I called it torture and wanted no part of it.
I whipped my head to Jay. “Please walk with me to school next week?”
Jay smirked at me like I was silly. “I got you. Don’t worry about it.”
Jax grunted. “You can't walk her to school. It’s tradition,” Jax said, abandoning his snowball to glare at us like my idea was outrageous.
“He can do whatever he wants,” I screeched.
“People are going to start to think you two are dating with how protective Jay is of you.”
Jay and I shrugged our shoulders in unison. Jay never really cared much about anything. He just wanted to have fun and wanted everyone to have fun around him.
For the first two years their family lived next door, he was the one who never asked why he couldn’t ring my doorbell or why he couldn’t come over. He mentioned once that he wanted me to hang out later than normal. When I said I couldn’t, that my dad would be home, he didn’t ask why that mattered.
After being homeschooled for so many years, he was the first friend I could trust and the breath of fresh air that I’d needed for a long time.
I begged and begged my parents to go to a public school after getting a taste of friendship. When they finally agreed, the darkness lightened up a bit, the clouds cleared.
The first day of sophomore year opened my eyes though.
I hadn’t realized how mean people in school could be and how territorial girls were of the Stonewood brothers.
Jax distanced himself immediately. He didn’t have time for Jay or me when he was captain of everything and enjoying every girl who looked his way in school.
Jay didn’t miss a beat though. Our friendship was an immovable force even when every one of the girls he hooked up with hated me. His friendship made me unpopular. Girls didn’t want to be my friend even when they realized my father mingled in all the same circles as their parents. I was the girl whose dad owned a big local business and who got to live next to the Stonewoods. That made me enemy number one.
I was a threat and a target.
And Sophomore Kill Day was going to be difficult to suffer through.
I felt the panic seeping in. It wasn't being stuffed into a locker or getting hit with paint-filled balloons that scared me. I could handle all that. I didn't even care if I got made fun of or picked on. If I came home from school looking a wreck or a phone call from the office was made, my father would resort back to claiming homeschool was the best option to raise a proper lady.
I knew better. He'd find something wrong with the studies my mother put together or he'd find fault in my work ethic.
He already found fault with so much.
Jay put his arm around my shoulders and told me he would walk me to school, that I shouldn't worry.
Jax grumbled behind us, "What the hell's she so quiet for? It’s just one day out of the year."
I inhaled deeply, remembering that self-control was my friend. I grasped at that control so I wouldn’t snap at Jax—until I saw my hair in the foyer mirror of the Stonewoods' house.
I froze and Jax ran right into me.
"What’s wrong with you?" His voice rose, but I didn't glance at him.
My eyes were on my hair. My long, wavy brown hair had escaped the tightly tied bun that took a concentrated amount of time to do.
Both Jax and Jay stood on either side of me exchanging worried looks. My green eyes widened, glassing over as they stared back at me in the mirror. My face paled so much that it contrasted sharply with the dark brown nest that sat on my head.
I frantically started combing my fingers through it. "Oh my God. Do you have a brush? I need a brush.”
They both stared at me like I was crazy.
"Okay, if you don't have a brush, I'll take a comb. I need to fix this right now.”
Jay shook his head, and Jax stepped back.