Page 24 of Cruel Devotion

“Hey, Haley. Do you have, like, fifty brothers and sisters out there?”

They all laughed and laughed.

With a sigh, I ate and kept my face down.

Ignore it.

They don’t matter.

One day, you’ll be out of here and they won’t be around to talk like this.

“Her sister’s just the same. Another whore.”

“I heard she has, um, like six kids now. All different dads.”

“How pathetic.”

“Haley, how many baby daddies are you going to have?”

Ignore it.

Ignore it!

My blood pressure rose. My heart beat faster as the dormant need to fight back rose within me. I wouldn’t fight back. It was smarter to ignore and let it go. They only had power over me if they thought I was listening and affected by their words. If I didn’t give them any power, they’d eventually stop. For the day, at least.

“I heard her sister was sleeping with someone here at the college.”

I exhaled a harsh breath through my nose. Natasha hadn’t even stayed in town long enough to go to college.Idiots.

“Maybe that’s how she gets such good grades.”

Not this again.

“Yeah, you notice how she gets all As. Perfect scores?”

“Sounds fishy to me.”

“I bet she’s fucking all her profs. Sleeping with them to get all those As.”

“She—”

The clank of a tray sounded.

I jerked up at thethunkof the metal slab as it landed on my table. Everyone flinched around me, looking at who was taking a seat at my table.

I sat here alone. Always alone. And that was how I preferred it if everyone was just going to talk shit about me.

But someone else decided they wanted to sit with me.

Not just someone.

Him.

The last damn person I wanted to face when I was already being bullied like this.

“She doesn’t getallAs,” Eli said as he dropped into a chair next to me.

As he settled into the seat, shifting his bag onto the next chair over, I froze. With my burger between both hands, my mouth hanging open, I stared at him and tried to understand what the hell was going on here.

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