His To Ruin Again

Lou’s POV

I gripped the smooth metal of the restroom door handle, ready to step back out into the fluorescent hallway of Crestwood High. My relief at having five quiet minutes to myself was immediate and calming. I pushed the door open, but my foot never made it across the threshold.

A body blocked my path. Then another. And then a third.

Standing before me were Tiffany Hale, the school's unofficial queen, flanked by her two loyal, sharply dressed satellites, Maya and Chloe. Tiffany’s blue eyes were fixed on me, not with their usual cold indifference, but with a burning, vicious amusement that made my stomach tighten into a hard knot.

“Lou Bennett,” Tiffany’s voice was sugary, too loud for the empty stretch of hallway. “Did you really think you could just walk away?”

My hands started to sweat. I dropped my gaze to the floor, instantly feeling the familiar pressure of being watched. I did not want to look at them. I knew what this meant, or at least, I thought I did. It was just another attempt to make me feel small.

“Please move out of my way, I am just trying to get to my locker,” I said, trying to keep my voice flat and even. It came out shaky instead.

Chloe giggled as she focused on me. Maya reached out with one perfectly manicured hand and pushed the door shut behind me, trapping me against the tiles.

“Locker can wait, nerd,” Maya said, you could hear the contempt in her voice. “We just wanted a little chat about your boyfriend.”

My heart stuttered. Jaxon. This was about Jaxon.

“What about Jaxon?” I asked, my voice gaining a small measure of firmness because I was talking about him, about us, about something real and good.

Tiffany smiled, and it was the most chilling expression I had ever seen her wear. She held a large white carton in her hand, the kind the cafeteria served. It was cold milk.

“You have been a very bad girl, Lou,” Tiffany purred. “Seducing him. Luring our quarterback, the most popular boy in the entire county, away from the rest of us.”

The accusation was bizarre, utterly false, and deeply insulting. My confusion was quickly overriding my fear.

“I did not seduce anyone,” I stated clearly, pushing away from the door. My hands were balled into fists at my sides, my nails digging into my palms. “Jaxon and I love each other. He was the one who asked me out. Five months ago. I do not understand why you are doing this.”

Tiffany and her friends burst into loud, coordinated laughter. The sound echoed harshly off the tiled walls. It was a cruel, mocking sound that was designed to peel my skin off.

“Oh, Lou, sweet Lou. You really think that,” Tiffany choked out between giggles. “That is even better than we thought it would be.”

Then, everything changed. Tiffany lifted the carton of milk I didn't know she was holding. I saw the movement, but I could not react fast enough. The cold, thick liquid hit me squarely in the chest, splashing upward into my face and hair, running down the front of my white t-shirt, and soaking my jeans. The milk was icy, shocking, and it instantly made my clothes heavy and cling to my body.

I gasped, stumbling back against the tile, the carton falling to the floor with a pathetic squish, and I could feel the milk now dripping from my eyelashes.

“There,” Chloe said, sounding satisfied. “Now she looks as messy as her reputation.”

The hallway was now filled with noise and laughter from the students, but they were looking at something on their phones and pointing at me.

Just as I stood there wet and confused, I heard the scuffle of sneakers and the murmur of dozens of voices. I instinctively crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly mortified by the tight, cold cling of my wet shirt.

I looked around the growing crowd. Students stood in the perimeter, some whispering, some pointing, and far too many openly laughing. Their faces were a blur of judgment. I felt a wave of dizzying humiliation. I was standing there, covered in milk, visibly shaking, while the girls who did this stood perfectly dry, enjoying the spectacle.

I could not breathe right. I felt the raw, hot burn of tears pressing behind my eyes, but as much as I tried to stop them from falling, they fell.

“What are you looking at?” I asked a girl I was always sitting with during technical drawing class. There was pity in her eyes as she looked at her phone and at me again.

Before she could answer me, I heard a louder and more familiar deep laughter from down the hall. It was Jaxon. Oh, thank God! He will save me.

My head snapped up. Jaxon Cole Ryder was strolling toward the crowd, his wide shoulders always easy to look at, his perfect dark hair, and his dazzling smile. He was flanked by his two best friends, Damon and Hunter, who were both laughing so hard they were practically leaning on Jaxon for support. The attention of the entire hallway shifted instantly, drawn to the popular trio as if they were a magnet.

He was here, he was going to defend me, He always defended me. Every time Damon made a cutting joke about my clothes, or Hunter suggested Jaxon should find someone hotter, Jaxon would shut them down immediately. I remembered two months ago, when Damon had called me “the bookworm.” Jaxon had pulled me close, kissed my temple right in front of them, and said, “She is my girl. Get used to it.” He had never failed to make me feel secure. He had always been my protector in this school.

“Jaxon” I called out pathetically. He looked towards me, then his eyes swept over the students, his laughter died instantly. His eyes locked onto mine.

I saw the change in him. The casual ease disappeared, replaced by something I recognized instantly. It was guilt, an undeniable guilt.

He saw the cold, sticky milk coating me, the shocked look on my face, the three grinning girls, and the crowd of vultures.

I waited. I stood completely still, soaking and shaking, waiting for him to move, waiting for the familiar rush of anger that would send him storming over to me, wrapping his arm around me, and tearing into Tiffany and her friends.

He did nothing.

He was mute. He held my gaze, his eyes full of that crushing guilt, but his feet remained rooted to the spot. His two friends, Damon and Hunter, finally noticed the unusual scene. Hunter stopped laughing and his expression went from amusement to confused alarm.

The silence from Jaxon was deafening, worse than the girls’ laughter. It was the complete, total lack of action from the one person whom I trusted to act.

My hope crumbled like dry clay, and the sickening realization began to creep over me.

Tiffany took that exact moment to make her move. With a triumphant smirk, she peeled away from her friends and jogged quickly toward Jaxon. She stopped right in front of him, dramatically out of breath, and put a hand on his firm chest.

“Jaxon, honey,” Tiffany’s voice was high and theatrically innocent. “Tell Lou the truth. You have to tell her how perky her breasts feel and what it took you to get there.”

What?? I moved in the crowd and dragged the first phone I could, it was the nude picture I sent to Jaxon three days ago. He sent it to Tifanny?

Jaxon flinched at her touch and looked quickly back at me. I could see him swallowing hard, the muscle in his throat contracting violently. He looked trapped, panicked, and utterly miserable.

But he still did not speak up to defend me.

“What truth?” I whispered, my voice cracked and dry. My focus was only on Jaxon. The rest of the world dissolved. I saw only his handsome face, that face I had fallen in love with over the last five months, the face that had reassured me so many times.

Tiffany looked from Jaxon to me, her lips curling into a triumphant, victorious sneer.

“Oh, she does not know,” Tiffany exclaimed, pretending to be shocked. She turned back to Jaxon, raising her voice so the entire, now silent, crowd could hear. “Jaxon, the bet. The big bet. Tell her the rules.”

The word “bet” hit me with the force of a physical blow, worse than the fact that my most intimate photo has been spread across the whole school. My mind instantly rejected it. A bet? That was impossible. He loved me. We were planning a movie night this weekend. He talked about college with me.

“Tiffany, stop,” Jaxon finally spoke, his voice was rough. But I see it as a plea of a coward.

Tiffany ignored him “He thought you were so boring, Lou,” she spat the words at me like venom. “So utterly plain and nerdy. We all thought it was hilarious. He bet Damon two hundred dollars that he could make the most invisible girl in Crestwood High fall in love with him in a month, and that he would take her virginity before Thanksgiving.”

My legs gave out. I stumbled, catching myself on the door handle, digging my fingers into the metal until my knuckles were white and aching. The noise of the crowd, which had been silent, resumed instantly as the students reacted to what Tiffany had said.

I have never felt any more overwhelming shame all at once. My entire relationship was a performance, a sick, twisted game. I was not even a person to them. I was a joke.

I heard Chloe pipe up from behind Tiffany. “You actually lasted five months, Jaxon. That is dedication, even if you never managed to close the deal.”

I looked at Jaxon again. He was staring at the floor now, his fists clenched, his perfect, famous face etched with self-loathing. He was beautiful, he was rich, he was everything I was not, and he had used me for entertainment.

He never took my virginity. The thought flashed through my mind, a tiny, cold comfort that instantly shriveled into nothing. It did not matter. He had taken everything else. He had taken my trust, my first real hope, and my already fragile self-esteem, crushing it all into dust right in front of the entire student body.

A searing, pure white heat of anger erupted in my chest, burning away the shame and the self-pity. I straightened my spine, ignoring the cold stickiness of my clothes. I ignored Tiffany’s self-satisfied smile and Chloe’s cruel giggle. My eyes were fixed on Jaxon.

He finally looked up, his eyes pleading for a reaction, for me to run, for me to cry, for anything that would let him feel less awful.

I gave him nothing. My expression was blank, cold, and final.

“You,” I managed to say, my voice dangerously calm and low. It was the quietest sound in the entire hallway. “You are completely dead to me.” He was nothing.

I turned my back on him, on the girls, and on the whole disgusting, staring crowd. I walked quickly, heading not for my locker, but for the exit. My feet moved with a certainty I had never possessed before.

Tiffany called something after me, but the sound was already fading. The noise of their laughter, the humiliation, the sheer cruelty of it all was now just background noise, a distant buzz that could no longer touch me.

I blamed myself. I blamed my own foolish, naive heart. How could I have been so blind? I was Lou Bennett. I was poor. I lived in the small apartment complex on the edge of the nice part of Oakwood City. I wore hand-me-down clothes. I was plain, utterly ordinary, and boring. I was the scholarship kid who worked two jobs to afford essentials for my sick grandmother. I should have known better.

The most handsome, most popular, only child of the richest family in Oakwood City does not fall in love with someone like me.

I walked faster, shoving open the heavy front doors. The sun hit my face, an unwelcome contrast to the dark hallway. I was going to leave. I needed to leave right now and never come back. This would be the last time anyone at Crestwood High would ever get to make a joke of me.

I will never forgive you, Jaxon Cole Ryder. Never.