“Keily,” Lucas, who was sitting right next to me, whispered.

I turned my head to look at him, and raised my brows to ask “what?” We were in calculus, and Mr. Penson, our teacher, was droning about differentiation of trigonometric functions in the front. After this, only one class was left before school ended.

It was my fifth day, and I had already made some good friends, Lucas being one of them. Being related to Addison had played a great part in that because never in my life I’d expect to be friends with such a popular group.

Lucas threw a note at my desk, and it landed right above the textbook. I picked it up and unfolded it. “We’re going ice cream parlor after school. Wanna join?”

The first question that sprung up in my head was: Who were we? Even though I sat with popular kids, I was still not immune to judgmental gazes, in fact being with them put me more on the spotlight. I hated attention because I never got any good one, especially since that day. I didn’t want to be in the crowd who’d leer or snicker among themselves pointing at me, and some people who Lucas and Addison hung out with tended to be that way.

I looked up, and my eyes unconsciously drifted to James, who was sitting on Lucas’s other side. His narrowed eyes were already aimed at me, displeasure at my mere existence seeping out of them. Unable to take intensity of his gaze, I looked down back to the note. I knew whoever was going to be we, it’d definitely include James. Him and Lucas always hung out together, and it baffled me how a kind person like Lucas was best-friends with a spawn of Satan himself.

“I don’t know. Addison is my ride back home.” I wrote at the back of paper, and slipped it on Lucas’s desk. Once again my gaze moved to James, his glare now directed at Lucas. Word ‘Uncomfortable’ barely began to describe what I felt whenever I was in calculus class with them. Lucas always tried to include me in their conversation, but James’s offhand insults shut me out.

Last time Lucas had asked my help to solve a problem from an assignment, which I had already finished at home. But the moment I’d picked up my pen, I became hyper aware of James’s eyes on us – as he casually leaned against the desk right in front of me – and every coherent thought vanished out of my mind, leaving me staring at the sheet with a complete blank.

“You’re fat and dumb,” James had said with a condescending smirk, “like a pig. I should call you Piggy.” And just like that word ‘Piggy’ stuck.

I’d wanted to snap back and tell him he was the dumb one because pigs were actually the most intelligent domesticated animals. But that wouldn’t have made it any better, he’d come back with crueler insult. However, Lucas, like a great guy he was, stood up for me but the damage had already been done.

A slip fell on my lap, bringing me back to present. “Ask Addison to come too. It’ll be fun. Pleaaaaaase.” I turned my head and saw Lucas giving me an exaggerated pout. I had to bite my lips to stifle a laugh. Never expected the big quarterback of our school pouting like a child and looking so cute.

I began to scribble down on note when bell rang. Lucas hovered on my side as soon as Mr. Penson left. “You guys have to come,” he said, his thumbs fiddling with the straps of his backpack.

“I’m not sure.” I finished packing my things and zipped the bag. I stood up and turned to Lucas. “Addison has practice after school, and I’ll be in library to work on my English assignment.”

“If Addison’s not free then at least you should come. It’s not just us guys, Lola and Sadhvi are joining too.”

“But my assignment.” I made another attempt for passive refusal.

“It’s the start of year, don’t dig yourself into studies right now. You’ll have plenty of months for that. For now you should enjoy your last year.” Lucas didn’t back down. “So, you’re coming. Right?” He looked at me eagerly.

“Okay.” I relented under his big eyes.

“Be at the parking lot after school.” He grinned when I nodded.

“Piggy,” James called, standing up from his seat, “don’t you have a computer class, or flirting with Lucas is more important.”

My face fell at the accusation, and a strong blush coated my cheeks. Whereas Lucas glared at him.

“Don’t waste your breath though. He’ll never go for a girl like you,” he finished monotonously.

It was like James was on a mission to ruin everything good in my life, including my friendship with Lucas. I had already been reminded countless times by him that I wasn’t good enough for his friend, not that I was interested. I never mistook Lucas’s kindness for anything more than friendship.

“You know what James,” Lucas began – oh no – and I saw his nostrils flaring, “I won’t mind being with Keily. She’s beautiful, smart, and most importantly not a fucktward like you. In fact, I’ll be lucky if she ever dates me.”

I gaped at him horrified. What did he just say?!

I looked at James and visibly flinched at the glare he was giving Lucas. As if on cue, he knew I was looking at him he turned to me, a vicious smirk marring his face.

“Don’t expect me to pull you out when you get crushed under the cow,” he snarled, his eyes running through my b*dy contemptuously.

“Goddammit James!” Lucas yelled, attracting the eyes of others who were still in classroom. “You’re taking it too far-”

“I need to go,” I muttered, and stormed out of the room without looking back. The second other students looked at us, it became too overwhelming. I can’t face this humiliation. I heard Lucas calling me from behind, but I was too vulnerable to face him right now and kept my pace till I reached the computer lab.

I sat at my assigned system and took deep breaths. My hands and legs felt shaky, and my vision blurred a little, warning of incoming tears.

Don’t you dare cry because of that asshole. Don’t!

I bet James didn’t realize how much words hurt, especially when you hear them again and again. Fat, cow, pig, flab, whale, fatty. There comes a time when you can’t ignore them, and they start sticking with you, eating away your self-esteem. And now his every insult had started to stuck. The way he degraded me in front of Lucas… it was too much.

I took long breaths looking at the ceiling to stop the tears from falling. I wasn’t going to lose it in the middle of school lab with others around.

I heard the chair beside me move and a large b*dy slumping on it lazily. I didn’t look at him, refusing to acknowledge his presence and glared ahead.

“At least turn on the computer if you’re planning on glaring at it.” His tone casual as if the last few minutes hadn’t happened.

My cheeks flushed when I realized I was staring at the blank screen.

Just kill me right now.

Immediately I pressed the power button on CPU and switched on the stupid system to avoid embarrassing myself further because James fed on it.

I felt his eyes on me, like always, trying to pin me down into a sweaty, fidgeting mess. But right now I was too angry to give him the satisfaction of seeing me self-conscious like the other days.

Suddenly, my skin tingled and I knew his gaze had intensified thousandfold, almost making me squirm. I guess it ruffled his feather to not get any reaction from me.

Good!

“Looks like my Piggy is angry with me,” he said, and I could already imagine the stupid smirk on his stupid face. “Can’t say I don’t like it when it makes you blush. Pink suits you, confirms my theory that you’re indeed a pig.”

I blushed harder. God, I wanted to grab his head and smash it into the screen in front of him. Instead, I took out the notebook from my bag, pretending he wasn’t there.

“Ignoring me, are we?” James drawled, finally getting the hint, “well, suit yourself.”

And I suited myself, ignoring him as if he never existed. Strangely, he decided to do the same with me. Few minutes later our teacher arrived and started her lecture on web-designing. My bad mood was set aside temporarily as I listened to her attentively, already well-versed in the HTML tags she mentioned. I had worked with my dad many times helping him in designing and developing websites for his clients to kill the time and take off his workload. Mrs. Green was covering the very beginner level basics, and it stroked my ego a little bit that I was already light years ahead in this topic.

When last 15 minutes were left she gave us a small project to design a table. I wrote my code within two minutes. I thought about adding colors to the texts and rows to pass time, but decided against it as Mrs. Green hadn’t started CSS, styling commands, and it was better not to act over-smart in front of a person who graded your reports and tests.

“Shit!” A faint curse came from my side, reminding me my nemesis was still here. Absence of his stares and my focus on our class almost made me forget about him.

Alas, good times don’t last.

I couldn’t resist but peek a small glance at him. He was glaring at his computer screen, lips pursed in concentration as his eyes moved up and down the monitor. Even though I hated him, I couldn’t deny he was gorgeous. Too bad, such good looks wasted on a rotten personality.

I turned my head toward his monitor and sneakily went through his code. He hadn’t written the closing tags on each row entry, used simple data tag for headings, and didn’t write spanning tag at its correct place. I internally gloated at his blunders. Before he could catch me sneaking up on him I turned back, biting my cheeks to stop the sly smirk.

Asshole and stupid. Stupid asshole.

“You need to work harder James.” Mrs. Green frowned looking at James’s monitor. When only five minutes remained she had started to go over everyone’s seat. “Go through your textbook at home.” James only nodded with a scowl.

“Good work Keily,” she complimented as she reached my place, looking at the web page and notepad code, both tabs placed side by side.

“Thanks,” I smiled, relishing in the small humiliation that James went through, and feeling his death stare.

She moved on to look at others’ work. Soon the bell rang and school finally came to end. I immediately carried my bag and rushed out of door, not wanting another encounter with James.

After locking my things, I sighed and leaned my head against the locker. I didn’t want to go out for ice cream with others. I was drained after the whole fiasco in calculus, and didn’t want to face James again. Heck, I didn’t want to see Lucas either after all the things he spouted. He probably said all that to spite James, but his words left a greater impression on me than I wanted.

I groaned, my temples throbbing. I just wanted to go home and sleep on it. I didn’t know whether Lucas was still planning on waiting for me in the parking. I decided to text him that I wasn’t coming, go to library, and sit it out there till Addison was ready to go home. With that I dug my cell phone out of the bag, and started walking toward library, scrolling for Lucas’s name in my phone at the same time.

Suddenly, I was dragged back almost slipping on the hard floor. An embarrassing squeak left my mouth.

“Where are you going, Piggy?” James was holding the top strap of my backpack. He leaned closer, his breath stroking my ears. “Parking is the other way.”

*********