Page 8 of Behind the Bars

My fingers raced through my dark hair, and I bit my bottom lip before speaking. “What time’s theparty?”

Chapter Three

Elliott

The worst momentsof my life were spent in a high school. I couldn’t wait until that chapter of my life was over and done with. Waking up each morning knowing I had to go back there was the worst feeling in theworld.

“Boney Bones, I see you decided to dress like shit again,” a kid called myway.

I didn’t know who it was, and I didn’t have any drive to look up to try to figure itout.

Keep your head down and try not to get noticed, I told myself every single day.Only five hundred and sixty-two days untilgraduation.

I hated school, and that was putting it mildly. If I’d had the choice, I would’ve never gone back, but Mom had this addiction to the idea of my sister and me getting our high school and college diplomas, because she hadn’t been able to get hers. She wanted us to be better than her, do more than her, succeed more inlife.

I wasn’t really thinking that far ahead,though.

I was just trying not to get a wet willy on the way from math class tohistory.

“Hey, Elliott,” a person said from behindme.

I didn’t turn around, though, because if they weren’t calling me Boney Bones or Brace-face or Piece-Of-Shit-That-Should-Commit-Suicide, they weren’t talking tome.

“Elliott! Hey! I’m talking to you,” the voice called after me. It was a girl’s voice, and theydefinitelyweren’t talking to me if it was a girl’s voice. “Hey!” A hand landed on my shoulder, making me halt my steps and cringe. I always cringed when someone touched me, because normally touches led to fists in mygut.

“Why are you cringing?” the voice asked as I slowly opened myeyes.

“So-sorry,” I whispered, almost certain she didn’t hearme.

“Why does everyone bully you?” the girl asked me—and it wasn’t just any girl, it wasthegirl. JasmineGreene.

The prettiest girl I’d everseen.

I raised an eyebrow at her, uncertain as to why she was talking to me. Jasmine was new and insta-popular. I wasn’t the type who ever received attention from the popularkids.

Well, that wasn’t completely true. I wasn’t the type who ever receivedpositiveattention from the popularkids.

“What?” I questioned, baffled that she was looking atme.

“I said, why does everyone bullyyou?”

My eyes darted back and forth, making sure her words had been spoken for me. “I, um, I-I-I—” I cleared my throat and my shoulders slouched. “I su-su-ffer fromstuttering?”

“Is that a question?” she asked, walking backward toward the theater so she could look me in the eyes. I hated eye contact, especially with girls like her. Pretty girls were the worst. They always made me sweat through my T-shirts, and there was nothing I hated more than sweat stains—except for my ownvoice.

Jasmine’s hands wrapped around her backpack straps, and she smiled as if we werefriends.

We weren’t friends, not that I wouldn’t want to be her friend, but, well, we justweren’t.

“Is what a question?” Iresponded.

“You just said, ‘stuttering?’ as if it were aquestion.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,so…?”

“It’s not a question. I have a s-stuttering issue, but, like, a mild version. I’m not afreak.”

---