Chapter 1
*October, One Year Earlier*
‘God Sophia, get your fat arse out of the way’, someone behind me cursed at the back of my head. Once again, my day at Valley High was following the same trend. The usual stream of insults, pushes and sniggers swarmed around me, each leaving their own individual mark on my mind. I just continued to walk through the crowds to my next lesson, making them all think that their words meant nothing, when really I couldn't wait to get home and cry it all away. I was so stupid, in a way, I had brought this all on myself: I stood up to the one girl that no one does. Some would call her the ‘queen bee’, perfect in every normalitive sense of the word, and now intent on her goal of permanently harassing me. The constant bullying shadowed me for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week- hell sometimes it even followed me into the weekend.
I arrived at my next class just as the bell rang and sat in my usual seat. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet, so I suck my headphones in and listened to some music to pass the time
Over the blaring in my ears, I could just hear Queen Bee begin with her first insult of the lesson ‘Oh, look what the cat dragged in’. Flicking her hair over her shoulder and hanging off her boyfriend's arm- Daniel head of the football team- she caught my eye and gave me a sickly sweet smile.
Then Daniel shocked me saying the one thing I never thought I would hear from one of the in crowd ‘Leave her alone Tiff babe, she is just minding her own business’. Tiffany’s eyes narrowed slightly and I could see already that I was going to pay for his comment later, my stupid brother. He never cared before, in fact, he went out of his way to make sure no one knew I was his twin. He made me take our mothers last name, whilst he took our father's; he even joined in the torrent of abuse from time to time.
‘Sure Babe your right,’ she sang in her annoyingly high, sugar coated voice, dragging him off to their seats at the back, and practically eating his face.
‘Miss Taylor, Mr Carrington! Is it strictly necessary for you to be doing that in my class?’ Mrs Poppy exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the two.
‘No Miss’
‘Sorry Miss’
‘Well, I’m afraid it’s too late, detention after school for both of you. I will not have R-rated action taking place in this classroom!’ Mrs Poppy said with a smile. She was one of my favourite teachers here, she knew how to teach us well, but still make it fun- unlike other teachers who droned on for hours talking pointless drivel.
‘But Miss,’ Tiffany spoke up in an even higher voice, making me wonder if that was physically possible. ‘I have cheer practice after school; I have to be there!’
‘No buts Miss Taylor! You will be there eventually, you shall just have to explain to your team that you’re late because you couldn’t control your raging hormones in my class,’ Miss said with another innocent smile- another reason I liked Mrs Poppy: she didn't just back down at Tiffany’s order, she held strong.
With that, Tiffany quieted down with a hmph, mumbling something about Miss being a bitch under her breath.
After that, the day went pretty smoothly. We had our exams coming up in a few weeks, meaning most of our lessons where just revision or last minute additions.
At lunch registration, I got a message from Mrs Poppy asking me to attend her class room after school, which I was not looking forward to as I knew that they were going to be there. When the final bell rang, I headed over to Mrs Poppy's classroom in the maths corridor, knocking on the door but recieving no reply- I decided to go in and wait there anyway. When I entered, I noticed Tiffany sitting in the front row filling her nails, she looked up as I walked in and snaked her way over to me.
