other and had set up play dates for us while they spent the afternoon on the back porch of his home. We spent that time running around his backyard, pretending that we were pirates with swords or we were Steve Irwin prodigies as we inspected whatever small animal that dared to come our way. Then middle school happened, and he got more involved with sports and discovered that I wasn’t the ideal shape his friends preferred in their girl choices. We stopped talking, and for a while, I was merely ignored by him and his new friends. Then society seemed to take over and because Evan had a short past with me, I’d become the main target of their ridicule. Regardless, I was always hoping that there was still a piece of the younger Evan I used to play with hanging around in him somewhere. He was always kind to his younger sister, and he seemed like a completely different person when I saw him out with his parents. When he was with his family, he was carefree, always laughing, and he didn’t have that superior air around him, and that gave me something really close to hope. There had to be something left of his younger self if he could act like that with his family, right?
Either way, I’d be out of this place in a few months and able to forget all about Evan Drake and the way I didn’t want to feel for him. I repeated my mantra, I could start over, and that was all I really wanted.
But right now, as I watched him breathing hard and glaring at the mess on the floor, all I felt was sympathy for him. He’d obviously had a bad morning, and it was only getting worse, it seemed.
I folded my homework in half and started toward him. His eyes snapped to me, and he narrowed them even further. I wordlessly bent down, sticking my homework under my arm and reaching for the papers scattered on the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Helping you,” I said.
My voice was quiet and came out as a squeak, my nerves showing through as I tapped papers together on the floor before crawling over to get some more.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Sure doesn’t seem that way.”
“Go the fuck away, Arianna. I can handle picking up my own damn papers.”
My heart twisted, and I clenched my teeth together, ignoring him as I continued to pick up the papers covered with his neat handwriting. I was at his feet by that point, my heart hammering against my ribs, when he bent down. He grabbed my wrist, hard, and I looked up at him.
Fear shot through me when I met his cold eyes, and I barely contained a yelp as he tightened his hand around my wrist. I felt tears spring to my eyes.
“I said,” he said, his voice low and rough, “to go the fuck away.”
I dropped his papers, and he dropped my wrist as I fell backward, cradling my wrist to my chest and biting down on my trembling lip. Looking down, I saw the red imprints of his fingers and knew I would have a bruise there by the end of the day. I placed my feet flat on the floor, pushed myself away from him, and did my best to control the tears as I grabbed my homework from underneath my arm and placed my uninjured hand flat on the floor.
“Sorry,” I whispered and pushed myself to stand up, keeping my eyes on the floor.
“You should be. What right do you think you have to just touch my things?”
“I was only trying to help.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t. If I should ever need you for any fucking thing,” he scoffed, “you’ll be the first to know.”
I closed my eyes, and waited. He slammed the locker door shut a few moments later, and I listened to his footsteps as they faded down the hallway. I sucked in a few deep breaths and brought my wrist up to inspect the marks that were getting redder, letting a small shuddering sob escape my chest before I sucked it in and blinked rapidly to get rid of the tears. The bell rang, signifying that first period was about to start, and I walked back to the classroom. I kept my head down as I walked to my table, moved around the person sitting in the chair next to mine, and plopped down.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” a voice said from beside me.
I looked over to see Evan staring at me in disgust. I looked away and over to where he normally sat. Brittany and Grace were now seated at his table, snickering and pointing at me. He turned and glared at them, flipping his middle finger at Brittany when she blew him a kiss.
“All right! Good morning, class,” Mr. Streeter said, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention.
I looked up toward the front, keeping
