“Sasha—”
“You broke us for him?” she shrieked. Had I not already known she was prone to theatrics for attention, I’d be sure of it now. She didn’t want anyone thinking I’d broken up with her, but to do so because of a guy? Crazy practically multiplied in her eyes like cells in a petri dish.
“Leave him alone,” Jack growled.
And then Sasha finally lost it.
Who knew when she’d grabbed the pen out of her notebook, but she screamed like a banshee giving a battle shout and lunged forward, fist raised, aiming at Jack. With reflexes I’d perfected on the football field, I grabbed Jack with one arm, tugging him solidly behind me, and took the brunt of her rage.
The pen stabbed into my chest with a piercing pain, followed by an immediate ache. Either blinded by whatever insanity had taken hold of her, or maybe she’d really wanted to hurt me to begin with, she reared back and struck again.
“I hate you! I hate you!” she screamed with each jab.
“Stop it! What the hell is wrong with you?” I yelled as I lifted my arms to block another hit.
At the same time, Jack darted around me, wrapping an arm around Sasha’s waist. “Get off him, you fucking psycho!” he shouted, tugging her backward.
Sasha cried out, nearly crumbling at the knees, and would’ve hit the floor if Jack wasn’t holding her. Students shouted and gasped. Stunned, I stood still for too long, trying to wrap my head around what had happened. She’d flipped out in front of everyone. They all saw it. They saw her hitting me. The abuse was in the open like a festering wound for the world to gape at, to laugh at.
“The fuck?” Blaine, one of the guys who’d played soccer with Jack on the fall league, rushed between us, startling me, and I flinched away. If he was coming to help her or me, I’d never know.
Ty jumped in, stopping Blaine, and then it was first of the year all over again. Guys came from every corner and around the shoulders of onlookers. Within a second, the hallway had become a madhouse of noise and jostling. Each added body forced Jack farther from me in the shuffle, and Sasha still had that fucking pen in her hand.
“Move. Back off,” I roared, shoving bodies this way and that as I muscled my way to him. “Jack!”
I busted free of the mob just as Sasha turned in Jack’s arms, scrambling and screeching at him. He stood with his back against the lockers. Everyone else had given them room, most likely to avoid Sasha’s kicking and flailing.
“I hate you! He’s mine!” she yelled.
One anger bled into another, and I refused to be her victim anymore or let her make one of anyone else. Before she could stab him with the pen, I trapped her in my arms.
“Calm down, Sasha. It’s over,” I said with each step away from Jack I took. The hallway was a mass of jumbled bodies, but Jack now stood alone, safe. With my focus on him, I relaxed my arms, and Sasha pulled free, stumbled, and fell on her ass.
And that was the first thing the faculty saw.
“What is going on here?” Principal Woodson bellowed from beside Trent Wright.
Students ran in all directions as if someone yelled “cops” at a party. Blaine helped a sobbing Sasha to her feet, and I hung my head.
Fucking perfect.
Thirty minutes later, I stood in the hall outside Woodson’s office. A dozen other guys, including Ty, had had their turn with the principal and then shuffled back to class while I waited. Fuck. It couldn’t be a worse punishment this time, could it? If it was, I had no idea what I’d do, but giving up and giving in werelooking like pretty good options. How was I to win when fate stacked everything against me?
“Mr. Winters, come in.” Woodson finally called me into his office, where Trent waited. “I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on the events earlier in corridor D,” he said, gesturing toward my chest while I took a seat. “Did you check in with the nurse?”
“No, sir, I came straight here.” I rubbed the spot Sasha had hit and winced. There wasn’t any blood on my shirt, but it hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Stop by her office,” Woodson said. “Trent and I spoke with the student witnesses, and we’re in agreement you didn’t start the confrontation.”
I sighed in relief.
“But we saw several videos from the students who recorded it on their phones, and youdidresort to violence durin’ the tussle.”
“What?” I snapped. Trent probably saw the whole fucking thing. No one cared that I was being bullied or that I was protecting another student. No, the bigger guycouldn’tbe the victim. Fuck that. Fuck this!
“Careful, Calvin,” Woodson warned.
“Is Sasha in trouble too?”
