A Not-So Cinderella

Chapter 6

EVENING was falling by the time the boys’ practice was over, and Lucas reminded her again of Zach by only coming over for a short break, because his practice would continue on. It was growing chilly, and Avery’s damp clothes weren’t helping.

She watched with apprehension as her cousins and their group marched over. Lucas and his four lunch table mates apparently had kept their bags near the boys’, so they were nearby. “Can we go?” Avery asked.

Jayden smirked. “Sure. Guys, how ‘bout we show her our gifts for her.” Avery raised an eyebrow, dread slithering through her at the thought of what their ‘gifts’ could be. The g**g smirked as well and dug through their backpacks.

A load of papers and notebooks were shoved into Avery’s hands. “What the-” She spluttered.

“Here’s your homework.” Jace said.

“You mean your homework?” She said drily, raising an eyebrow.

“Our homework is your homework, cousin dear.” Jace answered.

Avery heaved a sigh and decided not to argue, knowing they wouldn’t change their minds. She took the whole heap and shoved it into her backpack. “You have to carry ours too, Ave.” Jace said, smirking for some reason.

Avery grabbed the first backpack, and attempted to lift it. Key word ‘attempted’. It lifted slightly off the ground, but it was way too heavy, and she quickly had to put it down again.

“Oh, is Ave a little weak?” Jace teased.

“What did you put in here, rocks?” Avery muttered.

Their grins identically widened.

“Oh, you can’t be serious.” She said, turning to the backpack and opening it. It was, indeed, full of rocks and stones of various sizes. The rate of her breathing increases, she checked the other two backpacks, finding that they were, indeed, filled with boulders just like the first one.

“Guys,” Jamie said.

Her eyes blazing, she turned back to the twins. “What the heck? How do you expect me to carry these? Are you insane—” Her rant was cut off by a sudden rush of water pouring over her.

She gasped at the sudden soaking, wiping her eyes and looking at Jayden’s furious expression. “Don’t you dare ever talk to us like that.” He hissed.

“Anyone who still has water, you know what to do with it.” Jace glowered.

Avery sat there, shocked, as she was suddenly soaked. Quite a lot of the boys still had full of semi-full water bottles (some even had two), and she was completely soaked by the time the dousing ended.

“Everybody look at the pathetic little Avery Wilson.” Jace’s voice suddenly announced. Avery’s eyes snapped to Jamie, who, like in the morning, was holding up a phone—clearly recording it. He took the phone down, tapping on the screen. He finally looked up and grinned at Avery. “Yup. Posted online, Ave.”

Avery bit her lip, fighting to keep her tears in. “Aw, are you going to cry, little baby Avey?” Jayden fake-pouted. The comment scorched away all the tears.

“Shut—”

“Watch it. You want another video?” Jace warned.

Avery pressed her lips together, but didn’t diminish her glare. “For that, you will carry all our backpacks, and if there’s a single drop of water on any of those, or even one rock is missing—we’ve counted—Ave, you don’t want to know the consequences.” Jayden said.

“You don’t have to take mine,” Jamie said quietly, bending to pick up his own.

“Yes she does,” Jayden said, grabbing his wrist and wrenching it upwards.

Jamie let out a quiet gasp, and Avery said, “Stop! I’ll do it.” She nodded at Jamie.

The two of them smirked and walked off towards their cars, Jamie trailing behind, his wrist still bent awkwardly in Jayden’s grasp. Lucas had begun approaching, his eyes narrowed. Luckily, he’d been too far to hear what had happened up till then.

“You might want to take your clothes off, Avery.” The boy who had made that comment before said, making all the others laugh.

Through gritted teeth, Avery said, “What’s your name?”

“Brandon.” He said, taking a step closer.

Avery poked her index finger on his chest. “Well, listen up, Brandon, make one more comment like that and you’ll be given a free ticket to the hospital—or, even better, the police station!” She hissed.

 His eyes widened and he took a step back. “How about a free ticket to your bedroom?” One of the others asked.

“Just shut up, Clyde.” Lucas growled. Avery swung her head to him, her eyes sparkling in surprise.

“Oh, has she already shown you her services? Well, baby, you can show me too.” Clyde winked. Lucas instinctively started forward—but Avery beat him to it.

She swung her hand at his face. Not in a slap, no. In a proper, hard punch. Zach had taught her how, for this exact reason. Clyde was down in a second, clutching his nose. He groaned and removed his hand for a moment, revealing his purple and bleeding nose.

One of the boys in Lucas’s g**g whistled lowly. Several of the twins’ g**g gasped and looked at Avery in horror, backing away slightly. Avery kept her gaze trained on Clyde. “I’ll show you worse if you ever say anything like that ever again. And that goes for all of you.” She announced, raising her head and making eye contact with every boy there, except Lucas and his group.

“Get out of here.” One of Lucas’s boys said, and the rest immediately grabbed their backpacks and practically ran away.

Lucas turned to her. “Are you okay?”

Avery examined her hand, seeing no visible mark. “Yeah.”

She sighed and turned back to the bags. How on earth was she supposed to take them? She couldn’t wait until she was dry, she still had to clean the house. And even if she somehow dried her hands, the bags would likely bump into her, getting wet. Plus, there was the added whole stones thing.

She shouldered her own first, the weight drastically increased by the homework of so many boys. Then she looked at the two other backpacks despairingly.

“You need a lift?” Lucas asked. Avery glanced at him and back at the bags.

“Uh, no, that’s okay. I’ll...” She let her voice trail off when he realized she had no idea on how she would get home.

“You’ll what?” Lucas asked, arching an eyebrow and crossing his arms over his chest, challenging her with his eyes. Avery sighed.

“Okay, I probably do need a ride. Thank you.”

Lucas nodded. “Alright. Guys, you carry on practicing. I’ll be back soon.”

“We’ll help you take these to the car.” One of the boys said, each taking a backpack, leaving Lucas and one other empty handed.

“I’ll take yours.” The other one offered.

“No, it’s okay.” Avery said, shivering slightly as a cold wind blew through the field.

 “Should we go?” Lucas asked. They nodded, and the five of them walked outside, towards the parking lot. While walking, Avery looked up from the ground and asked, a flash of embarrassment rushing through her, “Um, guys, thank you a lot for this. I realized...I don’t actually...uh...know your names...”

One of them chuckled. “Adi Jain.” He was the tallest, brown-skinned and messy-haired. One by one, they all introduced themselves. Tanner Williams was black and muscled, with kind eyes. Alex Jones was the one who had offered to hold Avery’s bag, tall and on the scrawny side compared to the others, but she’d noticed he was impossibly fast on the field.

Lucas glanced at her once. “Lucas Rodriguez.”

Avery smiled slightly. “Well, I’m Avery Wilson.”

“So, why did your cousins do that to you?” Adi asked.

Avery pressed her lips together tightly. “Because they don’t like me much.”

“That was way beyond dislike. They posted a video about you online in the morning, made you follow them around everywhere with their books, made you get their lunch in the cafeteria, didn’t let you eat lunch, made you do homework for all of them, dumped water on you and made you carry their bags that they filled with rocks. That’s most definitely not just dislike.”

Avery looked at Tanner in surprise, feeling heat rush all over her face. Had everyone noticed that much? She bit her lip and looked at the ground.

She looked up when she heard a small ‘oomph’. Alex still had his elbow out and was glaring at Tanner, who was holding his side. The other boys were giving Tanner dirty looks, too.

“Sorry.” He mumbled.

“It’s okay.” Avery said, looking up at him and managing to give a small smile. The rest of them were silent until they reached the car.

Lucas fished out a key from the pocket of his jeans and unlocked the car. “Dump them in the backseat.” He said, and the others put the backpacks down. He turned to them. “I’ll be back soon. Start practice.”

“I’m in charge, right?” Alex said, grinning.

Lucas gave him a fake glare. “Adi’s vice-captain. He’s in charge.”

The boys laughed while Avery smiled slightly, the good-natured banter reminding her again of her brother and his friends.

“Okay, let’s go.” Lucas said to Avery. She nodded.