Losing the School Belle's Favor

The school belle was always cold and aloof, but I was the only one who'd ever caught her eye. Then the new transfer student showed up. He was always engineering ways to run into her, showing off right in front of her. Everyone said a newcomer could never replacethe person who had grown up beside her. Whatever games the transfer student played, they were bound to be a waste of time. Until the school belle's family enemy slipped onto campus and took the transfer student hostage. She lost every last bit of composure and threw herself in front of him, taking the blade meant for him instead. Even with her life hanging by a thread, all she could do was touch his face and murmur, "As long as you're safe..." I stood outside the crowd, the object of everyone's mockery and scorn. Lying on her hospital bed, with tubes running through her body, she still managed to say to me, "I don't want to owe him anything. Leave him alone." I let out a quiet, humorless laugh. Whatever love and hatred the two of you share, I won't stand here being an eyesore any longer. From the moment her enemy chose the transfer student as the leverage to threaten her, I understood exactly how little I mattered. So be it. I'm done. Chapter 1 I'd just finished sorting out my paperwork to leave the country when Vivian Saunders, the school belle, came walking straight toward me. She glanced at the passport and visa on the desk and paused for a moment. "Why didn't you wait for me?" It took me a few seconds to realize she meant the trip abroad we'd once planned to take together. Too bad. This wasn't a tourist visa. I gathered up the documents on the desk and shook my head without a word. She saw my reaction and softened her voice, coaxing, "I haven't forgotten. It's just that Leon's injury hasn't healed yet. Can we wait until he's fully recovered before we go?" Leon Kallen, the transfer student, had broken his leg after Vivian shoved him out of harm's way, and he still had a few weeks left before his cast came off. "No need, Vivian. Where I'm going has nothing to do with you." Her smile faded. "Mike, I know you're upset with me, but I already told you, I just didn't want to owe him anything. "And it's been months. You didn't start on the paperwork to leave until I was fully healed. Isn't that proof enough you were waiting for me all along?" A dull ache spread through my chest. Vivian still thought I'd been waiting on her. In truth, I'd submitted my application the very night she'd thrown herself in front of Leon to take the blade meant for him. It was only the paperwork that had taken this long, and somehow that had become her excuse to grow more and more presumptuous. That one was on me too. I'd been too willing to grovel back then, handing her affection she'd never given me a reason to deserve. "I only didn't want him to get hurt because of me. I wasn't trying to humiliate you. But you got jealous, and..." Vivian's coaxing tone shifted back into its usual coldness. "You've been giving me the cold shoulder for months now, and it's put both me and Leon in an awkward position. Every time I try to talk to you, I have to put up with people whispering behind my back. "I think you need a little reminder." She kept her eyes fixed on me without moving, picked up her phone, and said in a level voice to her staff, "Artie, go ahead and let Mike's father go." I parted my lips slightly, my heart sinking. Vivian put the call on speaker. Artie's hesitant voice came through. "Miss, Jerry Teegan's worked for our family for almost ten years. Letting him go like this doesn't feel right. Besides, aren't you and Jerry's son, Mike..." Vivian cut him off without mercy. "I said let him go. Right now. NOW." Not three minutes later, my dad sent me a message: [Mike, did you offend Miss Saunders?] A second later, the message was recalled. I clenched my fists and stared at Vivian without a word, fury building in my chest. My family had gone bankrupt ten years ago. It was Walter Saunders, Vivian's father, who'd given my dad a position and kept us from falling any further. Chapter 2 But long before that, it was my dad who'd built the Saunders family up from nothing. What Vivian had just done tore the last shred of goodwill between our two families to pieces. I forced down my anger and demanded, "Vivian, do you have any idea what the elders in both our families would think if they saw what you just did?" She didn't so much as blink. "Why worry? It's not like your family would starve. Marry me. I'll take care of you." My expression must have turned uglier by the second. She seemed to have forgotten that if there was one thing I'd always hated, it was the old rumors painting me as nothing more than the school belle's tagalong. Ignoring my mood entirely, Vivian reached out and brushed a hand along my eyebrows, gently smoothing out the furrow in my forehead. "Don't be angry," she murmured. "It's not a good look on you." Her tone was light and easy, so much like the way she used to be, back before Leon ever showed up. There hadn't been a single crack between us then. She used to talk seriously about our future together. The childish, playful side she showed only to me had nothing in common with the cold, aloof girl everyone else saw. But now someone else had seen that side of her too. I turned my head away, and her hand froze in midair. "Mike." Vivian didn't get angry. Instead she laughed, as if she'd just noticed something amusing. "Do you know something? When you're mad, you look... exactly like Leon." The scrape of a chair being shoved back cut through the room. Ignoring the eyes turning toward me, I said coldly, "Vivian, take care of yourself." I didn't spare her another glance after that. I picked up my things and walked out. Vivian stood frozen for a couple of seconds before her own anger caught up with her, and she spun around and stormed off in the opposite direction. When I got home, I found an anonymous email waiting for me. I opened it, already half-expecting what I'd find: another message from the sender offering to help my dad find a new position. A few months earlier, the same person had offered to help me leave the country. I'd turned them down, but everything since then had still gone unusually smoothly, like someone was quietly clearing the way. Whoever ran that inbox seemed to know everything about my life, always stepping in the moment I hit a wall. I'd tried tracing where the help came from, but every lead went nowhere. I turned the offer down again, same as always. A minute later, an invitation to a party came in from Walter Saunders. Figuring I might as well put an end to things with the Saunders family for good, I decided to go. What I hadn't expected was to find Leon there, dressed head to toe in clothes from Vivian's private label. With the kind of attention she lavished on him, he'd become the mysterious young man everyone at the party couldn't stop talking about. I kept my distance, but he came after me anyway, raising his glass with a lazy smile. "Still sulking over Vivian? I'd think twice about how important you actually are to her. After all, you two grew up together, so how is it that I was the one who took her virginity?" He reached up and loosened his tie, tilting his neck toward me. Old and fresh marks covered his throat. It was hard to tell just how many times he and Vivian had slept together. I closed my eyes and turned away. He draped an arm over my shoulder without a shred of respect for personal space, leaned in close, and lowered his voice. "Vivian's not bad in bed, you know. After playing the saint for all these years, don't tell me you can't even get it up. "She felt exactly how good I am. She was begging me for it in every position by the end." That was more than I could take. I clenched my fist and drove it straight into his face. "Keep whatever filth you and Vivian get up to in bed to yourself." The commotion drew every eye in the room, and Leon was left looking thoroughly humiliated. I stepped back, said a curt goodbye to Walter, and walked out of the hall. Chapter 3 The moment I stepped out of the hall, Vivian caught up with me. Her expression turned serious. "Mike, you went too far. I want you to apologize to Leon in front of everyone, right now." I said flatly, "I just told him not to go around exposing your private business. Is that really wrong of me?" I glanced at the mark on her collarbone. She looked stunned. "You found out?" Vivian stared at me like she couldn't believe it. "Why aren't you angry?" Of course she couldn't believe it. She'd always assumed I would follow her forever, no matter what. My apparent indifference only gave her more confidence, not less. "I get it now," she said. "You're just trying to get my attention this way." I stepped back, putting distance between us. Seeing that, she softened her whole posture and leaned in close, draping her arms around my neck. "Come on, Mike, don't be mad..." Those marks were right there in front of my eyes, her parted red lips moving along with them. My head suddenly swam, and I shoved her off without thinking, doubling over as I retched. Vivian's face went red as if she'd been slapped. She jabbed a finger at me, furious. "What is wrong with you? Don't tell me you've never wanted me." I forced down the nausea and bit out a single word. "Filthy." Her face went instantly pale. That one word stripped her of every shred of dignity she had left. "Fine. Remember what you did today. I'll make you regret it." She'd coaxed and wheedled me enough times that I'd stopped caring how she planned to get back at me. Then I got to school the next day and found something I hadn't expected. My desk was buried under a pile of reeking trash. People walking by covered their noses and shot me looks of disgust. I could hear the whispers all around me. "Mike groveled his whole life and ended up with nothing. Vivian's real feelings were always for Leon. Why else would she do something like this to him?" "Exactly, and she told everyone not to help him either. He's about to get frozen out by the entire school." "So what if he is? He used to trail after Vivian every single day and never made a single friend anyway. Who's going to bother helping him now?" My whole body trembled, and I couldn't stop it. Vivian had actually used my own trauma as a weapon against me. Years ago, when my family went bankrupt, everyone had turned on us the second we were down, and I'd been bullied for it. Back then, Vivian used to step in front of me and shield me with her own small frame. And now she was using that very same pain to threaten me. She'd probably forgotten how good she used to be to me. I forced my breathing steady, telling myself to stay calm, and was about to clean up the mess when Leon shoved his way into the classroom with a crowd behind him. "Mike. Vivian asked me to bring you a little gift." I froze. Something about the sneer on his face set off a bad feeling in my chest. Without another word, Leon had the thugs behind him grab hold of me. I couldn't get free in time. I threw everything I had into it, but all I managed was one punch each before they had me pinned. Leon leaned in close and held up his phone, forcing me to watch the video playing on it. My dad was the one on screen. My pupils shrank, and I roared, "What are you doing to him?" My dad was driving. The picture shook, then the car slammed into something in the road. The second it stopped, someone hauled him out of it, rough and violent, a hulking man with tattoos crawling up his arms, the kind that made your skin crawl just looking at them. In my ear, Leon kept talking, savoring every second of it. Chapter 4 "I only mentioned to Vivian that the punch you gave me was still sore, and she couldn't wait to hand me your weak spot," Leon said. Vivian walked into the classroom right then. She saw me pinned down and only asked Leon, with obvious concern, "How's that? Feel a little better now?" Veins stood out along my clenched jaw as I bit out a warning. "Vivian!" She looked at me, her eyes cold. "You hit him in front of everyone at the party. Wasn't that the same as hitting me? "Your dad will only lose a leg. Leon lost his face." Leon looked at me with open satisfaction, the corner of his mouth curling up, then spoke into the phone. "Do it." "No!" I threw everything I had into breaking free, knocking them off balance and snatching the phone away, only to see something I'd never be able to forget. The man on the other end raised an iron bar and brought it down on my dad's leg without a moment's hesitation. A scream of agony and the crack of splintering bone hit my ears at the same time. My legs buckled under me, and I nearly hit the floor. Vivian's expression shifted. She rushed over to steady me, but all she said was, "Is it really that big a deal? It's not like you're the one who got hurt." Something closed around my heart like a fist, an ache too sharp for words. Vivian knew exactly how I'd grown up leaning on my dad, just the two of us. He'd built everything from nothing with me at his side, through every hardship you could imagine, and just when he'd finally made something of himself, it had all collapsed into bankruptcy. Back then, the Saunders family had reached out to help when everyone else turned their backs, and Vivian had stood up for me against every bully who'd ever looked down on us. I used to believe we'd trust and protect each other forever. Looking back now, all of it felt like one cruel joke. Once her love ran out, everything she'd once felt for me had turned into a weapon, one that hurt not just me, but everyone I cared about. Something in me snapped. I lunged forward and kicked Leon off his feet, and before anyone around us could react, I stomped down hard on his leg. When that wasn't enough, I grabbed a broken chair leg from the corner and brought it down on him again and again, without mercy. Everyone around us froze, stunned by how far I'd gone. Vivian ignored the murder in my eyes and threw herself in front of Leon anyway. The chair leg caught her arm instead, and she cried out in pain. A chill ran through my whole body. She'd thrown herself in the way to protect him without a second thought, exactly the way I'd once shielded her when the bullies turned on us. Vivian collapsed into Leon's arms, and he pulled her tight against him. "Why would you do that? Why would you throw yourself in the way!" But Vivian wasn't even looking at him. She was looking at me. "Mike, does that make you feel any better?" I tightened my grip on the chair leg, unable to make sense of what she was doing. "If you've let out your anger now, then you're not allowed to come after Leon again." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My dad had just had his leg broken on Leon's orders, and Leon himself had barely a scratch on him. And Vivian wanted me to just let it go? "Mike, I don't want you carrying around this much hatred. It'll wear you down." Leon rubbed his leg, watching me with a look of pure malice. "Vivian, the one who never lets a grudge go is Leon. All I did was give him back what he gave me. Say that to him, not to me." Her expression twisted, incredulous. "I already told you, your dad's broken leg was only payback for the punch you threw at him in front of everyone. That's not a reason for what you did to Leon's leg!" I laughed, furious past the point of words. I wasn't going to waste another second arguing with her. I shoved her aside, hard, grabbed a chair, and swung it straight at Leon. If I didn't make him regret this today, my name wasn't Mike Teegan.