I never got to see Kyle but at least, I saw Jared’s smile and that was enough, for now. I was at Alyssa’s place when I got a notification for a text. “Told you I’d be on your team.” I rolled my eyes at the message and sighed. “What is it?” Alyssa asked as she opened the pizza box. “We were assigned different groups for a study session and this guy, Jack, is in my group and he wouldn’t leave me alone about it.” “Jack huh?” “Jack nothing. He just likes to goof around.” I shrugged as I picked up a piece of pizza. Leave it to Alyssa to make something out of nothing. “Yeah, whatever.” I texted Jack back. “Why are we even eating?” “Uhm, because we’re going to be at this concert all day and I don’t trust food stands around concerts.” “Says the girl eating from a cardboard box.” I scoffed and she threw the T.V. remote at me. “Hey…” I giggled. I took one look at our tickets and backstage passes and smiled. Jared had made this happen. “Your man got us a ride by the way.” “What!” He

“Hey.” I rubbed Alyssa’s shoulders as she kept fidegting.“You’ll be fine stop worrying.” She took off her oven mitts and slammed it against the kitchen counter.“Do you think we should’ve ordered out? We should’ve ordered out. This is a disaster.” I’d never seen her spiral out of control like this. She must have really like him.“This…” I gestured to the elaborate dishes on the table. I didn’t even know she could cook that well.“… looks fantastic. I’m pretty sure it’ll taste as good. You have nothing to worry about.” She looked at me like she still needed more assurance.“And, in the off chance that it doesn’t taste great, although I’m pretty sure Aarav wouldn’t say anything, you could just tell him it was me. I am a horrible cook.” Her gaze turned light as she cracked a smile.“You? Cook an elaborate traditional Indian dish?” She rolled her eyes at me.“Aarav will smell that lie from the garage.”“Hey! I was just trying to make you feel better. Besides, I think the gesture is all t

“You know, if you started being mean back to them, you’d be totally fine. How do you think I get them to back off?” I shook my head at Becka. “They only get meaner.” Becka and I were in the same grade but we didn’t belong to the same world. She was stupid ass rich. She and the rest of the entire school. I’d gotten in on a scholarship and when the kids at school found out, they started calling me ‘the project’. I’d usually ignore them but the bullying increased when none of the teachers at school would come to my aid. They had preferred to look the other way, since the students were the ones paying their school fees. I thought it was weird that payment came directly from the parents and not from the school authority. “Everyone just thinks it’s cool to mess with me because I don’t have money and the teachers would rather turn a blind eye since I’m on scholarship.” Becka’s hands found my shoulder and squeezed. “Pretty sure it’s not because you don’t have money…” I threw her an offende

As I held the box in my head, I tried to link every event that could lead to this. Had Jared been able to find it for me? How did it end up in my hands again after all this while. I couldn’t have Ashley listening in on the conversation so, I left the building, box in hand and paranoid.I dialed Alyssa immediately.“Hey. How a…” I cut her off because this was more important.“Remember Taylor Swift’s concert?”“Uhh...yeah? Best night of my life, remember?”“Yeah, mine too but you know my phone went missing there…”“Yeah. Leah, what’s going on?”“I’m holding it.”“What?!” I pulled the phone away from my ear before she broke it.“I’m holding it. It’s in one piece. Nothing’s broken and the…” My voice broke off when I saw a little white envelope beneath the phone.“I’ll call you back.”“Leah don’t hang up o…” I put my phone in my pocket and took out the piece of paper.What if the person was watching? I looked around, scanning for anything weird but what could be considered weird? I’d been

“I received your answers over the weekend and I must say, I am quite impressed. However, I have several complaints from a certain group to switch to another.”“First, I want to clarify that your groups are permanent till the end of the semester.” I heard a few groans from behind me and I knew in an instant who those groans were from.“Miss Leah…” My eyes snapped up to meet the woman who stood in front of us as our lecturer. I braced myself for what was coming. The scowl on her face could not be mistaken for any other thing asides disdain.“Please treat your colleagues nicely. Just because you’ve won an award doesn’t make you better than them or give you the right to treat them like you are.” She said with a faux smile on her face. My mouth slightly widened at the insult. Was it legal to say things like that to students? In public?A few snickers reached my ears and I pretended like it didn’t hurt.I was already dealing with life poorly. It’d be death to give the sharks something to fe