After the party, the masks were truly off at CPA. The whole school was against me except for Erin and a small handful of her friends from Model UN, who knew about the prize pool but were too afraid of retribution to tell me about it. I couldn’t blame them for that. Being the current target had me on the verge of tears almost every day.
I had been called every nasty name under the sun by people I’d never even met, shoved and shoulder-checked in the hallways, had my bag and books spat on or dirtied in other ways, and had vicious rumors spread about me on the Dirt app. My locker had also been defaced countless times in a nasty throwback to my first day at the academy. It seemed like someone scrawled a new derogatory message on it every single period.
Bitch. Whore. Slut. Trash. Cunt.
The cleaners had all but given up scrubbing the words off, because they knew someone else would come and replace the graffiti within minutes.
The school administration didn’t care about my complaints of bullying and harassment. I simply wasn’t rich or important enough for them to care about. Erin had filed several complaints on my behalf—as a Middleton, she was considered important enough to take seriously—but Principal Hanover brushed her off every time and told her the complaints had to come directly from me if they were about things that were happening to me. Of course, I already knew how that went, so I’d given up trying.
God, I couldn’t wait to escape this hellhole.
At least I had a few things to bring me solace. My grades weren’t suffering too badly, despite the distractions from the constant bullying. The teachers all seemed to like me, too, and one of them had even submitted a paper I wrote to a national essay competition.
Seeing how happy my mom was brought me joy too, despite all the bullshit at school. She loved George, she loved her new job, and she loved Crown Point. She was so pleased with how the move had turned out that I didn’t have the heart to tell her about all the stuff going on at school. Every night at the dinner table, I put on a brave face and told her and George that things were fine.
Then there was Erin. She was an amazing friend. It turned out she wasn’t hooking up with a guy at Nate’s party that awful night two weeks ago—she was actually vomiting in a flowerpot on the deck outside after one too many cocktails. When she went back inside to look for me and realized what had happened after someone showed her their phone, she marched right upstairs and smacked an already-bleeding Nate right in the face. Then she came to visit me the next morning with an enormous gift basket filled with all my favorite things and insisted on spending the entire day with me in a sweet attempt to make me feel better.
In the weeks since then, she’d staunchly defended me from the bullying whenever she was around to witness it, even though it affected her own social ranking and made some of her other friends turn a cold shoulder on her. She also ate lunch with me every day in the secret nook I’d discovered just off the front courtyard, insisting that I shouldn’t be alone.
Having her around was one of the only things keeping me sane right now, so I kept trying to find little ways to pay her back. Unfortunately, one of the ways I’d come up with involved me attending the school’s homecoming football game. So now, on a Friday evening when I’d rather be hiding out in my bedroom, I was freezing my ass off on the crowded stands at the CPA stadium.
I didn’t want to be seen in such a busy place, given the way things had played out recently, but Erin adored football, and she was already a little disappointed that I’d chosen to skip out on the homecoming dance when I’d previously promised to be her platonic date. Of course, I made that promise before the bullying started, which she understood, but I felt bad for letting her down anyway. So, when she invited me to the game with those big, pleading puppy-dog eyes, I had to say yes.
It was just an hour or two. How bad could it be?
Besides, George was coming to watch Jax play, and he’d probably sit on the stands with me and Erin when he finally arrived. No one would dare to say a single negative word to me with him around, because the name Kingsley was synonymous with royalty in this town. It was just too bad their shine couldn’t rub off on me a little, given that I was living in their house.
With a deep breath, I straightened my spine and steeled my jaw. Sitting in the busy stadium had turned me into a bundle of nerves and live wires, but I was doing my best to seem okay in front of Erin.
She was currently staring at me as if I’d reared back and slapped her in the face. “You didnotjust say that,” she said. “Seriously, Kinsey, please tell me you’re kidding.”
I smiled at her and lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Sorry. I honestly don’t understand football.”
“Were you secretly born and raised in Antarctica or something?” Erin asked, eyes widening. “I mean, how can you grow up here and not understand football?”
“It’s not just football. It’s most sports,” I said, turning to look out at the field. The CPA cheerleaders were doing a peppy routine to get the crowd going, and the Warriors mascot was jogging up and down the sidelines, waving to everyone with his big gold hands. “I don’t really care about them, so I’ve never watched them or learned anything about them.”
“That’s it. I’m not sharing my snacks with you anymore.” Erin wrenched her giant bag of candy out of my hands and popped some into her mouth. “Kidding,” she went on between mouthfuls, handing the bag back to me. “But you’re going to learn tonight. I insist.”
I groaned. “Come on. Isn’t it enough that I came?”
“Nope.” She shook her head and leaned forward, lips twisting with thought. “Okay, whatdoyou know? I mean, surely you’ve picked up a few things over the years.”
I cocked my head. “Um… there’s an offense and a defense. Right?”
"A literal baby could’ve told me that,” Erin said, rolling her eyes.
I laughed. “Hey, I know a few other things too!”
“Okay. Enlighten me.”
I raised a brow. “I know there’s a quarterback, because according to every TV show and movie ever made, the quarterback is the super-popular one that everyone wants to hook up with.”
Erin let out a snort of laughter. “I feel like I’m talking to a literal alien right now.”
“But I’m not wrong, am I?” I said with a grin. “Everyone always wants to sleep with the quarterback, right?”
“You might not be saying that in a minute,” she said, lifting her chin to gaze out at the field.