Page 30 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

Now it’s hitting me that he didn’t even offer to drive me home the way he did when I went to hang out at his house. I told him it was getting late, and he said bye.

I go looking for Blaine.

As usual, he’s sitting with his friends on a bench outside. They’re all rich, all popular, all so confident and assured that I couldn’t believe Blaine and his friends accepted me into their group.

“Blaine, can I talk to you?”

He smiles as he gets up, following me to the side of the building as the rest of his friends cover their mouths and whisper to each other as they track me with their stares.

I thought they’d all accepted me when Blaine and I started dating. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I was blind or willfully naïve because I don’t think they did.

“The newspaper. Who did you tell?” I ask.

He looks bored. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I lower my voice when his friends glance over. “You told someone about me.”

He glances at his watch, a top of the line smart watch I could never afford in a million years. “I have to get to class.”

I step in front of him, blocking his way back to his friends and lower my voice when they look at me. “You told someone about me. Is this because of last night?”

He yawns. “Because you’re not as much fun as I thought you were?”

I take a slow step back. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He steps closer. “I’d have thought a girl in foster care wouldn’t be a prude, but I guess that was just with me, huh?”

“I haven’t slept with anyone, Blaine,” I whisper, blushing.

His handsome face is no longer so handsome. It’s cold. Distant. “It’s over.”

“Because I wouldn’t sleep with you?” I hiss.

“Because a guy like me never settles for a girl like you.”

Unless it’s for sex, I bitterly tell myself as I watch him walk away.

He laughs with his friends as I stand there, alone, angry. My wolf growls at me to rip his throat out, but even though I want to, this doesn’t feel like a killing offence.

When the bell for class rings, I tell myself it doesn’t matter. What’s one breakup in the grand scheme of things? I’ll just dodge his friends, that’s all.

But that’s not all.

By lunch, the rumor that Blaine dumped me because I slept with half the football team behind his back is all over the school. Even the teachers are giving me long looks.

I refused to sleep with him, and because I wouldn’t, he’s spread my foster care secret around the school and made everyone think I’m a slut.

There’s no way I can kill Blaine and get away with it.

With one year to go before I graduate, I bottle up my rage, ignore the Trash Girl comments everywhere I go, the whispers I’m a slut or a whore, and I focus on studying hard.

I graduate at the top of my class, skip the graduation ball, and spend the evening packing.

The day I turn eighteen, I leave foster care behind me and change my name so no one can ever link me to my Trash Girl past.

I leave early for college with a new name and a determination to build a new life for myself. One where no one can look at me like I’m beneath them. Not again.

That’s all that matters.

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