A Bookworm's Guide to Surviving Bad Boys & Bullies (ONC 2024)

#Rule 0- Hiding Away Always Works

"I'm gonna go back to my room," I said, getting up from the dining table. 

I was already finished with my dinner, while my sister, Sydney, was still only half-way through. Ambrose, my cousin, had long left the table to watch a football game on TV.

Aunt Madeline, who was eating at a pace similar to Sydney's, nodded, "Check if you have everything set for your first day, tomorrow, okay? Take out your clothes right away instead of waiting till the last moment in the morning. You don't want to be late-"

"Yes, Aunty." I replied, saluting her. She had given this speech a dozen times today.

She was more nervous for Ambrose and I than we were for ourselves, which was saying something considering neither of us was floating through high school with no care in the world.

We all had our demons and our fights, after all.

Mine were the mean kids being led by the meanest couple in the existence of meanness. (Yeah. They were that bad.) Ambrose was struggling against the same kids, too. Sydney, on the other hand, was having her own troubles with her boyfriend, now that she was following into Paris' footsteps and going away to study computer science at college.

Maybe, we weren't all on the same level then.

Sydney pleaded for me to stay behind, with her big puppy eyes, but I slipped out to my room.

Sorry, Syd. I would have waited but Naomi is calling!

Naomi was the main protagonist of the book I had recently been inhaling. At least that is what Ambrose liked to call my reading habits.

"You don't read those books, LD," he often remarked, "You inhale them. Nobody reads as fast as you do. I wish I could read a hundred pages in an hour."

So, maybe I liked reading to the point that it had become an addiction.

There were way worse addictions to have.

A notification pinged on my phone before I reached my room, and I opened the mobile to check it.

@ Astrid_love12 just posted.

Once upon a time, Astrid Carrie had been my best friend. She would come over to our house for a sleepover every other week, claiming that she needed her weekly dose of LD (Her father had almost went into a cardiac arrest when he first heard my nickname being used in such a manner. Now that was an addiction we could worry over) She had listened to all the advice Paris, my eldest sister, offered, whether about boys, or about breezing through school at the top of the social pyramid.

Clearly one of us had listened carefully, and the other had been too busy painting her aunt's Chuck Taylors a new colour.

Aunt Madeline had given those one-of-a-kind shoes to me in return of my services. I think the multiple skulls hadn't gone over too well.

Today, Astrid, in all her 5'7 blonde glory, had posted a picture with Caleb Stone, her boyfriend, and my worst tormentor.

If there was a random frog jumping around in my bag, Caleb put it there. If my assignments or books randomly vanished from my locker (I triple checked the locks every time, trust me), Caleb took them out. If a new nickname about me was running circles online, Caleb had started it. If I found myself to be the sole target in a food fight in the cafeteria, Caleb decreed for it to be so.

Everything that could possibly be going wrong in my life could somehow be traced back to him.

I can tell you the exact day when he became a total bitch to me.