Before RC could step into class that morning, she encountered Shay and her pack. "Are you actually coming?"

"Yes, I am." RC replied, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, waiting for them to give her space.

"Oh no," Shay laughed a sugary laugh, while Allie grinned evilly. "I don't think so." She winked at Mallory and in a high pitched voice called, "Darling, I think we need to show this rag where she really needs to go."

RC's stomach turned as Brent approached her. He easily carried her over his shoulder, down the stairs all the way to the school dumpsters. He roughly put her down on top of the first dumpster.

The lid handle hit RC on the bottom of her spine, making pain shoot up through her back bone. She bit her lower lip to keep from howling in pain.

RC wished she could slap him. She wished she could slap the glee off his stupid face.

Brent pulled her foot, and she slipped off​ the high dumpster straight to the hard littered ground. A loud smack followed by pain told RC that she had bumped her head on both the edge of the dumpster and the ground. For a second, she thought she had broken her back.

Before she could recover, he violently kicked her side, again and again.

The clicking of approaching high heels preceded Shay, who stood over RC, a smirk on her face, watching her squirm in silence.

"I think that's all, baby," she said, in a lilting tone, with toxic sweetness to Brent, who, like a confused baboon, stepped back grunting, "Oh, uh, right."

RC shut her eyes tightly, wishing she could drown out their breathing, their whispered conversation, their very existence. She kept her eyes and mouth shut until Brent and Shay walked away.

RC felt something squishy under her left arm, something that felt undoubtedly like cafeteria mystery meat. A week old cafeteria mystery meat.

RC held back nausea as she tried to, agonizingly, sit up and lean against the dumpster.

Unconsciously, tears fell out of her eyes. But RC could not feel them. The pain in her back and at the back of her head made everything numb. The garbage around her swam in her vision as she looked around dejectedly.

Everything was going out of focus. But still RC hauled herself up, holding the side of the dumpster to keep herself from collapsing again.

She groaned softly as she bent down to retrieve her bag, and slowly limped towards school, heading for the bathroom.

She thought it lucky that everyone else was in class. Only her classmates would now be waiting out in the field for the school bus to take them to Grunnon ridge. She slowly ascended the stairs to the first floor landing where the bathroom was, and let herself in.

It was vacant.

RC shared at herself long and hard in the mirror. She looked like a mess. Dirty food wrappers were stuck all over her clothes, and the abysmal mystery meat had somehow managed to make its way into her hair, the hair that she had struggled so hard that morning to compose, the hair that was now tumbling around her shoulders like a storm cloud.

She stank the way a dumpster would.

Her lip was bleeding, yet again, and her face was caked with tears. She turned the tap and washed her face, slowly, trying not to make any abrupt moves.

Everything hurt. Alot. It ached. Bitterly.

Taking a deep breath, RC composed herself as she unstuck the wrappers off her clothes and washed the dirt out of her dark hair.

She looked presentable enough. At least that's what she thought as she smoothed her hair and hoisted her bag up her shoulder.

She cleared her throat, trying to drown out the pain, looked at herself in the mirror one last time, and made her way back down to the field. She didn't want to get left behind.

But by the time RC managed to limp down the stairs and out into the field, the bus had started moving. Ignoring the complaints that all her aching body parts were making, RC ran as far as she could to catch up.

She made it to the bus' door, where Brent was standing looking coolly at her.

"Brent help me up," she called, still running the agonising run.

She could see her classmates all looking, pointing and laughing at her through the windows.

Simone was looking at her stonily, unconcernedly. She did nothing. Only looked. She seemed not to be looking at RC anymore, but at some distant thing past RC's shoulder. Then Simone looked away and RC's heart broke into pieces.

Brent smirked, watching her run in pain, glowing at her discomfort, and held out his hand. RC took it, but Brent did not pull her up all the way.

As soon as she had one foot on the first step and the other foot in the air, he pushed her hard so that she went flying backwards into the gravelly path, away from the bus, and rolled to a stop two meters away from where she had been.

She lay on her backside, watching the bus drive off, and recalling the hideous glee that had coloured Brent's face when he had pushed her, and reliving Simone's betrayal. Her own friend.

RC screamed in frustration. What had she done wrong? Or rather, where was she going wrong?

RC sat on the gravel for a good five minutes before deciding to get up and haul herself off to the library. Perhaps she would find solace among the pages of her most loyal friends.

But first, she passed by the school nurse for a dose of paracetamol to soothe the physical bruises she had sustained.

All day long, RC waiting in the library deliberating with herself rather than studying. Deliberating whether to take Jordan's full offer, whether Brent really was worth all the trouble, whether Simone had meant to betray her like this.

She thought till she felt like she would explode. And the pain in her back was not really helping the entire thought process either.

She knew what she wanted.

When the bell rung signalling the end of the day, RC found herself, charged with renewed strength, marching to the gate and waiting, knowing that Jordan would pass there.

She had made up her mind.

"Hi you," she called as he approached, five minutes later.

He stopped his bike in front of her. "RC."

"Yeah," she cleared her throat.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Aren't you supposed to be at Grunnon ridge?"

"Oh yeah, um," RC avoided his question. Instead she kept going. "Remember that proposition?"

Jordan only looked at her, not replying, keeping hold on to his annoying exasperating silence.

RC continued, ferociously, "I'll do it, I'm ready."

RC thought she saw a glimmer of a smile on the side of Jordan's mouth, but it disappeared as soon as she saw it.

"Are you sure?"

"Down to my last nerve, yes."

***