They even made a meme with my picture, which said: “We don’t need Batman, we have Sarah Decker.”
Strangely, almost all the bullying had stopped. Even Masen and Blake didn’t bully me anymore. They didn’t like me or treat me nicely, but at least they didn’t go out of their way to make my life miserable. I didn’t have the title of the lamest East Willow High student anymore; Josh and Natalie did.
They were still behind the bars, thankfully, and awaiting their trials. Natalie had gone the extra mile to keep her rich, fashionable appearance at school, but she didn’t come from a wealthy family. Her parents worked as teachers in an elementary school, so they couldn’t find the money to bail Natalie out.
Josh’s parents were rich and could easily pay for his release, but his father had refused to do so. He was a judge who had aspirations to be on the Supreme Court, so letting Josh roam freely after what he’d done, especially considering his history of violence, was unacceptable in his eyes. He publicly said his son was to remain in custody for the sake of justice.
He was a hypocrite. He’d used his connections in the police to help Josh when I reported him for punching me two years ago, but I had to admit I was glad the irony of life worked to my advantage this time.
I halted mid-step, yanked out of my thoughts when I noticed a crowd gathered around my locker. They were pointing at it and taking pictures.
Chills rolled down my spine. What now?
They stepped aside when they saw me, allowing me to see what had attracted their attention, and my throat closed on itself. A word written in black was spray-painted across my locker, mocking me. My vision blurred as a throbbing sensation formed in my head.
It was the same word Hayden used to insult me on Saturday night—Slut.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds so I could stop the tears and reach my locker. I ignored their laughter as I rummaged through my stuff for the things I’d need for English.
So, Hayden had decided I was "worthy" of bullying again. I shut my eyes and inhaled a deep breath, overcome with pain. It was ridiculously easy for him to affect like this.
I rested my forehead against the upper locker shelf and took more deep breaths to calm myself down, but the old hurt spread through me fast, heightened by my longing for him.
I was obsessing over Hayden once more, unsure whether our exchange in Melissa’s house was the trigger that made him decide to torture me again—
Pain exploded in the back of my head when someone hit me with my locker door. The collision smashed my forehead into the solid shelf, and I yelped out in pain.
I gasped for breath as I turned to face the person who did this. “What are you—” My protest died on my lips when I met Christine’s hostile green eyes.
She faked the worry on her face and put on an act. “I’m sooo sorry. Did I hurt you? I didn’t see you. I hope you’re okay,” she said in a sugary voice. I had no idea why she bothered to make it look like she didn’t do it on purpose. It wasn’t like anyone would snitch on her.
Her eyes zeroed in on my forehead just as I felt something trickle over my left eyebrow. I pushed my bangs aside and touched that spot, finding blood on my fingers.
“Are you crazy?!” I bit out in a trembling voice.
Students around us kept staring at me, giving rise to the upsetting chatter in my head that haunted me, always there to remind me I was nobody and deserved nothing but pain and shame.
I touched the throbbing spot on the back of my head. I sensed a lump, but luckily there was no blood. I curled my hands into fists. “You’re horrible,” I told her.
She got into my face. “You deserve much worse, slut,” she whispered so only I could hear her. The word “slut” echoed through my mind, twisting my stomach into knots. “Today, it was just a small scrape on your forehead and a vandalized locker. Who knows what I could do tomorrow?”
My eyes widened when her words sunk in. “It was you. You wrote this on my locker.”
She smirked. “You better keep your eyes on your boyfriend, slut, or the next time you’ll need much more than a Band-Aid when I’m done with you.”
She spun around and walked away, leaving those awful words to hang perilously between us.
CHRISTINE AND HER CRONIES hadn’t stopped bullying me, and it would get physical from time to time. I had a rude awakening when she turned her back on me two years ago, when I found out my ex-friend was a liar, manipulator, and top class bitch. She’d never been a real friend, but after Kayden’s death, she stopped concealing her hate. It got worse when Natalie went to jail and the whole school started speculating about the nature of my relationship with Hayden.
Hayden and she had had an on-off relationship. They switched partners often but kept returning to each other for some reason. However, several days after that transpired between Hayden and me in the hospital, news that he told her in the cafeteria he was done with her for good spread through East Willow High like wildfire.
He’d been with various girls since then until that redhead, Maya, and I had no idea if she was something temporary or not. What if he’d already found the right one for him?
Once again, my selfishness kicked in, sparking more anger because I was an awful person for being so indecisive about my feelings. So what if she’s the right girl for him, Sarah? He deserves to be happy.
There was something I couldn’t get my head around, though. Why did Christine write the word “slut” on my locker and said to keep my eyes on Mateo? Hayden could’ve mentioned to her our conversation in Melissa’s house, but then again, why would he? They weren’t close anymore. There had to be some other explanation.
I pushed these thoughts aside and headed to English, holding a tissue against my wound to stop the bleeding. I was glad I had an excuse to skip first period. I needed to clean the wound, so I planned to ask Ms. Dawson for permission to go to the nurse.
I tensed when I entered the classroom, expecting to see Hayden in his seat at the back, but he wasn’t there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d decided to skip this class again; he skipped almost all the classes we had together. Jessica stood up when she saw me, scrunching her eyebrows in a deep frown.
“Sar, you’re bleeding! What happened?”
“I had a rendezvous with my locker.”
“What?”
“Apparently, Christine is a vampire because she enjoys seeing me bleed,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood, but the truth was that I felt miserable. When would Christine stop? “She hit me with my locker door.”
She grimaced and caught my hand. “That’s awful. Was it because of Hayden?” I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t want to talk about Hayden or Christine’s jealousy. “You should go to the nurse.”
Ms. Dawson and the remaining students in the hallway entered the classroom, with no Hayden in sight. I promised Jessica I’d tell her all the details during lunch and asked Ms. Dawson to let me see the nurse, impatient to escape all inquisitive stares directed at my forehead.
As if the locker incident weren’t enough for her, Christine continued to bully me in the third period, Spanish. She and her friends made a song about me in Spanish called “La puta estúpida,” which they wrote in chalk on my desk. They even chanted it a couple of times before our teacher, Ms. Holt, arrived, and I couldn’t do anything to make them stop.