Page 205 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

Instead, I only got called in on the level 3 shit: blue screens, failed updates, and porn pop-ups.

Now, for the first time in a week I’m finally starting to feel like myself again.

For the period of one class, I manage to forget Mom’s dead.

I stride into AP Psychology with a smile on my face and a swagger in my step. There’d been a pop quiz for the last ten minutes of my computer programming class.

I aced it.

Afterward, the teacher called me aside to introduce himself formally. And then told me I had two days to catch up the last week of theory.

Well, damn. Guess I’d better cancel my plans for this evening.

I laugh to myself as I sink into my seat. Around me, the classroom’s filled with a very familiar drone of friends chatting and the sound of chairs scraping back.

For a few, idyllic moments, I lose myself in that noise.

You know what? Igotthis. Whatever the world has to throw my way, I can handle it. This is a new chapter in my life. The fresh start I was looking for in syringes and rubber hoses. All I need is?—

“What up, virgin?”

My thoughts collapse in on themselves like a poorly constructed house of cards.

Briar.

I don’t turn, mostly because I’m frozen but also because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing the shock on my face.

AP Psych.

Really?

The fuck does a jock like him need to know about Freud or Jung?

I ignore Briar, but he refuses to ignore me. The teacher starts taking us through the weekend’s homework—of which I, obviously, did nothing.

Something brushes my hair. I jerk, and spin to glare at him over my shoulder. He sits back in his seat, a smug, crooked smile splayed over his mouth. “Jumpy,” he comments.

“That’s what happens when you almost get raped,” I throw back, but in a whisper so as not to draw attention to myself.

Briar’s smile inches up as he sits forward in his desk. He leans his chin on his palm, studying me intently. “I never heard you say no.”

My eyes and mouth both go wide at the same time. I splutter a weak, “What?” before the teacher realizes I’m not paying attention.

“Ms. Virgo, is it?”

My body goes cold, but I spare a heated glare for Briar before I face the front of the class.

The Psych teacher, Mr. Veroza according to my timetable, is a balding eighty-something-year-old with liver spots.

He moves closer to my table and folds his hands at his waist, tipping his head to the side as if he’s studying something pinned to a goddamn corkboard.

“Yes,” I manage, trying to ignore the feel of Briar’s eyes drilling a hole through the back of my skull.

“I’m not sure how things worked at your previous institution, but we don’t talk during class, Ms. Virgo.”

Institution? He makes it sound like I came straight from the fucking loony bin.

Veroza’s gaze skates over my entire body, pausing for an uncomfortable length of time on my chest, before returning to my face.

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