Love is Loud Enough to Stop Hate - Demi Lovato Spin-off Story - Book 3

Chapter 1: Stop the World

Chapter 1: Stop the World

We're livin' a lie, livin' a lie;

This needs to change

We're out of time,

We're out of time and it’s still the same

We can't stop the world,

But there's so much more that we could do

 

            My name is Maria Santiago. I first became popular in the seventh grade when I made the mistake of sitting in the wrong seat in math class. The school’s bully Zane was ready to kill me but his sister Anastasia saved me instead. It went from being a lonely first day to popular by second period. Anastasia introduced me to all her friends and I got noticed by the other popular group. I didn’t mean to leave Anastasia in the dust like I did. We’re still friends secretly, but what I didn’t know the first day was the Anastasia’s group of friends was really just her brother and the school bullies. They were even scarier at this school than my last one.

“Maria, are you okay?” my best friend Bethany asked me.

“Of course,” I smiled, “Just thinking.”

“About what?” she asked.

“How things have changed since I first moved here.”

She laughed, “Yeah you made the mistake of hanging out with the bullies. If there’s two things new students need to know it’s –“

“Never hang out with the bullies or losers,” I finished for her.

She smiled, “Exactly. Like that over there.”

            I looked over to where she was pointing and saw Kayla Dane. She was wearing jeans and a black hoodie with black boots. I remember having class with her and I have class with her again this year. For some reason the bullies pay special attention to her. She kept her head down with her long brown hair in her face as she walked into the school.

“What’s her deal?” I asked Bethany, “Why do they bully her so much?”

Bethany snorted a little. Something she always did right before she would say something really insulting. “Because Kayla’s weird. Always has been. There are rumors of all these horrible things she’s done on the weekends. Nobody’s even seen or been in her house. Then just look at her. She’s practically a stick and does absolutely nothing with her hair. It’s always filled with knots like she never brushes it. I don’t even think she owns anything besides that hoodie.”

“What if she’s really nice?” I said, “Maybe she doesn’t have a good home life. That’s really no reason to bully her.”

Bethany laughed, “Are you her friend now?”

I shook my head, “Of course not. I was just wondering.”

“Good, let’s go.”

I followed Bethany down the hallway to our first class and took a few more glances at Kayla. She was at her locker getting her books as Zane walked by and slapped them out of her hand. He said something into her ear before pushing her into the locker. She slammed her face into the side and I could see blood before she covered her face with her hands. I covered my face with my hands trying to hide my sadness and disgust at Zane before ducking into the classroom. I can’t imagine someone doing something so bad to make bullies like Zane do things like that to her every day. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not that bad.