Chapter 1

Sometimes I wonder if anyone should count high school a success. The people who hate those four years will spend the rest of their lives wishing they could change things. It's a tragedy some jocks, cheerleaders, and popular kids look back twenty years later and see the BEST time of their life. There's even something sad about the ones who never look back.

For two years, four months and seven days of my high school life, my destiny was to spend thousands of therapy dollars to let some stupid teenage shit go. Fortunately, fate had plans for me and no intentions of waiting for graduation.

"You, freshman!" a female voice yelled.

Not being a freshman, I kept looking for an isolated spot to have lunch. Truth be told, I could sit anywhere and the area would have cleared out. It was so obvious, sometimes I smelled myself to make sure it wasn't a body odor thing.

"His name is Mateo, Bailey."

I turned to stare at the cheerleader table. I could have called the cheer crowd, jocks, and popular kids the bane of my existence, but I was so far beneath their notice that being picked on was a step up.

Magdalena Ramos put a hand on Bailey Rose's shoulder, "He's in our year."

Bailey's blue eyes struggled to focus on me. "I don't know him."

I snorted before trying to find an empty lunch seat.

"Don't turn your back on me!" Bailey hissed.

It's fine to say getting picked on was a step up in the social ladder but I liked not having to eat shit. I turned to face the Queen of our school and her royal court, "What?"

Our town saw a population explosion around the same time of my birth. The high school seniors were outnumbered by every other class year. It gave Bailey the votes to be captain of the cheerleading team as a Junior. I wasn't the only outsider who found it amusing to watch the Senior girls tread carefully around her.

"My shoulder hurts," she told me. I ground my teeth together at the haughtiness in her voice. "Rub it for me."

The request was so completely ludicrous I froze. Bailey knew how crazy her words sounded because she waited for me to recover from the shock. I glanced at the six foot six massiveness of the basketball team captain, aka. Reggie, and more importantly, Bailey's boyfriend.

Or not?

He looked down at his food and shoved a forkful into his mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the Senior cheerleaders trying her damnedest NOT to be caught looking at Bailey, the six-six behemoth, or me.

"I got injured last year," Bailey told me. "It's acting up again and the only thing that helps is a massage."

I got it--'maybe' Bailey's shoulder hurt, 'maybe' she was exercising her power over the masses, but 'definitely' it had a lot more to do with how her boyfriend and the other cheerleader couldn't look at us. In that moment, I could have cut Bailey by walking away. She lost face from what had to be a straying boyfriend. To have her quasi-authority ignored by the high school nobody might have toppled her high school regime. On the other hand, Bailey could still make my life hell. The fact she pushed her cheer-sweater and bra strap off her shoulder while looking at me through her eyelashes had nothing to do with my capitulation.