Saint (Angelview Academy #1) - E.M. Snow Page 0,19
of a response—before I can think at all—he steps away from me, unraveling his fingers from my hair. Without a word or a backwards glance, he turns and walks down the hall and away from me. I watch him go, helpless to do anything else but stare at his retreating back.
6
My days fall into a regular pattern of taunts and abuse. The hope I’d had that everything would die down dwindles as the weeks pass and there’s no relief from my torment. I’m teased and bullied every day, and while Laurel and her minions are my main antagonists, I get called names by total strangers as I’m going to and from class, mocked about my accent, and told to go home constantly. The harassment doesn’t stop with the verbal abuse, however.
Oh, no. My classmates get much more creative than that.
The Friday of the first week of classes, I come back to my dorm to find HOEBILLY SLUT painted in red on my door, with opened condoms taped all around it. Luckily, they’re unused.
The Monday of the second week, someone trips me in the dining hall, and I go tumbling to the floor, my plate of roast beef and potatoes splattering everywhere. That shit earns me a round of applause and the nickname “Beef Curtain” from a few artistically challenged sophomores who are obsessed with Saint and crew.
That Wednesday, I get shoved into a utility closet and have to wait until a janitor comes along to let me out.
Saturday, I wake up to find bags of trash dumped outside my dorm room with—surprise, surprise—more condoms and feminine hygiene products.
This time, I’m not so fortunate in the used versus unused department.
If it weren’t for Alondra and her friend Henry, I don’t think I’d be able to bear the abuse. Loni proves herself a truly good person, though. She eats just about every meal with me, and even started walking with me to some of my classes. She’s like a human shield, willingly putting herself between me and the bullshit flying my way.
Henry turns out to be a pretty decent guy, too.
He’s kind of quiet and doesn’t say too much about himself. He’s good-looking enough that I think he should be among the popular group, namely Saint and those he deems worthy, but he tells me that he hates those guys’ fucking guts. He won’t tell me why, and I can’t get the reason out of Alondra either.
She’s surprisingly tight-lipped when it comes to Henry, which makes her even more of a badass in my eyes.
The girl is fiercely loyal.
At the end of my second week of hell, the three of us are sitting out in the courtyard, soaking up what we can of the late summer sun before the chill of fall sets in. Friday afternoons are quiet on campus, I’ve found. A ton of our classmates have beach houses nearby—or at least their families do—that they flee to over the weekends for wild parties that I’ll probably never be invited to.
Not that I’d have any interest in attending because who knew what fresh torture awaited me off-campus. Instead, I revel in the peace I find on the weekends, when my tormentors are too busy living their fabulous lives to give two shits about me.
“You sticking around this weekend, Loni?” Henry asks from where he’s spread out on his back in the grass. He tilts his head to look at her but doesn’t bother to ask me the same question. I don’t mind, though. It’s not a secret that I have nowhere else to go.
Squinting over at him, she shakes her head. “Nope. I figure I’d stay here and force Mal to study with me.” She turns her head slightly, casting me a pleading look. “I’ll beg if I have to. My dad’ll kill me if I bring home anything less than a B.”
Swallowing hard, I nod.
I love her. I truly do. At first, I was afraid that she’d be putting herself at risk of similar treatment by associating with me, but to my surprise, her popularity hasn’t appeared to have taken a hit. People still seek her out to gush about her dad, and she still gets invited to hang out with the other popular kids, even though she never accepts.
“Yeah, I’m probably staying on campus too,” Henry says with a nod. “Not that I’m getting a lot of invites lately to the Douche Squad’s orgies.”
While I’m almost certain he’s joking, I can’t help but blurt out, “Orgies? Really?”