Secretly In Love With My Highschool Bully

The Locker Incident

After that disastrous walk home the last time, I decide never to walk home again, so for the past few days I’ve been taking the bus instead.

A few weeks pass by in a blur, and I actually begin to enjoy myself at school.

One day, while I’m standing by the lockers with Ceci and giggling about something, a sudden force slams me backward into the lockers, knocking the wind right out of me.

Everyone turns toward the sound, but the moment they realize it’s the football team, they immediately look away and continue minding their business.

If there’s one thing I’ve realized, it’s that the football team at SHIH is basically royalty. They can do almost anything, and nothing ever happens to them.

When I try to stand after regaining my bearings, I wince sharply as pain shoots through my back. I’m pretty sure it’s already bruising.

I look toward them and find them snickering as though someone else’s pain is the funniest thing in the world.

“Ceci… who hit me?” I ask, gasping softly from the pain.

“You don’t wanna know. Let me take you to the infirmary,” she says quickly, trying to steer me toward the nurse’s office.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” I ask quietly.

She only nods, her expression sad.

I try holding back my tears as we slowly make our way toward the infirmary, but I fail miserably. Eventually, we end up sitting outside one of the classroom buildings instead.

I cry like the world is ending while Ceci simply sits beside me holding my hand.

“Why?” I whisper.

She just looks at me sadly, and somehow that makes me break down all over again.

If someone had told me a year ago that Ryan would become this kind of person, I would’ve fought tooth and nail to prove them wrong. But it seems my faith in him was misplaced after all because this—this surpasses every other terrible thing he’s done to me so far.

We stay there for a while before silently making our way to the nurse’s office. The nurse cleans and dresses the bruise before making me lie down for a bit on one of the infirmary beds.

I wake up a few hours later and am given a permission slip to head home early.

The second I get home, I rush straight to my room.

I’m exhausted, and all I want is to collapse onto my bed and shut the rest of the world out for a few hours.

A while later, I wake to Mom gently shaking me awake.

“Oh… hey, Mom,” I mumble, sitting up in bed and rubbing my eyes.

“Baby, why are you home from school so early?” she asks worriedly.

“Oh, that? It’s nothing. I just wasn’t feeling too well, so they gave me permission to come home early,” I explain.

“You’re sick?” she asks immediately, alarm flooding her voice.

“No, Mom. Not that sick. I’m already fine,” I reassure her quickly.

“You sure?” she asks again.

I nod.

“Okay then. Come downstairs for dinner.”

Dinner is a quiet, lukewarm affair because I don’t feel like talking. I eat quickly, wish my parents goodnight, and retreat back to my room.

The next morning, I dread going back to school because I don’t want to face the fact that my best friend has somehow become my bully.

Still, I can’t stay home forever. That would require explaining why I suddenly fear going to school when everyone knows I absolutely love it there.

Soon enough, Dad is dropping me off at the school gates, and I wave goodbye as he drives off.

I head toward my locker nervously, half-expecting yesterday’s incident to repeat itself.

But nothing happens.

Instead, when I open my locker, I find a tube of bruise cream sitting inside.

I immediately glance around as though I’ll magically spot someone carrying a sign that says I put it there.

“Twinnieeeeeeeee! Guess what?”

Ceci comes barreling toward me with enough force to qualify as a natural disaster.

The fact that she isn’t even remotely self-conscious about the amount of noise she’s making—or the looks she’s getting—only makes me shake my head fondly.

“Slow down,” I laugh, catching her before her momentum sends both of us crashing to the floor. “What is it?”

“Well,” she says dramatically, eyes sparkling, “I heard someone beat up that i***t Osbert from the football team.”

“What? Why?” I ask in shock.

“Not sure. Apparently they had some kind of disagreement,” she says with a shrug.

“Huh. Okay.” I hold up the cream. “By the way, did you put this in my locker?”

“Nope. I literally just arrived,” she replies, shaking her head.

“Then who could’ve left it?” I mutter, staring down at it.

“Just use it. Don’t overthink things,” she says.

And for once, I decide to listen to her advice.

The rest of the semester passes with little incidents that leave me increasingly confused.

One time, someone steals my books only for them to mysteriously reappear later in perfect condition. Another time, someone tries to prank me by putting glue on my chair, but before I can sit down, a random book suddenly slams onto the seat and saves me from disaster.

All these tiny incidents point toward one thing:

Someone seems to be protecting me from the shadows.

But I really don’t want to get my hopes up.

Eventually, the semester comes to an end, and we’re given a three-week holiday—a prospect that delights everyone since it means sleeping in, relaxing, and recovering from months of school stress.

For me, though?

This holiday means finally facing the skeletons in my closet.