Page 56 of Falling for My Bully: A Lesbian Romance

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her way through the remaining hours.

If anyone knew how much she hated all of it, they’d probably be

shocked.

That wasn’t why she was mean. She couldn’t explain it, even to herself.

She had enough attention at home. It wasn’t that. She’d always been

effortlessly pretty and had a body that most people could only achieve

through rigorous exercise, a lot of praying, and maybe even a few plastic

surgery touch-ups here and there. Her family was well off. They’d given her

a brand-new car for her sixteenth birthday. She went on expensive vacations

with her family. She had the best clothes, got regular manis and pedis with

her mom, and always had the trendy stuff that everyone wanted. She was

smart enough. She got decent grades. Mostly B’s, which her parents were

fine with. She was captain of the cheer team, was dating a handsome

football player, and was probably going to be voted homecoming queen.

On the outside, she was like every other popular girl. Put together by a

very tenuous amount of glue that could fail at any time, exposing the gaping

cracks and the mess of churning, wretched emotions underneath.

Not only did Arabella not know why she was mean, she didn’t know why

she did half the things she did. She didn’t have any explanation for it. She

just picked an easy target and didn’t let up. It was the expected thing to do

and to be. If you were popular, you were generally also mean. That’s how

most books and movies made it seem. She was just following suit. She was

at the top of the food chain, and to get there, you had to crush your way up

without mercy.

The wind whipped past Arabella and she walked faster. Her hands were

frozen since she’d also forgotten her mitts. She stuffed them into her

pockets and felt her annoyance rise at ha

ving to walk all the way back out

here.

Closer to the bleachers, she heard a soft hum, then ragged breaths and the

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