Conner's Game (Sample Only)

1 - I Hope It's Gatorade

Conner's Game is being published. Only the first five chapters are available on Wattpad!

Bailey

Today will be a good day.

My right foot catches on the linoleum, scuffing a little as a trip and 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 of 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 not that much 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, 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, should have) gone to MIT, but C State has really good 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.