Chapter 1
Piper
Igroan, the sunlight filtering through the curtains I somehow always forget to close burning the back of my eyeballs.
I hate getting up to go to school. I hate it, I’ve always hated it. I am NOT a morning person.
But today is worse than usual, because today I have exactly three bruises on my face.
One under my eye, another on my cheek, and a third on my forehead.
A nasty pattern of blue, green and grey that makes my freckles stand out all the more.
And that’s without counting my bloody nose and busted lip.
That asshole really went for it last night. I hate him. I hate him so goddamn much.
My glasses are on the floor, as usual. The stems are completely bent out of shape, and I look absolutely ridiculous as I shove them onto the bridge of my nose. They’re more lopsided than ever.
I really wish I could afford contacts. Barring that, normal, discreet glasses. But my eyes are so messed up that I have to wear thick lenses, so even if my frames were smaller, I’d still look like some weird, crazy insect.
I look even weirder and crazier today with my face splotchy blue. And the embarrassment that paints my cheeks and nose bright red when I think of having to go to school looking like this certainly doesn’t help.
I’ve grown so used to the bullying that it barely fazes me. It doesn’t usually get physical, but I guess I can take a few punches to the face. Somehow it’s easier to handle than the insults and humiliation that accompany it.
And there were a whole lot of insults and humiliation last night. It made me pissed. So insanely pissed that for the first time since I started getting bullied in fifth grade, I decided I was going to do something about it. Something more drastic than my usual snarky retorts.
I spent the night plotting revenge.
But how can you get revenge when you’re about three times smaller than your bully, and don’t have an ounce of muscle? The asshole looks like he should be a quarterback or something. Or a soldier. He’s sure got the look of a soldier, with his buzz cut and muscles.
Does that mean I need to start going to the gym?
Not a chance in hell.
If there’s one thing I hate more than getting up early, it’s the idea of working out. I’d rather die than do a sit up.
Sighing, I pull on some clothes then go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.
My stomach sinks when I catch a glance at myself in the mirror.
I knew it was bad when I looked at myself in the small mirror on my dresser, but the bigger mirror of the medicine cabinet, in the full light of day, more than confirms it.
Forget about school. How the hell am I going to face Dad?
Mom won’t care. Mom won’t even notice. She’s probably in bed, where she always is, and where she spends most of her days. I’ve never seen anyone as lazy as her, and it just pisses me off, the way she idles away her time while Dad works himself to the bone to provide for us.
I guess a lot of things piss me off these days. But right now, no one pisses me off more than the asshole who is about to pay for what he’s done.
“Piper! Time for school!” calls out my dad.
Sighing, I grit my teeth and hobble out of the bathroom and down the stairs.
I definitely got a few punches to the stomach too, and walking toward the kitchen reminds me of it.
I take a deep breath and steel myself for Dad’s reaction as I enter the small, cheerful room.
I really wish I had some makeup to conceal the bruises, but knowing I’d probably stab my eye out with my mascara wand if I ever tried to wear any has always kept me far away from the cosmetics aisle.
Dad doesn’t notice me at first, too busy multitasking over a pot of oatmeal on the stove while reading the newspaper. I glance at the big picture on the front cover and recognize the face of the guy who was stabbed two nights ago. I think Dad knew him—they worked at the same company.
But right now, I’m too preoccupied by the state of my face, and Dad’s reaction when he’ll notice, to care much.
I don’t have to wait for long.
“Make sure to eat a fruit, Piper,” he says. “We’ve got bananas, apples, clementines—what the hell?”
He’s just turned around, and he stops speaking, frozen in shock. It takes a lot for Dad to even say half a curse word, he’s so gentle. Now, he stares at me, his mouth wide open.
“Uh, yeah,” I mutter, mustering up the courage to speak the lie I’ve been preparing since I woke up. “I, uhm… fell.”
“You fell?” he questions in disbelief.
“I got hungry in the night,” I wince, “so I went downstairs, but I forgot my glasses, and, uhm, took a nasty tumble in the stairs. Didn’t you hear that loud noise?”
I look up at him, forcing myself to return his gaze even though I feel terrible for lying to him.
But he has enough stress in his life. He’s already upset about me not having any friends.
I know he feels the full weight of having to support our family.
And to top it all off, lately, he’s been stressed out about the death of that guy, even though the latter works so high up at his company that I don’t think they’ve crossed paths more than once or twice.
Still, if Dad knew I was getting bullied on top of everything, well… I think I’d feel worse about his reaction than about the actual bullying.
“I didn’t hear anything,” he says.
“Oh. Well, the noise you didn’t hear was me, falling.”
Of course, there was no noise, and it’s getting harder to look at him, so I instead concentrate all my attention on the fruit bowl, studying each fruit in turn and at last, picking out an apple with as much care as I usually choose the next book I’ll read.
All the while, I can feel Dad’s eyes on me, and red splotches of heat bloom on my nose and cheeks.
“You need to be more careful,” he says at last, and I exhale.
I guess I was worrying for nothing. He’s just as naive as he is gentle.
I could probably get my cherry popped right in front of him and he wouldn’t be any wiser.
Not that that’s going to happen anytime in the near future.
There isn’t a single person who can even stand to be near me these days, and the only boy I might once have daydreamed about is the one mainly responsible for making my life in high school hell.
Quill Nelson.
My stomach clenches nervously when I realize today is Monday, which means I’m going to spend much of the day in the same room with him. If there is a God, he sure must hate me. The only person who is in literally all of my classes—except the Friday ones—is none other than my bully number one.
And the worst thing about having Quill Nelson as your bully is that you can’t possibly hope to get revenge. You’re basically screwed when you’ve been chosen as his target.
The one tiny consolation is that the other bullies have mostly backed off. Though clearly, not entirely.
Sighing, I swallow some of the porridge that Dad has ladled out in bowls, then nearly choke when he says, “Maybe I should take you to the emergency room. Huh, Pumpkin?”
Uhm, no.
If Dad is late to work, he’ll lose his job, and that’s the last thing we need.
He has no job protection, and without that income, I don’t even know what we’ll do.
His asshole boss just happening to be Quill’s dad is the cherry on top, because it ensures that everyone would know the second he was fired.
Going from Piper the janitor’s daughter to Piper the fired guy’s daughter is not a prospect I look forward to.
Though I guess, in the eyes of snobby Astley, it’s not a major demotion.
More importantly, though, if we go to the emergency room, I’m pretty sure my story about falling down the stairs won’t hold.
“It’s fine, Dad, honestly,” I try to reassure him. “I just have a few bruises.”
“But maybe you’re injured worse than you think,” worries the family worrier-in-chief. “Maybe you have a concussion.”
“The first few hours are most important when it comes to concussions,” I tell him. I’ve read enough crime novels to know. “By now, there’s no more risk. I promise. It’s fine.”
Before he can argue more, I stand up, kiss him on the forehead and give him a hug, and hurry out.
“Let me drive you to school, at least!” he calls after me.
I yell back the words it feels like I’ve repeated a dozen times this morning. “It’s fine!”
_
By the time I’m sitting down in first period English, I’m definitely not feeling all that fine.
Not because of the pain—I’ve gotten used to the dull throbbing sensation by now—but because of all the stares and whispers.
Sometimes, I wonder if I prefer getting bullied or passing unnoticed.
Obviously, the former is upsetting, but the latter feels pretty soul-crushing.
Today, though, there’s no question about it: I really wish I wasn’t the center of attention right now.
Every time someone points to me or whispers something to their neighbor, I want to disappear five feet underground.
Life was so much better back before we moved here in fifth grade. Back in California. I actually had friends, we weren’t that poor, and no one cared, anyway. I wish Mom hadn’t pressured Dad into moving back to her hometown. I wish Dad hadn’t given in.
Still, even after three full years of high school, old habits die hard. Before Astley, I was an irrepressibly cheerful optimist. And now, although my skin throbs, although I feel humiliated and angry, I’m still searching for the silver lining, as I’ve always done. And I find it in Quill’s absence.
Thank God. He’s never late, so the fact that he isn’t here means he must be sick.
I hope he has something really bad like mono that will keep him out for weeks or even months.
Though a small part of me feels weird about that prospect.
The strange, incomprehensible truth is that as much as I dread seeing him, a tiny pinprick inside me looks forward to it.
He’s spent the past three years making my life hell, but I guess old habits really do die hard.
The first time I saw him in fifth grade, he beat up my bully.
We went to different middle schools after that, so I barely saw him for a few years, and during that time, I created quite the fantasy.
He was my silent protector, my white knight who’d come save me and take me away from this awful place.
I filled up notebook upon notebook of Quill and Piper Nelson scribbles. All for my illusions to shatter when his murderous gaze landed on me on the first day of high school.
Yet even now, although he’s become my worst tormentor, some small part of me still hangs onto the idea of what he once was. Or at least, what I once imagined him to be.
Today, though, there’s no part of me that doesn’t feel relieved that I don’t have to deal with him.
I actually pay attention to Mrs. Gayle’s lecture about Jane Austen, and I feel vaguely interested, even though my usual rule when it comes to books is that if it doesn’t have a mystery in it, it isn’t worth reading.
But then, halfway through class, there’s a sudden knock on the door.
I startle up in my chair, goosebumps pebbling down my back.
The knob seems to turn in slow motion as my stomach just as slowly turns to lead.
Somehow I just know it’s him. I can feel it.
It’s like I have a sixth sense where assholes are concerned.
Even before his left combat boot makes its appearance in the room, I’m already bracing for the moment when the rest of him follows.
He walks in, looking very unapologetic for someone who just missed half of class.
His curly black hair tumbles over his eyes, framed by his usual black hoodie, but his skin is looking a lot paler than usual, like he hasn’t slept well.
His eyes rake around the class as though he’s searching for an empty seat, even though no one would ever dare occupy the one that he usually sits in, at the very back of the room.
Then his eyes land on me, and the usual murderous expression in them somehow seems…
even more murderous today. I’m used to his inexplicable, psychotic anger, but today, its seething intensity makes me shiver.
I actually lean back against my chair, as if I can possibly hope to put meaningful distance between us.
He doesn’t move for a beat, his eyes fixed on mine—no, not on mine. On the bruises decorating my face.
He can’t possibly care, can he?
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, squeezing my thighs shut, feeling very weirdly bothered.
The space between my legs is tingling, and it feels like he can tell, even though that’s impossible.
Yet his eyes drag down slowly while the faintest of smirks plays at the edge of his lips.
But when his eyes flick back up, once more taking in the bruises, any humor disappears, replaced by the same harsh angry glare that I can’t even begin to make sense of.
I stuff my moist, trembling hands between my thighs, wishing he’d just sit down. I can’t handle his intensity. I can’t handle what it does to me. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the situation to just… end.
He must stand in front of the class for more than a minute, though it feels much longer.
Mrs. Gayle clears her throat a few times, but he doesn’t take the hint, and she doesn’t dare do anything more than that.
Everyone at school is scared of him, even his two hanger-on friends, Dane and Liam.
At last, I hear him scuffing his boots on the floor as he walks down the aisle right beside me right.
He stops again, just inches from me, and even though my eyes are still squeezed shut, I can sense his body heat and the spicy smell of him that makes my stomach clench with something more than just nerves.
Though nerves are definitely a part of the equation, as is pure embarrassment when I swallow audibly, a tiny squeak escaping from my throat.
After what feels like another eternity, the sound of his footsteps begins again and I can tell he’s walking toward his seat.
A moment later, there’s the creaking of leather and I know he’s sitting down, peeling off his jacket but keeping on the hoodie that never leaves him, not even in the heat of summer.
I exhale a shuddering breath, feeling more dead than alive. I can’t understand it. I’m not a fearful person. So why the hell does Quill Nelson have such an effect on me?
Then my eyes cross paths with two beady black ones belonging to a round face topped with a buzz cut. He’s clenching his jaw at me, his expression equal parts worried and self-satisfied. When Quill goes to sit down, his worry fades, replaced by pure smugness.
Ray Campbell. The asshole who beat me up last night.
I flip him off before turning my full attention back to Pride and Prejudice.