If, right now, I said Ashleigh Landen was cool, it would make her cool. If I did nothing, she would most likely be sentenced to Freak-ville where she might stay for the remainder of her high-school life.
Because Ash didn’t have a filter. She didn’t know how to suppress feelings or pretend to be happy when she was sad. Or fine when she was hurt, like now. The princess in the castle hadn’t learned to put up walls against the people who might want to tear her down.
She was a fucking baby who had just been dropped into a tank of sharks.
“Fuck it,” I muttered under my breath. I walked over to where two sophomore girls, whose names I didn’t know, were giving her a hard time.
“Are you trying to be an asshole by wearing Jimmy Choos to school? Do you think you’re impressing us?” one of the girls asked.
“No,” Ash said. “I just…these are my shoes.”
The other girl snorted. “Right. And those diamond studs are just earrings. People around this school have money, too. They just don’t go around shoving it in everyone’s faces.”
Ashleigh shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do that at all.”
“Hey,” I said. Ash looked up at me like she always did. Like I was a hero, a God, her only friend in the world…when I was none of those things. Why did she always have to look at me like that?
“Marc,” she said quietly. Almost reverently.
I looked at the two girls, who definitely knew me. I was that guy in this school. “Ash is new. Maybe try to get to know her before you verbally slash her up.”
“And you,” I said to Ash. “I told you not to try too hard. You didn’t listen.”
That was it. That was all I had time for. I turned my back on the three of them and left to go to class. It would work or it wouldn’t, but I didn’t care.
Because Ashleigh Landen was not my problem.
4
Homecoming Dance
Ashleigh
The first time I found out about Marc’s girlfriend was at the Homecoming Dance. It was my first school dance ever. I spent money, but not too much, on my hair to smooth out my wispy, blond curls. On my dress. On my makeup. My father had hired a stylist of all things, which I didn’t think I needed, but in the end it worked.
I was average height, still thinner than most girls, but I looked the best I had ever looked in a black dress that, while it didn’t scream sex, hinted at it a little. Which, at fifteen, was okay.
Nothing was ridiculously designer—because I’d learned the hard way that girls didn’t like that—but before I left the house I’d thought, for the first time, I could see what I might look like someday. Big blue eyes, straight blond hair…I wasn’t ugly.
And I wasn’t stupid. I’d been sheltered from kids my own age my whole life, but I was quickly learning the dynamics of teenage life in high school. I knew which cliques of girls to avoid. Which cliques of girls would be more welcoming because they were a little nerdy like me.
I knew which groups of boys were starting to look at me.
The first few months hadn’t been easy, but day by day, I’d started to figure out that the easiest way to fit in, was simply not to stand out. I didn’t raise my hand in class. I never again wore jewelry or expensive clothes to school. I made George drop me off a block before the school so they wouldn’t see the Tesla he sometimes drove, another one of my father’s cars.
Now things were getting easier. Maybe because Marc had stepped in that first day and announced to Shelly and Kayla I was cool. Or maybe Shelly and Kayla realized I wasn’t the freak they thought I was. Just a little desperate to fit in.
They weren’t my friends. I still hadn’t managed to navigate that particular minefield of breaking into the cliques of friends who had known each other since elementary school, but I wasn’t picked on or ostracized.
Like now, I was sitting at a table with some sophomore girls from my French class, and, every once in a while, they would include me in the conversation. I was about to gossip with them about Mr. Archer, who we all suspected had the hots for our French teacher Ms. Nalley, when the announcement came that the Homecoming Court had arrived.
Each year was represented, and when Marc walked in with Kaitlin Archer on his arm, I thought how convenient it was that the hottest guy at school would be paired up with the most beautiful girl as his Homecoming Queen.
Kaitlin was tall and had long, wavy, dark hair. She exuded sex in her strapless gown with the long slit up the side of her leg. I thought she was a little pushy when she led Marc to the center of the gym and made him dance with her, but this was all just for show.
It wasn’t real. The King and the Queen were voted on by the student body. It’s not like they were actually…
“Holy shit,” Samantha from my French class said, even as she covered her mouth with her hand. “They are so freaking hot as a couple.”
A couple.
I could see this now, because Marc was kissing her. Nothing gross. No tongue. Just casual kisses on Kaitlin’s lips like it was something he was used to doing. My stomach dropped, and for a second, I wondered if I wasn’t going to get sick.
I made myself watch them.
Of course he had a girlfriend. While Marc hadn’t ever really talked about his reputation at school, I’d learned fast enough he was more than just the captain of the soccer team. He was popular. Obviously, he was also super hot. Those two things alone guaranteed he would always have a girlfriend when he wanted one.
Why not the sexiest girl in his class?
It bothered me, but it should have been expected. It’s just that he never said anything about her. He’d never once mentioned Kaitlin in any conversation, which seemed like a really big deal.
Because it was the one nosy question you never asked. The one thing you never wanted to know.
She didn’t go to his soccer games. I knew that. I would have seen her there, which meant, in my mind, she wasn’t the best girlfriend he could have.
After watching them for a while, accepting what I was seeing, I made my way quietly out of the gym. There were plenty of places to get lost in this school, and my plan was to find one, bide my time until the dance ended, and I could go home.
Marc
I flushed the urinal and tucked my dick back into my pants. I turned to wash my hands and nodded to a freshman who was at the sink next to me, looking at me like Ash sometimes did. Like I was a god. If it had been Ashleigh, I would have told her to cut it out.
Made sure she knew I wasn’t the hero she thought I was. Proved her adoration was misplaced.
This kid, I just ignored. I dried my hands and stepped out of the bathroom, prepared to go to the gym and collect Kaitlin. She had a curfew, which meant she only had an hour left. George had given me the keys to the Lexus tonight, and I didn’t want to waste a second of getting some backseat action.
Not that Kaitlin went all the way. She was a virgin and holding onto it for reasons I didn’t get, but she would, at least, give me a hand job, and sometimes if I made her come with my fingers, she would lick my dick a little.
I liked Kaitlin enough. She was cool and funny. We both had the same goals. I think the whole sex thing was more about an irrational fear that, even with a condom, she might get pregnant and trash her whole life plan. She wanted to be a lawyer.