65. Chapter 1
It was the end of a shitty week. Lule tore at a hangnail, her freezing fingers trembling under the shadow of the bleachers.
The metal bars above her dripped condensation, and the late winter wind slid its claws down the back of her thin hoodie.
She hadn’t even zipped it. Her advanced maths folder was crammed under her arm, but she hadn’t looked at it since lunch.
Not since he smiled at her-not in the way he had been smiling at her in secret for the past two months.
In that way when he made a joke in his clique and all eyes turned to her. So, not in a good way.
She’d been flattered in the beginning. That’s all it was to begin with.
Flattered. Jack Rodgers, football goalie and golden boy, had looked at her like she was the only girl in the cafeteria, not just a girl among many.
He had whispered that she looked sexy with her glasses, and she had scoffed.
But a tiny part of her believed it because she wanted to.
Because her sister Aria was working three jobs just to keep the gas on and there was not money for contacts.
Because no one else had ever focused that kind of intensity on her like that - like the world spun a little slower when she was in the room.
And because she thought she was too smart to fall into that trap. Only stupid girls did that right?
It hadn't started like that.
It had started with charm. Subtle, quiet, targeted.
He’d pulled her braids once during chem lab and called her the hot librarian.
He had paid her for tutoring and then cupped her cheeks gently in the stacks at the back of the library and told her that her pale hazel eyes-with those weird little grey flecks-were beautiful.
His voice always dropped low when he said it, like he was seeing something no one else did.
They never hung out in proper places. Always after footie games, when the crowd thinned and the noise died down. Always in the public library, never out in the open. He never took her to parties, never held her hand in the hallway.
Still, she’d bought it. In retrospect, she bought it because she was desperate and wanted to believe he noticed he despite her cheap clothes and worn runners .
He had looked at her like she was different from the rest. Her phone lit up with his name at 2 a.m. and that made her feel chosen. Important.
A flush of shame crept up Lule’s neck as she remembered how easy it had been.
How one night, he’d said his parents were away, and she’d agreed to go over like it was nothing.
How one beer became two, and the music got louder, and somehow, she was in his room-shirt off, thoughts fuzzy, her consent fogged but murmured somewhere between amusement and haze.
Nothing about it had been memorable.
Not the sex. Not the conversation. Not even the way he kissed.
Except… she remembered him pulling out a condom. A shred of responsibility wrapped in red flags that she chose to ignore.
She’d confused infatuation for love, she realized. And kept seeing him. Kept letting him have her body while she found the smell of his deodorant made her sneeze and wished he would not smoke before he kissed her with his too large tongue down her throat like he was an alien bent on colonization.
Until.
Until she heard the whispers in the corridor about the photos.
Doreen Tomos. Gillian Hill. Sandra Lange.
Girls whose reputations were being shredded in the group chats. Photos, apparently. Nude ones. Private ones. And the one name that kept coming up was Jack Rodgers.
Confirmation of her worst fears came during Chemistry.
She hadn’t even had the chance to enjoy beating her arch at calculus when the scores went up this morning. He’d raised one imperious brow and muttered, “Impossible. ”
He’d seemed surprised when she hadn’t said a word like she normally did.
Because now Jack was back in her line of sight - sitting with Brad Weller, of all people.
A human shit stain with the personality of a foot fungus.
Or a horse’s arse. Jack had started sitting next to the new girl- quiet thing with shiny lip gloss and Bambi eyes.
He had told her she was a friend’s cousin but she had begun to suspect she was his flavour of the month.
But today he was holding court with his favourite toady. Brad, who wore too much aftershave and once bragged about giving a girl a UTI like he deserved a medal.
Lule sat with her back to them, head down, trying to copy the acid-base chart without throwing up. Her pen scratched on paper but she couldn’t concentrate.
“Mate,” Brad said, voice low but not nearly low enough, “that shot of Gillian in the mirror? Fucking artwork.”
Jack gave a quiet laugh. “Told you. She acted all shy, but the mirror thing was her idea.”
Her pen froze mid-stroke.
“I still think Sandra takes the prize though,” Brad continued, like they were rating desserts. “She’s got those ridiculous tits. Like, stupid big.”
Jack snorted. “I’ve got a few more of Sandy, actually. She was a total hottie. Just had to ask the right way. She was begging for it. I also have some fresh meat but I need a few more days to add to the collection.”
A sickness curled in Lule’s stomach.
Gillian. Sandra. Girls she’d known in passing and seen fold in on themselves lately, looking smaller, quieter. Gillian had missed two days last week. Sandra had cried in the toilets last month, whispering something about her brother seeing a photo .
And now she knew.
Jack. Jack was the one.
“Thanks again, bro,” Brad muttered. “Don’t know how you get these girls to drop their kit, but keep ’em coming.”
There was a low thud - maybe a fist bump. Maybe just her pulse in her ears, drowning everything else out.
She kept her head down but the words felt like a cement block tied around her feet.
Her stomach had dropped.
Because suddenly, she remembered him asking her to pose.
He’d taken a photo when she was still lying there, flushed and stupid, trying to pull her shirt down.
He hadn’t asked permission. She’d mumbled something - “Delete that, idiot”-with a half-laugh.
But he’d just smiled like she was a souvenir he’d picked up on holiday.
And she had never seen a smile like that on his face.
Just one shot topless before she pulled her t-shirt on. Her hair over her chest. “You look like art,” he’d said. “Don’t be scared. It’s just for me.”
And she’d let him, like a fool. Her face flushed hot, then cold.
She’d been too stunned, too flattered, too willing to believe that someone like him saw something in her. Too stupid to read the writing on the wall.
She had stared down at her notes until they swam on the page. When the bell rang, she stood so quickly her chair scraped back too hard but she didn’t care.
Her hands were shaking. She had hurried to her spot under the bleachers. What was she going to do? What was she going to tell she tell Aria?