The day continued to be the day from hell when school finally did wrap up, and I got to leave the hellhole that was Windsor Prep Academy. My car hadn’t been where I had left it, and when I finally found it, my dad’s Chevelle had been parked where Ares Mallick had claimed his spot was. My tires had been slashed, and the words “Student of the Month” had been written over and replaced on the sign.
It said Legacy’s Bitch instead.
Chapter Thirteen
Sloane
My gaze jerked up when the little rabbit cruised into the headmaster’s office, always going a mile a minute.
Bow stilled upon seeing me.
“I was just getting the mail for some teachers,” she said, her head bowed. “I help some of them out by getting it in between my classes.”
She then proceeded to head over to the teachers’ mailboxes, completely avoiding eye contact with me, and I shook my head. She too had been avoiding me since Legacy had started blackballing me. I had honestly expected it from everyone else.
Not her.
She’d always been the nice one, but even she had stopped talking to me.
She even sat with them all at lunch.
That first day I had simply thought I’d lost her. I’d still been trying to dodge her. She clung like glue when she was around, and my inner introvert screamed every time. There was nothing wrong with her, but I’d never been cool with people hovering over me.
I had gotten into the a la carte line that day honestly thinking I’d won, but then I spotted her already in the courtyard. She’d been tucked between her huge-ass brother and Dorian Prinze, and I knew exactly what was going on there.
They’d gotten to her too.
In front of me now, Bow swallowed, backing away. She’d gotten the mail and what other reason did she have to be in there with me. She said nothing as she left, and I dropped my sketchpad, heading into the hallway after her. I was student assistant for Principal Mayberry during this period. I had a free one and figured I’d fill it in the headmaster’s office since she seemed cool enough.
The woman wouldn’t miss me for a few moments. She literally never came out of her office when I was there. It was her free period too, and she said she preferred quiet time with no disturbances. Her secretary even left for the hour, so assisting the headmaster during this time was a match made in heaven for me. I did tend to be a lone wolf.
I tracked down Bow, hard to do since she walked so fast. She literally was like a ball of energy. Like because she was so small, she had to overcompensate. I ended up finding her at her locker, and when I did, I crossed my arms. “How’s lunch with Legacy been?”
She’d been grabbing a book but stopped. She faced me. “Sloane…”
“You know, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” I said, shrugging. “You are Legacy after all, right?”
I’d crossed them, so why not her too?
Her face charged in color. “It’s not like that.”
“Well, what’s it like, then?”
She lifted and dropped her hands. “I didn’t want you to have any more trouble than you were obviously having,” she said, surprising me. “And it’s not like they gave me a choice. I didn’t want to fight and make things worse for you.”
So she’d given in? Perfect.
She closed her locker lightly. “And I’m not stupid, Sloane. I know you were dodging me between your classes.” She gazed around. “That I was annoying you.”
Well, fuck. I whipped my hair around, and she chewed her lip. I put a hand out. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
I was rethinking a lot of things now. A lot of things like, was all this labor I was putting myself through worth it? Was going to this school worth it? I’d had to call Callum for help getting me some new tires, and th
at had been really fun trying to lie my way through how that happened. I’d ended up telling him I’d hit a patch of ice.
In the middle of fall.
Since I knew Midwestern weather to be temperamental, I’d gotten away with it, but that hadn’t stopped him from questioning me. He’d even asked if everything was okay, stating he could come visit Bru and me sooner. He was still traveling but could make arrangements.