Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Generally, I am not a person who cares what people think about me, but I came into today already feeling raw as hell, and now to see someone purposely humiliating me for no apparent reason…
My eyes burn with tears that threaten to fall, but I don’t let them.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that they don’t matter, and the enjoyment Anae clearly got out of sharing those with me certainly doesn’t matter, but deep down, all I can think about is that Dare has probably seen them, and I wonder if he laughed at me too, even if just because his friends were.
Tears blur my vision. On impulse, I turn away from the door and head back to my locker.
Fuck it. I’m blowing off English class today.
Since English is the only class I have before lunch, and I’m certainly not going to show my face in the cafeteria, I head out to the quad and find a comfy spot beneath a shade tree.
I tell myself this is a good plan because now I can get a head start on my weekend homework. Given my lack of sleep last night, I doubt I would have been able to stay up late and do it tonight. That means I would have had to do it sometime this weekend, which I hate doing. Doing it this way frees up more time to spend with Mom.
It also means I’m so hungry my stomach feels like it’s caving in on itself. I have a couple of sticks of gum in my backpack, so I chew those while I work just to get a little sugar in my system, but it’s hard to concentrate when I’m so hungry.
Ignoring the hunger, I try to push through.
I’m doing an okay job until I hear soft footsteps on the grass behind me. I turn, half-expecting to see a teacher who just noticed I’m outside telling me I’m not allowed to be out here, but it’s not a teacher.
A petite blonde girl with her hair pulled back into a pony tail approaches, her full pink lips pulled up in a smile. She’s carrying a lunch bag with her.
I don’t know who she is, so I’m extremely confused when she suddenly kneels on the ground beside me.
“Hello,” she says.
She has a lovely voice.
Still frowning, I offer a guarded, “Hello,” back.
She sets the lunch bag down and unzips it, her gaze focused on unpacking it, apparently. “I thought you might be hungry. This is my lunch, but you can have it. I’ll just go through the lunch line and get something.”
Embarrassment creeps up on me. “I don’t need your lunch. I can afford my own.”
“I know,” she says, her tone light since she can probably tell I’m defensive. “But I thought maybe you didn’t want to go in the cafeteria because of…” She trails off, not wanting to explicitly refer to the social media posts.
Oh.
She has seen them.
Of course she has.
It seems like everyone has.
Still a little untrusting, I look at her. “Who are you? I don’t think we have any classes together. You’re just offering your lunch to a complete stranger?”
“My name’s Hannah. We don’t have any classes together. I’m actually a junior. This isn’t my lunch period, it’s my study hall, but I’ve been seeing the things Anae and her friends have posted about you all day, and I think it sucks. I don’t know if you saw, but they posted another story through the window of you sitting out here.” She points back at the window into the cafeteria. “They were pretty proud to have chased you out of the building. When I saw it, I fibbed and told the teacher I needed to pee so I could go to my locker and grab my lunch.” She looks down. “I just thought people were being really mean to you, and I didn’t want you to be hungry just because you didn’t feel like being around them.”
My walls come down, my gaze shifting to the dish of fruit she’s opening for me. “That’s really kind of you, but you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” she insists. “It’s not a big deal at all. Like I said, I can just buy lunch today.” She opens a little container and looks inside. “You’re not allergic to nuts, are you? This is a banana nut muffin.”
My mouth waters. “That sounds amazing. No, I’m not allergic.”
She flashes me a smile and hands over the container. “I hope you like it. I made them myself.”
Since she seems to be waiting to see if I do, I sink my teeth into the moist, fluffy muffin, and my tastebuds explode with happiness. It’s probably only because I’m so hungry anything would taste good, but my God, this is the best muffin I’ve ever tasted.
“Oh my god,” I say, covering my mouth.