THE QUARTERBACKS UNTOUCHABLE GIRL

I came home from school to find my entire life dumped on the front lawn like trash. My stepmother didn't even bother closing the door behind her. She just stood there in the doorway, arms crossed, watching me stare at the garbage bags scattered across the brown grass. Some of them had split open. My clothes were hanging out, my underwear visible to anyone walking by. "What the hell is this?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "You're almost eighteen, Astrid. Time to go." Veronica's tone was flat, bored, like she was telling me dinner was ready instead of throwing me out. "I'm still in school. I graduate in June." "Not my problem anymore." She turned and walked back inside. The door slammed shut, followed by the click of the lock. I stood there like an i***t, waiting for this to be some kind of sick joke. Waiting for her to come back out and say she was just teaching me a lesson. But the minutes ticked by and nothing happened. The November wind bit through my hoodie and reality started sinking in. She actually did it. She actually threw me out. I pulled out my phone with shaking hands. Seventeen dollars in my bank account. No messages. No missed calls. Nobody gave a d*mn where I was or what happened to me. My stomach twisted. Where was I supposed to go? I started going through the bags, trying to figure out what I could carry. The stuffed bear my dad gave me before he died stared up at me from a pile of jeans. I shoved it deeper into the bag before anyone could see it and make fun of me for still having a teddy bear at seventeen. A car slowed down as it passed. I recognized the driver, some junior from school. Great. By tomorrow everyone would know. The fat loser got kicked out by her own family. More proof that I was worthless. My phone buzzed. i********: notification. Someone tagged me in a photo. I shouldn't have looked but I did anyway. It was from lunch today. Brynn Whitley, the head cheerleader and my personal nightmare, had knocked my tray into my lap. The photo caught the exact moment chocolate milk and marinara sauce hit my shirt. My face looked pathetic, like I was about to cry. The caption: "When you're so hungry you wear your food 😂 #BigGirlProblems #fatgirl" Two hundred and sixty likes. Seventy comments calling me a whale, a cow, telling me to kill myself. I locked my phone and shoved it in my pocket. I couldn't think about that right now. I had bigger problems. Like where I was sleeping tonight. I mentally went through everyone I knew. My best friend from middle school moved to Oregon two years ago. The people who were occasionally nice to me at school weren't actually friends, just people who felt sorry for me. My dad's brother lived somewhere in Florida but we hadn't talked since the funeral. There was no one. The temperature was dropping. The news said it would hit freezing tonight. I couldn't stay outside. Then I remembered something. The side door by the gym at school, the one that never locked right. I'd found it a few months ago when I was hiding from Brynn and her friends. If I could get in after everyone left, I could sleep in the library. Hide in the back where the old reference books were, the section nobody ever used. It wasn't a real plan. It was desperate and pathetic and exactly the kind of thing a homeless loser would do. But it was all I had. I grabbed the bag with my clothes and laptop, shoved the rest behind the bushes where they wouldn't be immediately visible, and started walking. Two miles back to Riverside Heights High School, the place that made my life hell every single day. The sky was getting dark. My feet hurt. I was so hungry my stomach ached but I couldn't waste money on food when I didn't know how long seventeen dollars had to last. By the time I got to the school, the parking lot was almost empty. Just a few cars belonging to teachers staying late. I walked around to the side entrance, tried the door. It opened. Relief flooded through me so fast I almost cried. I slipped inside, letting my eyes adjust to the dim hallway. The building felt different at night. Bigger. Emptier. Kind of creepy. I made my way to the library, staying quiet, jumping at every sound. If security caught me I'd be screwed. But I made it without seeing anyone. The library was dark except for the emergency exit lights. I went to the very back, to the reference section that smelled like old paper and dust. I pulled out my hoodie from the bag to use as a pillow, curled up on the floor between the shelves, and tried to get comfortable. The carpet was rough and thin. The heating had been turned down for the night and cold was already seeping through my clothes. This was my life now. Sleeping on a library floor. Hoping nobody found me. Praying I'd figure something out before I completely fell apart. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about how pathetic this was. Tried not to think about tomorrow when I'd have to pretend everything was fine while Brynn and her friends tortured me and Dax Montero stood there laughing like he always did. Dax Montero. Star quarterback. Most popular guy in school. Brynn's boyfriend. The guy who'd been making my life miserable since freshman year. I hated him almost as much as I hated myself right now. My body was exhausted but my brain wouldn't shut up. Every time I started to drift off, panic would spike through me. What if someone found me? What if I got expelled? What if I never found a real place to live? Hours passed. Maybe I slept, maybe I didn't. Everything blurred together into cold and fear and the desperate hope that morning would somehow bring answers. Then I heard something. Footsteps in the library. Heavy, male, getting closer. My heart stopped. Security. It had to be security. I was going to get caught and kicked out and then I'd have nowhere, not even this pathetic hiding spot. The footsteps came closer. Closer. I held my breath, pressing myself further into the corner, praying they wouldn't see me. A shadow fell across the shelves. "What the hell?"