Page 1 of My Best Friend's Bully

Chapter 1

Jordan Anderson

Tap,tap,tap,tapgoes my pen against the textbook. The words on the page are becoming fuzzy. I realize I need my reading glasses, but I’m reluctant to tear my eyes away from the page for fear I might lose my momentum. Everything is riding on this. My grades, my scholarship, my career. I can’t afford to lose focus.

“Hey, Einstein.”

I glance across the table at Cole, and the moment our eyes meet, he tosses a cashew at my face. It bounces squarely against my forehead. “Cole! What the hell?” I yelp.

He snickers, beaming that soft smile that is just as attentive as it was the day we first met. “You’re not going to get any smarter with your face buried in your book.” He holds up a bundle of flash cards. “Quiz time.”

I huff. “Five more minutes.”

“Nope.”

“Two.”

“Nah.”

“Thirty seconds.”

Cole tips his head to the side and mouths “no”.

I lean back in my chair and grunt, “Fine. Go ahead.”

“You know this stuff, Anders. Don’t get in your own head,” Cole says in his soft, steady voice while shuffling the flashcards. He spreads them out face down on the table between us and I stare them down like they’re about to swallow me.

I don’t remember the day Cole stopped calling me by my first name, but his nickname,Anders,feels endearing. It’s nice that he only uses it when we’re alone, so people don’t get the wrong idea.

“Ready?”

I gulp and nod my head in affirmation. “Okay. Go ahead.”

Cole picks a random card from the pile, his manicured fingernails glistening in the low lamplight glowing from the side table. “Describe the management ofBlepharitis.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and rattle off the answer by rote. “Warm compression, eyelid massage, antibiotics.”

“Ding, ding, ding!” Cole cries out and tosses the card into the beginning of a discard pile. “Okay, next question.”

He continues like this for about fifteen minutes. It’s a huge stack of cards, but the exam is huge too. I cannot downplay the importance of my Human Anatomy exam tomorrow afternoon. I need to pass it before I can move onto the practical medical training. Beyond merely reading and studying, this will be the actual hands-on portion of my education, the whole point of it all. One day, I’ll be a doctor. I’ll be able to show my parents how much their hard work paid off when I can help support them. And then I’ll be able to repay them for all they’ve ever done and still do for me.

Cole’s flash card quiz goes on for another half-hour. “Boo… Hiss,” he cries out, making a big show of it and throwing a cashew at my forehead when I get my first wrong answer.

“Hilarious Sherlock. I only missed one. Jeez. And next time, get it in my mouth.”

“Catch!” he shouts, tossing another cashew. This time I lose my balance and fall off the couch as I leap to catch it in my mouth. I roll to the floor, giggling. “Crappy aim, Cole. You’re such a tool.”

“What initial investigations are–Ah. So, you actually gottwowrong.” Cole stops short and tosses the card over his shoulder. “It’s about time. Now you’re ready.”

“What?! We’re not even a quarter of the way through the stack, and I already got those wrong.”

“Yeah, but it’s almost eight o’clock and I’m hungry. You’ve got to be hungry too, and the last thing you should be doing is to stay up all night cramming,” Cole sighs.

I feel my shoulders tighten. “But I need to be prepared.”

“You are. Right, Beastie?” he says in a coddling tone to his little brindle-coated French bulldog, who lies curled up in her bed on the other side of the room. Beastie shows no sign of interest in the conversation, but damn, she is cute. “See? She agrees. It’s dinner time,” Cole chuckles.

Beastie’s ears perk up at the words, and I can’t help but laugh as she hops out of her bed and scurries over to Cole to nip at his ankles.

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