All Chapters of My Bully Next Door: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Ella By lunch, everybody knows. Of course they do. News travels through our school faster than wildfire, especially when it involves someone people actually care about. Or in this case, someone people definitely care about and someone they usually pretend doesn’t exist. I know before anyone says a word to me. I can feel it. The second I step into the cafeteria, conversations seem to hitch for a fraction of a second. Heads turn. Not all of them. Just enough. Enough to notice. Enough to make my stomach tighten. The cafeteria is loud as usual. Hundreds of students crammed into one space, voices overlapping, chairs scraping across the floor, lunch trays clattering together. Normally I like the noise. It gives me somewhere to hide. Today it feels like all of it is aimed directly at me. I pass one table and hear my name. Another table and hear Beckett’s. A group of sophomore girls glance in my direction before immediately looking away. Great. Fantastic. Exactly what I wanted

Ella The house is quiet when I walk in. It always is. The front door shuts behind me with a soft click, and the silence settles over everything before I even take another step. It’s the kind of silence that feels too big for one person. Heavy. Familiar. Waiting. “Mom?” I call anyway. Nothing. I stand there for a second, listening even though I already know there won’t be an answer. Mom is almost never home before dark. Sometimes not until long after. Work comes first because bills come first, and bills don’t care if I eat dinner alone or sit in a quiet house pretending the quiet doesn’t bother me. I drop my backpack by the door and kick off my shoes. The small sounds echo through the entryway, louder than they should be. This is normal. This is my life. School is where I try not to exist. Home is where it doesn’t seem to matter if I do. I walk into the kitchen on autopilot and pull open the freezer. There are three frozen meals shoved behind a bag of peas and a box of waffl

Ella I should’ve known better. That’s the thought that follows me out of the hallway and down the sidewalk behind the school. I should’ve known better than to expect anything from Beckett Cross. The frustrating part isn’t that he disappointed me. It’s that some small, stupid part of me expected him not to. The morning air feels cooler outside, but it does nothing to clear my head. I tighten my grip on my books and keep walking until the noise of the school fades into the background. Students are scattered across the courtyard, eating lunch and talking with friends, but I head toward the quieter edge of campus where hardly anyone goes. I need a minute. A real minute. Not the kind where I smile and pretend I’m fine. The kind where I can actually think. The second I’m alone, everything comes rushing back. Sean’s voice. The laughter. The crowd watching. And Beckett standing right there. Doing absolutely nothing. I sink onto a bench beneath an old oak tree and stare across

Beckett She actually closed the window in my face. I stand there for a few seconds longer than I should, staring at the glass like an idiot. The curtain shifts slightly. Then nothing. No second chance. No reopening the window. No Ella suddenly deciding she was too harsh. Just silence. I let out a slow breath and drag a hand down my face. “Seriously?” The word comes out under my breath. Because what just happened doesn’t feel real. Not the conversation. The ending. People don’t usually dismiss me. That’s not arrogance. It’s just fact. Most people want something. Attention. Approval. A spot at the lunch table. An invitation to a party. A chance to be noticed. Ella had the opportunity to say yes. Instead, she shut the window. Literally. I turn and head back across the yard, cutting through the grass toward my house. The whole conversation replays before I even reach my back door. You don’t get both. The words hit differently now than they did standing outside her r

Ella By the final bell, my stomach is a complete disaster. Not normal nerves. Not test nerves. Not even Beckett nerves. This is worse. This is the kind of nervous that sits in your chest and refuses to leave. The kind that makes your hands cold and your thoughts loud. Because in a few hours, I’m supposed to sit in a salon chair and willingly let someone change something about me. The idea feels ridiculous. People do this every day. They get haircuts. Highlights. Layers. Whatever. Nobody treats it like they’re preparing for battle. Unfortunately, I am not nobody. I slam my locker shut and immediately consider texting Lila. I could cancel. Fake a stomach bug. Claim a family emergency. Pretend I got kidnapped by aliens. Honestly, at this point I’d consider all three. “Don’t even think about it.” I jump so hard I nearly drop my books. Lila appears beside me with a grin that tells me she’s been watching me for at least thirty seconds. “That’s creepy.” “What’s creep