The Nerd Who Played the Game
In a haze, she flashed back to that blindingly sunny hallway in high school.
The boy in a faded, patched-up uniform smiled cautiously, clutching a workbook. He stubbornly blocked her and her crew from skipping classes.
His voice rang clear, clumsy yet full of concern. "Shannon, don't fight. You'll get hurt."
She shoved him aside, snapped that he was butting in, and mocked him as a nerdy simp. Then she strutted off amid her friends' laughs.
The truth was, she felt he was special at first sight.
He was a top student favored by the teachers, but his poverty and those ragged clothes made him a joke fodder.