The Fat Girl at Northmont

Dahlia's POV

The long hallway at Northmont High had always been my enemy. I never wanted to walk it, but I had no choice. Attending classes meant crossing it every day, and skipping classes would only bring a different kind of trouble. Most mornings I wished other students would ignore me. 

They never did, and I knew why. Nobody stays invisible when they take up as much space as I do. Subtlety had not been designed for size sixteen thighs. By the time I reached class, I was already tired, and the day had barely started.

Northmont High was not built for girls like me. It was built for bloodlines, wolves who glowed with health and moved as though nothing in the world could embarrass them. I was Dahlia Reed, a human, and everyone knew it. I regret the day I walked through its gates every second, and I blamed my stepmom, who had done everything in her power to make sure I was accepted. 

Apparently, nothing says love like sending your human stepdaughter into a pack of wolves. Every day I walked keeping my head down, my hands buried in the sleeves of my hoodie, and hoped no wolf would catch the scent of a weak human girl pretending she belonged.

Today was a bully day. I could feel it before it even began. The air seemed strained, and everything irritated me, even the creak of my door as I left my room. It should have been a good day, because tomorrow I would turn seventeen. Another year older, and the same humiliation waiting for me at every turn.

Thud!

I collided with someone, and her books flew across the hallway. I had been so lost in thought that I did not see her until the chaos.

“Are you blind? Can’t you look up when you walk?” she snapped.

“Sorry, girl. The hoodie girl always walks with her head down,” another student said, and the others burst into laughter, as though they had been waiting all morning for something to laugh about. Apparently, I was the entertainment before lunch.

“I think it’s her weight. She can’t control it,” another girl said, and a fresh wave of laughter rose behind me.

I wanted to say something in return. I had a dozen replies ready, and none of them reached my mouth. My face burned. I gathered the books as quickly as I could, handed them back to their owner, apologized, and hurried away before anyone could add to it. It was morning at Northmont High, and I was the target once again.

The day was not finished with me. I had just sat down to eat after classes when a girl shouted beside me.

“Of all the seats here, why did you pick this one? You take up so much space that I can’t even sit comfortably to eat.”

I looked at the bench. There was plenty of room for her. I did not understand why she wanted to embarrass me when she did not even know me. Then laughter from a group of students on the left side of the cafeteria drew my attention, and I saw the reason.

Kyren Voss, the Alpha Prince of Northmont High, was sitting there, and all the girl wanted was his attention. I had come to eat in peace, nothing more. Did she have to humiliate me to get his attention? Even when she had alerted the whole cafeteria with a false accusation against me, Kyren still did not look her way. He was probably too proud to. 

He carries himself as though everyone around him existed to serve him, and slim girls kept parading themselves in front of him. The brooding royalty act came naturally to him. Even his hair looked as if the Moon Goddess herself had styled it.

I had never looked at Kyren properly since I was admitted to Northmont High. I always walked with my head down because I did not want to be noticed, least of all by someone as popular as him. But today I raised my head and stared at him, half expecting him to say something, maybe to mock me the way the others did. My heart was beating faster than it should have as I stared. I did not understand why I wanted his reaction so badly.

He is tall and lean, with a muscular build that was impossible to miss. His silver hair neatly styled, and his blue eyes sharp enough to command a room. I could not stop staring. Maybe I was hallucinating from the cafeteria lighting and a long day of humiliation, but nothing about him looked accidental.

“Is the fat girl crushing on Kyren now?” a student called out, having noticed where my eyes had settled. The students around answered with another round of laughter.

It was what I always got. They enjoyed every one of my misfortunes and laughed at everything I did. I should have started charging for the performance.

Kyren said nothing. He did not join in the laughter either, and the relief that gave me was something I could not explain. For a moment the cafeteria felt smaller, and I felt less alone in it. It sounded as if thousands of people were laughing at me, and I did not care, because one person was not. That made no sense, and I knew it, but it was true.

Kyren stood and left the cafeteria with his entourage, students who were never anywhere he was not. People called them the Royal Heirs. Rumor said only Kyren had been born into the royal family. 

They led almost everything at school: the baseball team and every other team, and their girlfriends led the cheer squads and every group that required a girl in charge. Apparently, good looks came with the authority to run a school like a dictatorship.

Nobody dared to cross them. They could make your life unbearable. Rumor also said that although Kyren led them, he had never chosen a girl as his partner. Maybe the Moon Goddess had not given him one yet. 

After that girl ruined my lunch, I went straight back to my dorm, locked the door, dropped my bag beside the bed, and let out the breath I had been holding since earlier.

Sketching was the one thing that gave me real pleasure. The page was the only place where I decided what happened. Nobody judged or laughed at a drawing, and I never showed my work to anyone anyway. Not that any of them would care. I retreated into it, and before long I wanted to draw Kyren. 

I did not understand why his appearance held me so firmly, only that my pencil kept returning to the line of his jaw. I was still sketching when I heard the faint voice of a woman whispering into my ear. It came like a flash, as if it had never been there at all, but I was certain of what I had heard.

I slipped out of my room and checked the hallway but saw no one. It was already late, some of my dorm mates were probably asleep, and others might be awake in their beds, gossiping about whatever interested them. I had no roommate yet, so I always had the room to myself, and tonight that meant nobody would notice me leave.

The night air welcomed me. I stood still for a moment and listened, though I could not say what for. The air felt cool on my skin, and the sky was dark and full of stars. For the first time that day, nobody was watching me. Then something shifted, and I felt as though the moon was calling me.

Did I just hear a voice in my head?