MADDIE
Curled up into a tight ball underneath my blankets, I stared emptily at some anime playing on my TV screen. My phone lay in my lap, the screen lighting up with about a hundred notifications from social media.
And I wasn’t exaggerating.
Since the last time I had been on Instagram, which was half an hour ago, my social media tab on my iPhone had had ninety-eight notifications. Ninety-freaking-eight notifications from Sandra, Tiffany, and about every other girl at Redwood.
I pulled my gaze away from the TV and looked down at my phone with tears in my eyes, finally succumbing to the pressure. Unable to stop myself, I tapped on one of the Instagram notifications, where a girl I didn’t even know had tagged me in a porn star’s post.
There were fifteen comments from fifteen bitches at Redwood, all tagging me and gossiping about how slutty I must’ve been to snag Alec Wolfe because Alec didn’t go for girls like me. He went for those like Sandra, who threw themselves at him every chance they got.
My phone vibrated, jolting me out of my teary-eyed trance.
Quickly, I pushed her notification away and continued to scroll through the hundreds of negative comments. I just wanted to wallow in my own self-pity and disappear so I wouldn’t have to go back and face everyone at Redwood, even the teachers.
They were just as bad as the students and spread gossip to people who didn’t even go to Redwood Academy and didn’t even know Alec and me.
Tears streamed down my face, and I held back a hiccup behind my hand. The comments got worse and worse as I scrolled, calling me an easy slut, a Redwood whore, asking me how much it’d cost for a night.
Everything.
Deciding that it wasn’t worth it, I clicked on Vera’s messages and stared at them. I didn’t know what to say to my own best friend. This was my worst fucking fear. This shit was happening for a second time. After Spencer …
Spencer had fucking destroyed me. He had done the same thing, but on purpose. And while Alec hadn’t done anything, it still hurt. Whoever had hacked into his social media knew that this would put me in a world full of pain.
It wasn’t only that, but now, I was dealing with this chick messaging me constantly about Alec being hers. Not many people had my number, only my close friends and a couple of people who I’d had to do school projects with in class.
I had to find a way to figure this out. I needed to do something.
I didn’t know if I could deal with any more negativity.
And almost as if my life couldn’t get any worse, my phone buzzed in my hand, and Oliver’s name flashed on the screen.
With anger rushing through me, I hurled my phone to the other side of the room, watched it smack against the wall, then fall to the floor with a thud. I pulled my blankets over my head and sank down into the mattress, screaming into my pillow.
This wasn’t my fault, but Redwood would blame me.
Because if Oliver had detention, then Alec probably did too.
Alec and Oliver were Redwood’s two strongest hockey players. Our team would collapse without them in the next game. All chances of going to the playoffs would go straight out the door. If I thought people talking shit about me now was bad, it was about to get so much fucking worse.
“Why?” I cried out and stared up at the ceiling through teary eyes.
I didn’t even believe in a god, definitely not one who had created this shitty town, but why was this happening?! To me? I had tried to do everything right in my life, tried to stay out of the drama. But I fucking hated Redwood with a passion now.
I wanted it to burn.
Someone banged on the front door, jerking me out of my furious trance.
I glared at my bedroom door and hoped that they would go away. But it was probably Alec or Vera, who might have skipped school after I didn’t respond to her, or even Oliver, who might have lost his house key again.
The knock came again, and I trudged out of bed and toward my front door with my blankets cocooned around my body. After pushing away my tears, I blew out a deep breath, pulled open the door, and stared wide-eyed into the heartless eyes of Spencer Katz.