Chapter 1: Prologue

The captain of the football team pinned me with an arrogant stare, narrowed his gaze, and silently dared me to challenge him. "Lee, I see now why you've never bothered to nail Masyn." Alex snickered and high-fived Mark Holloway, the guy sitting next to him. "You'd be better off with a warm apple pie. There'd be more participation from the filling."

He wasn't really talking to me so much as running his mouth about my best friend. Alex had started dating Masyn at the end of our freshman year. They'd been hot and heavy all summer, and I'd listened to his shit in the locker room more times than I cared to admit, too afraid to speak up in her defense. Masyn Porter wasn't the girl he made her out to be to his buddies...or anyone else who'd listen to the filth he shared after practice. But just like everyone else who heard his pornographic tales, I didn't have the guts to call him out on any of it, even though I knew none of it had happened.

Everything about high school was a popularity contest none of us wanted to enter, yet we all longed to win. Making the varsity football team my sophomore year had taken me one step closer to the coveted spots at the top of that totem pole. Unfortunately, it also put me in a position to hear things I previously hadn't noticed.

I was one of two underclassmen who practiced and played varsity, and the pressure to fit in and be a part of the team was worse than any temptation I'd had to try drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. I'd spent the better part of two months biting my tongue and forcing my mouth shut, just to stay on the good side of people I didn't really give a shit about but who could make or break me in the social hierarchy at Harden High. Something I had never thought I'd care about until I stood the chance of losing my footing on the popularity ladder.

Alex Hartford ran the football team and the school. The star quarterback and All-American senior held the keys to everything good in high school. The teachers loved him, the girls all lusted after him, and every guy wanted to be him.

Except me.

I continued pushing food around on my cafeteria tray, hoping he'd shut up or move on to another topic. What I should have done was shove my fist into his mouth and then hand him his teeth and make him choke on them.

"You couldn't warm her up?" Mark hung onto Alex's side and tried to lick his face while the rest of the table laughed at the show the two put on.

I'd never prayed for lunch to end, but hearing that bell would put a cork in his mouth. I could have gotten up, I could have walked away, yet knowing how that would play into the drama already unfolding, I kept my head down and remained silent. Being on the receiving end of Alex's hatred wasn't a place any kid in this school hoped to land. We all kissed his ass so he'd keep from kicking ours-literally or metaphorically.

"Dude, hell couldn't warm that frigid pussy. It was like fucking an ice cube. I'm surprised my dick didn't get hypothermia." Alex's voice carried through the double doors and up the empty hallway with each crass word he uttered. It wouldn't surprise me if people in the next county overheard him. "She just laid there stiff as a board. If it weren't for all the hair on her head, I might not have been able to tell the difference between the two. The girl doesn't have a curve on her body."

"Maybe she hasn't hit puberty, yet." Someone farther down the table joined in with a chuckle. "At least you wouldn't have to worry about knockin' her up."

"I'm starting to wonder if she wasn't one of those babies whose parents had to decide whether she was a boy or a girl, and they made the wrong choice. What are they called? Hermaphrophobes?"

"Hermaphrodites, dumbass." Chad Connor had no problem correcting the term, but he didn't do anything more than I did to stop the conversation.

Alex pointed at Chad like a lightbulb had gone off in his head just hearing the two words Chad had said. "That would explain how she ended up with a name like Masyn. Her parents thought she was a boy, and the doctors said they got to pick. Since they already had three sons, they decided on a daughter."

"You slept with a chick who has a penis and a vagina?" Mark put his fist in front of his mouth like he'd just burned the varsity QB at his own game. Fist bumps and high fives flew around the table.

My jaw clenched, and I feared I might break a tooth.

"Nah, dude. Other than her not having any hair between her legs and looking like she's twelve, everything down there was normal. But most of you would fill out a bra better than she does."

"She must suck a mean dick for you to have spent six months chasing her around."

I no longer had a clue who said what, and I didn't know why I still sat in this seat not defending Masyn. I could call Alex out. I could tell every guy on the team sitting at this table that he'd never gotten past feeling her up. She'd never laid eyes on his dick, and he'd certainly never spent any time between her legs. In fact, her refusal to do any of it was the sole cause of their breakup, followed by his retaliation. The big man on campus had been dumped by a tomboy in the tenth grade, and now he was trying to save face.

"I'll give her that. She took me and my cousin Tim right before school started." Alex didn't even have a cousin named Tim. His mother and father were the only children on both sides. "My parents weren't home, and we rode the train all the way into town. She squealed like a pig. I'm surprised the neighbors didn't call the cops the way she screamed our names." They might have if it had actually happened.

The laughter and jokes at our table got increasingly louder as the rest of the cafeteria quieted down. Alex wasn't aware he had everyone's attention when he jumped on Mark's back and acted like he was fucking him from behind with his hand around the guy's neck and the other pulling his hair. He called out Masyn's name in the throes of his performance, and Mark took on her role in their acting duo, spouting every profanity he'd ever seen written on a bathroom stall.

If Alex hadn't been so caught up in making his teammates jealous by trying to make himself look good, he might have realized he had a captive audience. Every student with fifth-period lunch witnessed the act and knew who he mocked.

"You should have brought her to practice and let us all take a turn." The voices blended together with the hoots and hollers from the rest of the team.

"Shit, when I found out how many dudes she'd been with, I cut that whore loose."

"She can suck my dick any day."

"Wrap it before you tap it."

"I'm sure if you want some action, she'd be happy to dish it out. Just be prepared to do all the work. And you might want to fuck her from behind."

"I don't give a shit how flat-chested she is. If she wants some of Daddy, I'll let her bounce on my pogo stick."

"Mr. Hartford!" Principal O'Malley hollered from across the room, and everyone at our table went silent until Alex faced the administrator.

"Eww." There was a chorus of hushed murmurs, the other students acting scared for Alex.

"Yes, sir?" Alex returned with the voice he used to suck up to every adult in this school.

"My office. Now."

He grabbed his backpack and threw his lunch in the trash, and the rest of the table watched him go. The other students in the room resumed their conversations, and I took the opportunity to escape. But the second I stood and turned around, I met the decimated stare of Masyn Porter.

There, at a table that normally bustled with her friends, she sat with her hands in her lap, her shoulders rounded and her back curved in defeat, staring at me. Her eyes glittered with tears, and her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. Masyn's chin quivered as she fought against my betrayal.

The moment I saw her expression I knew, right then and there, that I'd sealed my fate with my best friend. I loved her, and I hadn't bothered to save her.