Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

023. To Be Brave

A/N: I know I'm updating a lot, but my update schedule will be a little bumpy as the school year starts so I'm trying to update a lot more frequently now—that way you don't run out of content! Enjoy :)

023. To Be Brave

At Aquino High, there's only one first place.

I think about Taylor all that night and all the next morning as I'm getting ready for school. I can't help it. It's not that I'm missing him or wishing things between us had gone a different way—I'm genuinely worried about him. The emptiness in his eyes, the way his shoulders had slouched as he sat on the porch—I've never seen him that way before.

All my worries fade when I walk down the senior hallway Tuesday morning and see Brynn and Allison huddled together. When I get closer I see that they're both holding their palm tree necklaces.

"I thought you gave these back—" I start, but fall silent as soon as I see the charms. The palm trees are twisted and the gold is smashed; the tiny diamonds look like they've been pried out of the necklaces with a knife.

"He mutilated them," Brynn mutters, holding the necklace up to the light. "They were so beautiful."

Allison sneers. "That's how everything starts out with Taylor." Throwing her hair over her shoulder, she turns to me and says, "We found these taped to our lockers this morning. Classy of him, isn't it?"

I hold out my hand and she passes me her necklace. It falls limp in my palm, so ruined that I'm almost unable to recognize it. I hand it back to Allison, who says, "I'm just going to throw it out and forget about it. Are you going to calc class today?"

"No." Mrs. Rutledge told us yesterday that we'd be working on test corrections, and that anyone who didn't want to earn half points back could have free period instead. I'd only missed one question on my test, and the points I could get back wouldn't even boost my score, so I'd elected to work instead. I have an important project that I need to finish, anyway.

I gently tug the necklace from Brynn's grasp and give it to Allison to throw away. Then, hitching my backpack over my shoulder, I head down to the commons. All of this will end soon, I tell myself as I jog down the stairs, shouldering past students heading to class. You're going to make sure of that.

In the commons, I sit down on the couch in the back corner of the room before pulling out my laptop. Shoving my earbuds into my ears, I open the sound file Liam had sent from last Friday's meeting. Then I start snipping and sorting, biting down on my lip to try and keep back some of my anger. I'm glad that I've found an outlet for my fury, that I have something to work towards, but it makes me livid every time I have to listen to the recording.

Halfway through the period, I check the clock. Mr. Denham had called for a special all-school assembly right before lunch to discuss the last trimester at Aquino High as well as preparations for the end of the school year. I don't want to think about things like prom and graduation and college—all I can focus on is making it through this week. Frantically, I resume clicking and rearranging. I only have a few hours left to finish this.

My nerves continue to grow all through my next two classes. As I file behind Cassidy to the gym for the all-school assembly, I can't help but remember the last time I was in that room. Will I be rejected now just like I was then? What if nobody listens to me? What if they laugh at me? I can pretend all I want to be done with Aquino High's social pyramid, but I still want to be liked.

I sit at the front of the bleachers with the rest of the seniors, jiggling my knees in anticipation as I wait for the assembly to start. Liam sits down beside me last minute, leaning forward so his blonde curls brush my forehead. "Everything's ready," he says.