Chapter 10: TAMMY

I stood in stark fear as they circled around me again and again, shouting their taunts at me.

This was nothing new, I had grown accustomed to this treatment at their hands in the last school year, and it didn't look like anything had changed for the new one.

My best friend Belle stood off to the side, not able to do anything to help because I'd made her promise not to get involved.

I knew it was hard for her to watch, but I didn't want her to come under attack as well.

She was spared the worst of their antagonism by some miracle, but me, for whatever reasons they hated me and has been singling me out for their special brand of torture.

I'd hidden out all day like a ninny, not wanting to draw their ire. After showing up I'd hidden away in the musty old music room after picking up most of the year's assignment sheets.

I knew that today was going to be hard; the new guy was coming. As if I'd have any interest in him. But past experience had taught me that I would be at the receiving end of whatever viciousness they chose to dole out and I had been trying to avoid that.

Now it seemed I'd hidden away for nothing, because just when I'd thought I was safe, they pounced.

I thought I'd timed it so well too, they were supposed to be at practice for at least another half hour.

I'd stupidly wasted time heading down to the counselor's office trying to catch him before he left for the day.

I had to go over the list of students I'd be tutoring this semester. I'd been so excited too when I'd left the office, and now this.

There was no rhyme or reason to their meanness. I wasn't a nerd or fat or ugly or any of the other things you heard used as excuses for bullying.

I wasn't the most beautiful girl in school, not by a long shot, but I wasn't exactly chop liver either.

I was bright yes, probably the brightest person in the whole school, as was witnessed by my many honors and trophies that had been collected over the years.

But I didn't flaunt it or anything, and since when was it a sin to be smart?

They never gave a reason for their hatred of me, just one day out of nowhere the attacks had started, and though no one had actually hit me as yet, I was afraid it was only a matter of time before it got to that point.

I hadn't shared my personal hell with my parents because I didn't want to make waves, but if this kept up I was going to have to do something.

"Look at her; are those clothes from the thrift shop? They're like last year's cast offs or something. I think that use to be my shirt." Mandy Taylor jeered at me as her friends joined in the laughter.

I tried once again to get through the circle but they closed in on me. Liz Summers, who seemed to be the ringleader today, stepped forward and I felt today was the day that things would escalate; there was such venom in her face, but why?

What had I ever done to her? She was one of the most popular girls in school, a member of the cheerleading squad, and she dated the hottest guy in school; well to me anyway, though most people thought Jace was number one.

The thought of Shane Dumas made me blush even now. He was my guilty little secret, the one thing that made coming here a pleasure, even though he didn't know that I existed.

I had almost had a heart attack when I was chosen to tutor him. And even though he'd had to cancel our first session, not even that could dampen my spirits.

But Liz had no reason for her animosity towards me, she had it all, she's blonde and blue eyed with a body that the guys were always drooling over.

She had the best clothes, the flashiest car, everything a young high school girl could ever want, but somehow she was not happy, and I was beginning to think more and more that her anger had something to do with me.

But wrack my brain as I might, I could never figure it out. We didn't move in the same circles, never had.

There has never been any falling out between us, just one day out of the blue she'd gone postal and had decided from that day to this that she was going to make it her life's mission to torment me.

"Hey what're you guys doing?"

I knew that voice, it gave me goose bumps and sent a tingling down my spine.

Oh please no, the last thing I needed was for him to see my humiliation or worse yet, to join in.

"Nothing honey, we were just having a little conversation."

She was all smiles and loveliness, nothing like the tyrant that had just been taunting me.

I used the opportunity to slip away without a word, just glad that things hadn't gone any farther.

I couldn't help one last look back though. Why is it that the heart falls for the wrong person?

I knew there was no way Shane would ever have any kind of feelings for me, why would he? He was dating one of the prettiest girls in school, and he too was from a well to do family.

They moved in the same circles, had the same friends. I was never going to be in their league. Not for the first time I bemoaned my mousy dishwater blonde hair and pale green eyes.

My five foot three frame wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything spectacular either.

When I look at him I can find nothing appealing in myself, I always come up short.