One of the Bullied | ✔

Chapter 13 - I'm Not Desperate. Am I?

"Look who's back." Luke sneers as I walk past him on my way to my locker. To be honest, I don't even know why I bother with my locker anymore. It's literally a magnet for horrific things. "Where have you been?"

"The nerd's been ditching school, huh?" I hear Caleb say behind me. "I'm not sure you should be doing that. It might affect your studies."

I clench my jaw and try not to turn around and slap him.

"Have you taught Jean any English yet?" Caitlyn snaps at me, leaning against the lockers, crossing her arms. She is literally wearing next to nothing. And it's not even hot yet.

"You're so desperate." I mutter under my breath, closing my locker and starting to walk away. I walk approximately 0.00001 steps before someone catches my wrist and sends me flying back against the lockers.

"My. Sister. Is. Not. Desperate." Luke says.

"Your sister is a whore." I answer, not knowing quite where I'm finding all of this confidence. Maybe I'm going to far. This is Luke I'm talking about, after all. Who knows what he'll do.

His eyes narrow, and before I can react he's slapped me, very hard, in the face. "My sister is not a whore." He spits. "If anyone is, you are. Already hooking up with poor Jean, huh?" He grins spitefully. "You're only using him, and we all know that."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jean watching anxiously, Caitlyn's arm draped over his shoulders. She says something to him and he pulls away, picking her arm off him as if it was infected with some disease.

Luke gives me a very long glare before kicking me in the shin and letting go of me, storming off with Caleb and Seth, Nate and Caitlyn trailing behind them. I watch as she winks at Jean. He looks at me and makes a puking face, then comes over.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I just need a moment." I say, picking my bag up and repositioning my glasses. "I'm fine, seriously. I'm used to it." My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out to find a text from Rita.

Rita Tory ~ 9:02 6-13-14

I'm sorry.

I look up, desperately trying to see who's on their phone at the moment. Caitlyn is, and so is Caleb... But then again, so is pretty much the whole corridor.

"Zoe, I'm not sure-"

"I'm okay, Jean." I repeat. "What do you have first?"

"I am really not ready for lessons." He says.

"Just try and understand as much as possible." I answer. "We have Chemistry together, and I'll see you at break, anyway. If it's really bad, go and find Ms Pellier. Otherwise, just tag along with the rest of them. You're ruining your reputation as we speak."

"Obviously not too much, because that Caitlyn girl didn't have a problem with it."

"Well, she does." I say with a frown. "I kind of called her a whore and her brother lost it." I sigh to myself, knowing that I have History now and I have to sit next to Seth. Bloody fucking Seth.

"You really can't leave me." He says uncertainly as we near the door of the Computer Tech room. I am so glad I don't take it. It's boring, and Luke, Caleb, Caitlyn and most other bullies take it.

"It's with computers. You can always program it in French, and if bad comes to worse you've got Google Translate."

He laughs nervously. "If I'm relying on Google Translate, I am, to put it nicely, fucked." I smile. "But, yeah, thanks. I'll, uh, see you later." Luke and Nate come up behind him to say something and I make a run for it to History, arriving just before the bell rings.

"Zoe, you're back." Ms Black says as I walk in, sitting down in my seat, edging as far away from Seth as I can. He leans closer.

"You better have done the homework." He says quietly. I gulp. I don't want to give him my work. Not again. Reluctantly, I pull out the essay I'd worked on almost all of last night, and put it on the desk. He picks it up, taking a look at it. Ms Black stops at my side.

"Your homework?" She asks. With a burst of anger, I snatch it from Seth and hand it to her. She nods, flicking through it. "Seth?" She asks. He almost growls in fury, and for a moment I'm truly scared. He just shakes his head and leans over to someone else, saying something with a lot of swearing.

He doesn't speak to me for the rest of the lesson, not that I wanted him to, anyway. On the plus side, it means he doesn't say anything nasty or beat me up. Which is always a good thing.

"I'm so fucking done with her." I hear him to say when he meets up with Caleb at the door. I walk past them without another word. "I don't even know why she exists."

I bite my tongue so hard it feels like it's going to start bleeding and keep walking. I meet Jean back at the lockers, some girl talking to him very intently in very poor, jumbled French.

"Save me." He whispers to me, glancing at the girl. I want to smile, but I know it can have repercussions. As soon as the girl sees me she starts glaring at me.

"We were talking, Zerd." She looks up at Jean. "Weren't we, babe." He goes a little pale. "That means get the fuck out." She says, more spitefully this time.

Jean takes a step to the side, indicating he has had enough of her, and she huffs, muttering some insults as she walks off to her friends. They all start giggling and insulting me, and waving at Jean.

"This is stupid now. Seriously." I say, opening my locker and closing it again as I see the enormous pile of books people have left in it. "Have these girls never seen a bloody boy?"

"Obviously not someone of my calibre." He says with a grin.

I roll my eyes. "It's not even funny anymore. They're literally jumping on you."

"The Frenchness just makes me more attractive, apparently." He says, his eyes widening. "Uh, behind you." I take a step to the side just as Caitlyn pushes me out of the way, stepping up to Jean and grabbing the front of his shirt. "I don't know how to say no anymore." He calls to me. I roll my eyes and pretend to look through my bag for something.

"So, you know, prom is coming up." She says with a grin, running a finger along his jawline. He looks absolutely terrified.

"What's prom?" He calls out to me in French.

"A party for the end of the year." I call back.

"Don't talk to her while I'm talking to you." Caitlyn says. "You might get contaminated." I bite my lip hard to make sure I don't laugh. Contaminated. With my nerd powers, I'm guessing. "So, what do you say, Jean?"

"I won't be here." He answers. "I don't like prom." His speech is a little jerky, and he has to stop, but it's pretty good for someone who has literally been learning for a couple of days.

"What a shame." She whimpers. "But maybe I can make you like it."

"No, thank you." He says, pushing her away a little. Out of the corner, I see Luke watching on with interest. I start to walk away slowly, but that only makes me notice him.

"I heard you got Seth into trouble." He says quietly to me. "If someone asks you for homework, you goddamn give the homework to them." He grabs my shoulder. "Do you hear me?"

I grind my teeth, pulling my shoulder out of his grasp.

"Fucking useless nerd." He says, aiming a kick at the back of my knee. I only just save myself from falling. Ms Laurentis appears at the end of the corridor and Luke glares at me before storming off, joined by Caitlyn. I lean down, rubbing my leg in pain. It hurts, but it's not that bad.

"You are not okay now." Jean says, coming over to me, watching as Caitlyn walks off. "She really scares me." He says to me once she's turned the corner. Ms Laurentis gives me a look as she walks past. I decide to ignore it.

"She'll get over you." I rub the back of my knee again as the bell rings, alerting us that we need to go to our next lesson. "What do you have?" I ask him.

"Are you okay?" Is his response.

"I'm fine." I answer.

"I have Chemistry." He says, sighing. "You?"

"Me too." I grimace as I recall the incident with the sodium. 

"Can I walk you to class?"

I sigh. "I guess."

A/N - I initially wanted to give this chapter a P!ATD name (because P!ATD is life) but then I decided to be a bit more original and name it myself. Anyway, here is an update *throws short chapter at you* but hopefully it gives a little more insight into Caitlyn and Jean's wonderful relationship ( #jaitlyn ) and Luke and Zoe's wonderful relationship ( #zuke ). Thanks for reading, and comment some feedback?