, no doubt to help me feel better about the inevitable stares and whispers I was going to get. "Morning," I said to her.

"Glad you're bright eyed and bushy tailed," she grinned, swinging an arm over my shoulder. As we walked through the hallway to my locker, the eyes and whispers followed. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Elaine shooting death glares at practically everyone.

I would never understand how Elaine could do this. People tended to whisper about her every now and then, and it was the stupidest stuff imaginable.

"I've reported that video about sixty times under every reason imaginable by the way," Elaine said. "If it doesn't come down, I'll find someone who has the tech know how for it. Don't stress about it." I nodded. I had the feeling the prickling behind my eyes was going to happen multiple times that day.

I heard Holden's voice coming from the other end of the hallway. Indeed, he and Parker were back. "Did you miss me Sorenson?" Holden grinned.

"Hey," Parker said.

"Hi," I replied flatly, shutting my locker, looking away and quickly walking off. They were talking to me as if we were friends, as if their buddy Clarissa hadn't publicly humiliated me. To think again that I'd fooled myself into thinking we were friends made me laugh. They probably thought I was naïve enough to keep going along with it.

"You saw the photo..." Elaine said once we were outside of the hallway. I nodded. "I'm sorry. Even I started to think they were different," Elaine said.

I ended up spilling the beans about how I'd felt about Parker, and about that night on the rooftop.

"God those boys are smooth. I swear next time they're in the carpark, I'll just hit them with my car," she fumed. I giggled. She was graphically describing the ways she could slowly torture them, and it made me laugh. "This is probably why I'm single," she pondered.

"Nothing wrong with being single. Especially when you're as amazing as you are," I grinned, nudging her in the ribs. "Their loss. When you're everything you need, who needs a man?"

"That's the attitude," she grinned. "Let's go to maths."

--

Wes wasn't in human bio so I sat alone at the bench. I could feel everyone's stares boring into my back. I stayed focus on the content and reminded myself that this would all blow over. All of this was only temporary.

"What did Holden see in her?" I heard someone whisper on the way out.

"She's such a gold digger," another person commented.

"Slut," someone said as they coughed. Original. That was followed by a few laughs.

"I heard that Wes asked her out. He's probably regretting it now," was another statement.

"No wonder Holden dumped her," was a common sentiment.

I thought I was doing well ignoring the comments, but I couldn't. I quickly pushed through and jogged into the bathroom, locking myself into a cubicle. I dried my tears with a wad of toilet paper. How could people say those things? I was a human being. With feelings.

"I think she's in here," I heard someone whisper from outside the cubicle. I blocked my ears. I couldn't hear anymore. I thought I could stop the words from getting to me, but I couldn't. I waited until I heard the bell for the next class and made sure they'd left before I left the bathroom.

"Thank God. I thought you were excreting all your internal organs," Logan said. He'd been leaning against the outside of the toilet block. I quickly wiped any remnants of tears and snot away from my face, doing my best to play it cool. "You need more fibre," he added.

"Noted," I smiled.

We had the next class together. He'd probably seen me run into the bathroom. It was funny to think that the person who'd orchestrated my missing school uniform just months earlier was now the one waiting for me outside the toilet while I cried.

To be fair, I was keeping quite a big secret for him. It'd be a good idea not to be my enemy.

If there was anything I'd learnt in the past day, it was that at Pemberton, it was hard to tell who your real friends were. The same people who'd greeted me and made small talk while I was fake dating Holden were the same ones spitting out the disgusting comments about me.

I would err on the side of caution from then on.

"You okay Daisy?" Logan asked suddenly, catching me off guard that he'd actually used my name. He didn't normally address me, he'd just start talking to me.

"I'm okay," I said, although it was only half true.

"What Clarissa did was cruel, and I'm not cool with that. I'm going to talk to her," he said.

"Don't worry about it," I replied quickly. If anything, another guy intervening in my business would only make it worse.

"Fine, but that was a super shitty thing to do. I would never do that."

"Sure, but you'd just leave a girl half naked without her uniform?" I replied, reminding him of the events of my first week at Pemberton. The look on his face made me laugh when he realised what I was referring to.

"Water under the bridge," he replied, making a brushing motion with his hand.

"Sure," I grinned.

--

As Elaine and I were leaving, Courtney came bounding past us. "So Clarissa's having a party after the game tomorrow night. You guys must come. It's going to be so much fun," she beamed, handing us a sheet of paper.

"It's going to be so much fun," Elaine repeated in a baby voice, mocking her.

Courtney glared at her but continued nonetheless. "Clarissa's address is on the front, just come around any time after eight. Hopefully we'll see you guys there," she said before walking off.

"I'm not going," I said as soon as she walked off. "Are they insane? Why the hell would I go?"

"This is her idea of a challenge. Fuck it. Fuck what anyone thinks. We're going. we're going to eat all of her fucking food if that's all we do," she said angrily. I couldn't help but laugh at her idea of retaliation. "I'm not kidding," she said to me. I laughed again. "They want to make us the butt of a joke? We're going to own that."

She quickly walked down the hallway. I braced myself for what she was going to do. She was kind of a loose cannon.

"We'll be there bitch!" I could hear her yell.

Even though everything was going to shit, I was glad I had Elaine by my side. The thought brought a smile to my face.

---

Things are heating up again !!

Any predictions?

As usual, thanks for reading and pls vote if you enjoyed!!