In Love With My Bully Step-brother

Chapter 7 | Front Page News

Ashleigh’s POV

Thankfully, by the time I was done with breakfast, my mother was ready to leave for work. I grabbed my bag which was already packed and met her in the foyer.

“Morning mother,” I greeted her.

She was rummaging through her purse for something but as soon as she looked up at me, she froze.

“Shoot!” She hissed and the confusion as to why, showed on my face. “You’re ready for school.”

“Um…” was that a question? Because the answer was quite obvious.

I smelled him before I heard him. The distinct scent of his perfume wafting into my nose just as he approached the foyer from the stair hall. Reflexively, I took a small sniff and the fragrance filled my lungs.

“Oh, wonderful! Kane is here. Since you two are going to the same school, I’m sure he can drop you off.”

It was my turn to freeze now. I moved closer to my mother and gave her a look. “Was this always your plan or did you forget to arrange transportation…again?”

Susie rolled her eyes. She was always so impatient when it came to me and I had hardly even lived with her.

“Look, I can’t drop you off at school and still make it to work. Follow Kane and we’ll sort out your logistics later.”

With that, she was out the door. And at the right time too because I had been so close to strangling her.

My mother worked as a creative director for one of the leading brands in an advertising agency. It was a pretty cool job and she was good it but also always very busy because of it. I really wondered how she had met and built a relationship with Reginald Blackstone. Perhaps, one day, I would gather the courage to ask her.

I watched her car reverse back all the way till it disappeared outside the gates before finally turning around to face the doom she had left me with.

“Whoa!” I jumped back as I came face-to-face with Kane. When had he gotten this close? I wondered.

But as I moved back, Kane only inched closer and closer till I was backed up against the window, my back pack completely flattened behind me.

I looked up at him and immediately looked away. I could not handle the intensity of his gaze.

“Listen up you weasel, I’m only going to say this once,” Kane started. “You and I are never going to be friends. We do not know each other and we do not speak to each other.

“There’s a bus that leaves for the school district in about—“ he glanced down at his watch “—ten minutes. If you run fast enough, you might actually make it.”

He didn’t need to say it. I got the message loud and clear. I would not be getting a ride from him to school.

With one last once-over, Kane left me standing with a pounding heart in the foyer. Once he was out the door, I arranged myself back into order and allowed him drive away before leaving the house.

The bus stop he was referring to was quite a distance from the house and I literally had to run to meet up with it. Kane hadn’t been joking when he said that.

In fact, the doors of the bus were already closing by the time I reached and I had to flag the driver with my hands.

“Girl, what are you…?” The driver’s question froze on her lips as she saw me in my uniform, sweaty and out of breath. “Come on in and have a seat by the window.”

I thanked the lady and followed her suggestion. I sat by the window and took a minute to catch my breath before taking some water from my bottle. Day 2 and it was already a disaster before I got to school.

I was the last to get off the bus. The driver apologized that she couldn’t go any further. Commercial buses weren’t allowed past that point else she might have given me a break.

“You would have been the first,” I said to her. “Thank you.”

I tried not to run to school. I wasn’t late yet and I figured arriving a little sweaty on the second day would be bad for business. I had no way of knowing this was the least of my concerns.

The parking lot was packed with most of the students by the time I arrived school so, thankfully, I didn’t have to dodge people much as I sought out my locker. I found it…and something else.

On a red billboard nailed to the wall beside my locker, there was a poster with a picture of…me. Sprawled on the floor with my bag and books littered about me. It was a news article of some sort and the headline read “First Day Mishaps: Oakbridge newbie is such a klutz.” I schemed through the article and saw that every embarrassing moment from my first day had been captured.

It started with how I had tried to force the doors open without an access card then moved on to being sprawled on the ground right before recess began and finally, spilling Thai noodles on the school star quarterback’s varsity. “This girl is a walking accident,” the author wrote. There were pictures to back up this statement.

My cheeks burned from humiliation. I didn’t bother reading the rest of the article. I skipped to the end where the byline read Samantha Adler. The evil mastermind behind this nonsense. I wondered who that could be. Couldn’t remember any face I saw everytime I had a mishap.

I squeezed it as hard as I could and dumped it in the trash. It was probably a waste of time because I was sure there were other copies somewhere…and who knew how many people had seen that article already?

I tried to keep a low profile the rest of the day. Thankfully, I had my classes on that day. With any luck, I could pull a Clark Kent and no one would be able to tell the girl in the article was me. I saw a few people with what looked like a magazine that had the article on the front page and that was when I realized it was more than just one page. There were several copies of a magazine with that story in it. Damn!

For lunch, I decided that I would not attempt eating at the cafeteria again. I didn’t trust myself not to spill anything again so, I just went up to the library to read. It was quiet and only one other guy was inside. That is, until the mean girls from the day before came and found me.

“Told y’all she’d be here,” one of them said.

“I mean, it’s where I would go after seeing myself as the front page news.”

They all laughed at that and I groaned. Of course they had seen the article! The whole school probably has!

“Go on ahead, taunt me. I don’t care that you’ve seen the article. Just, leave me alone.” I was definitely in no mood for their mean girl energy. I started to close the book I was reading to leave but someone’s hands came down on it.

“Seen the article? Girl, we wrote it!” The girl said.

It seemed like she was the leader of the group. Every encounter I’d had with them, she was at the forefront of it all.

“Well, I did. The girls handled the other columns,” she said and the rest giggled excitedly.

“Wait a minute. You’re Samantha Adler?”

“The one and only,” Sam replied, twisting the end of her short copper hair and shrugging.

I couldn’t believe this but then it did make sense. Sam and her gang had been in almost every place I’d had a mishap.

“What are you guys then? The school’s journalists?” I had never heard of mean girl who wrote and published articles. I mean, it had been a really demeaning thing to do but the artist in me recognized the quality of the writing.

“You could say that,” Samantha responded. “We run the school’s magazine society, The Oak Tribune.”

I nodded and Sam took that as an invite to tell me all about the magazine society. They released prints bi-weekly and always carried the latest about the school. They talked about everything and everyone including staff. No one was exempt.

“It’s the media. We have an immunity clause that lets us print anything as long as we have facts to prove them. Just like in the real world.”

“Maybe a little more shady,” someone added and the rest laughed.

I was about to ask why they were telling me this when Samantha answered.

“We want you to be a part of us. I may have seen your application and I know you’re interested in journalism. We are looking for new members.”

“Seriously? You’re asking me to join you after you’ve printed an article about me?”

They exchanged looks among themselves then looked at me and nodded.

They had got to be kidding me. “Sorry, but I am not interested,” I stated matter-of-factly. I got up from the chair. My hiding place had been compromised.

“We’ll see about that newbie,” I heard Samantha say just before I walked out of earshot.