Page 1 of Conner's Luna

1 - I Hope It’s Gatorade

Bailey

Today will be a good day.

My right foot catches on the linoleum, scuffing a little as a trip but catch myself. My Molecular Biology Today textbook tilts crazily to the left, but I catch it, barely. It takes me a minute to right it back in my arms. The six-hundred-page behemoth weighs precisely 5 pounds 3.1 ounces and doesn't fit in my small backpack. I consider it a minor miracle that I caught it.

Today will be a good day.

Maybe, if I say it over and over again it will come true, so... today will be a good day.

"Bailey," the sneering voice breaks all my self-determined Zen apart into a thousand filament pieces. I look up into dark blue eyes glaring out of a face that would make angels sing. (If angels existed, which is statistically about 67% possible.)

"Trey," I greet him with as much coolness as I can summon, but I feel like it's more of a wary nervousness. The statistical probability of a girl with a genius I.Q. getting bullied in college? Low. Especially when you consider that I wasn't bullied in high school. That was also a low probability, truthfully.

"What are you thinking about?" Trey asks me.

"Statistical probabilities," I blurt out without thinking. Wow, Bailey. Geniuses should have better brain-to-mouth control than I do. It's OK. As long as I don't push my glasses up on the bridge of my nose, I win. Not that Trey will see it as a victory for me.

That's confirmed when he laughs derisively, "you're such an ugly little freak, you know that, right?"

I hold in the wince. I'm not sure what I ever did to this guy. He's hated me with a passion right from the second he laid eyes on me when I started school two months ago. Heck, I know I'm notthatmuch of a freak. I'm a genius, but I lack the social ineptitude that often accompanies higher levels of intelligence. Nor am I that ugly, although I guess I can't hold a candle to the beautiful, dark-haired girl rushing over to grab his arm and pull him away.

"Trey," Lydia simpers, batting huge green eyes at him, "don't be mean."

I don't pull out her perfectly sleek dark hair. I bet it's soft, too. Internally, I straighten my spine. My hair may be corkscrew curls that cannot be tamed by any over-the-counter product in existence, thanks to a Puerto Rican father and an Irish mother, but you know what? Different is beautiful.

Trey smiles at Lydia softly, letting her pull him down the hall towards class. One more shoulder bump from one of Trey's friends and the hallways clear out enough to let me get to my own class. Thank goodness. My heart is frozen in my chest, and it takes a moment to thaw, but at last I can move again.

It's going to be a good day, I remind myself. If I just don't react to the bullying they'll stop. I've never been bullied before, so my experience is a little limited, I'll admit, but surely, they'll get bored with torturing the smart girl, right? I mean, we can all vote, for Pete's sake. Bullies are passé.

I wish I were still home in Durham. I really do, but when mom finally succumbed to cancer, Dad and I just wanted a fresh start. He quit his job to take care of her and sold our house to help pay the bills, and it was easy enough to move out of our rental. I could have (read,shouldhave) gone to MIT, but C State has excellent programs for the sciences and it's just my bachelor's. I wanted to live with my dad for another year. I'm all he has left. We're all each other have left.

Besides that, the CH Academic Merit Scholarship is a full ride with an additional stipend that MIT can't match and the labs here are to die for. Yup, I made a good decision. I won't disrupt Dad's new life by telling him I hate it here. He has enough on his shoulders with the long hours he's working at a new job and the grief we both still feel because of mom.

I sit in the front of the class and open my laptop. It's password-protected, twice. A necessity when you consider that this is the third one the university has given me since September. They have replaced it each time without even asking why, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop in the form of a big, fat bill in the mail.

Class is easy. Academics always are. What's not always easy is sitting in class with people who are three or four years older than me. I stick out like a sore thumb. No one wants to talk to me, either. At first, they did, but once Trey and his minions started bullying me, I started to get treated like a leper.

After class, I head out to the parking lot. My next class doesn't start until three. I open the door to my car gingerly. I've stuck my hand in something sticky or gross too many times to count since coming to State. Something is dripping down the door, but it missed the door handle. It looks like urine, but I don't smell anything, so it's probably something else. Gatorade, I hope.

For a moment, my shoulders slump. I'm just so...tired. I feel like life is just kicking me down over and over. I want to go home, crawl into my bed that still doesn't feel like mine, and sleep until the year is over and Trey and Lydia graduate.

Buck up, buttercup. I can do this. I should purchase a carwash membership. The university is surrounded by wealthy people. They most likely wash their fancy BMWs every other day. Trey does. Not that I pay attention to his gorgeous car or think about how much money it cost or calculate the safety ratings when I watch him gun it out of the parking lots at school.

Sigh. Get a life, Bailey.

I lift the handle to my perfectly-serviceable Nissan and pull the door. It doesn't budge. The huge body that leans on it is preventing any movement. I look up... and up... and up.

I'm dead. I think Trey is intimidating, but this guy... holy moly, he is fear incarnate. Taller than Trey, more muscular, dark hair, scary green eyes. Should green eyes ever be this scary? Green is such a nice color. He's handsome too.Reallygood-looking but looks rung-out and edgy. Dark circles are under his eyes. His face is a touch too pale, as if normally he's tan, but hasn't seen the sun in a few weeks. He is muscled, and not in a lean way. He looks like in a few years he could lift a car over his head, easily. His skin is a touch too dry and papery. He looks, honestly, like a strung-out WWE wrestler.

I know him even though I don't know him. Conner Grim. The guy who got into a physical altercation with Trey and a subsequent shouting match with Lydia yesterday. The dude who isactuallycrazy. And he's here. At my car.

I offer a tentative smile and inch away. Maybe I can dash around to the other side and get in through the passenger side. Then I can pray he doesn't just smash through the window like a rabid grizzly.

"So, you're the little girl who has that motherfucker all bent out of shape."

I freeze. He is so close; I can smell the stale cigarettes and beer on him. Beer... and it's nine-forty-five in the morning. On a Tuesday. He says nothing else, just stands and stares, the muscle in his jaw ticking as if he is barely controlling himself from lashing out... at me.

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