Standing her ground

The day began like most others lately—heavy with whispers and sidelong glances.

I felt them before I even saw them, the sharp little edges of their cruelty pricking at my back as I walked down the main hall. Savannah’s friends. Or, at least, the few of them who still dared to carry her torch after everything that had happened.

It was always the same: snickering just loud enough for me to hear and muttered insults wrapped in laughter that seemed to follow me no matter how fast I walked.

But today… something felt different.

I’d barely made it to my locker when I saw the mess.

My notebook—my favorite one, the one where I kept everything: class notes, tiny scribbles of poetry I’d never show anyone, even the faint start of a letter I’d once thought about giving Jaxon—torn apart.

Pages ripped from the binding lay scattered like fallen leaves all down the hallway, curling and crumpled under careless footsteps.

For a second, I froze.

Heat flushed up my neck as laughter rose behind me.

“Well,” one of them—a blonde with sharp eyes and an even sharper voice—said with mock sweetness, “looks like someone’s having a bad morning.”

Her friends giggled.

I could feel everyone watching now. Heads turning, whispers starting.

Part of me wanted to bolt, to grab whatever scraps I could and run. The way I always had before.

But not this time.

Not today.

I set my bag down carefully on the floor and straightened my shoulders. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, but I forced my face into something calm.

And then, slowly, deliberately, I began to gather my pages.

One by one.

I ignored the giggles. Ignored the camera phone a girl two lockers down had raised to film the whole thing.

I knelt, smoothing each page flat before stacking it neatly in my hands.

When I reached the last page—the one they’d scribbled something crude across in thick black marker—I stared at it for a long moment.

It read: TRASH, JUST LIKE HER.

The laughter behind me got louder.

But I stood.

And I turned to face them.

Blonde-eyes-Sharp-Voice smirked at me. “What? Not gonna cry this time?”

I took one slow step toward her, feeling the weight of all my bruises and all my silence and all the nights I’d cried myself to sleep in that house.

And then I said—softly, but loud enough for every single person watching to hear —

“At least I don’t have to tear other people down just to feel taller.”

Her smirk faltered.

The hallway went quiet, just for a second, as her cheeks flushed red.

And I smiled—just a little—before I turned on my heel and walked away, my head held high, clutching my battered stack of papers to my chest.

I didn’t look back.

Not even when she hissed something under her breath that I couldn’t quite catch.

Not even when the whispers behind me shifted—no longer just cruel, but something else now.

Something like respect.

It wasn’t until I was halfway down the next hall that I let myself exhale.

My knees felt weak, my hands still trembling faintly around my papers. But under it all, there was this strange, unfamiliar glow in my chest.

Pride.

I’d stood up.

I’d stood up.

And no one could take that from me.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that I saw him.

I was slipping out the side door, trying to avoid the crush of students heading to the buses, when a figure leaning against the brick wall caught my eye.

Jaxon.

His arms were folded across his chest, his head tilted slightly as he watched me.

I froze mid-step, my pulse jumping.

For a moment, I wondered if he’d seen it.

If he’d seen me stand my ground.

And then—just faintly—his mouth curved.

Not a smirk. Not his usual confident grin.

But a smile.

Quiet. Subtle. And somehow more real than anything else I’d seen on his face.

Our eyes met, and I thought—just for a second—that there was pride there.

Pride… and something else.

Something softer.

Something that made my breath catch in my throat.

But then the smile faded, replaced by that familiar guarded expression.

He pushed off the wall, nodded once at me—almost imperceptibly—and walked away, disappearing into the shadows before I could even think to call after him.

That night, I sat at my desk with my notebook—repaired as best I could with tape and patience—open in front of me.

I stared down at the page they’d scrawled on.

TRASH, JUST LIKE HER.

I thought of the look on her face when I’d stood tall. The silence of the hallway. The warmth in Jaxon’s eyes.

And then I ripped that page out, tore it into pieces, and dropped them in the trash.

I wasn’t trash.

Not anymore.

Later, lying in bed with the moonlight spilling across my pillow, I thought of him again.

Of the way he’d watched me.

Of the faint smile that had tugged at his lips.

And I wondered if he could see it, too—the thing that had shifted inside me today.

The thing that refused to be small anymore.

The thing was learning, slowly, to stand.

For the first time in weeks, I drifted off to sleep with a quiet kind of hope in my chest.

Because even if I didn’t fully understand him yet…

Even if he kept his distance, and his secrets…

I knew this much:

Somewhere deep down, Jaxon Blake was rooting for me.

And that was enough.

For now.