Mercy clutched her chest. "Oh my god."

Turning my attention back to the boy on the field, I smiled to myself. "I always knew that I loved him, but it wasn’t until the night of the fire that I realized I would never not be in love with the boy across the street."

"Whoa," Mercy breathed, eyes glistening. "I'm not much of a crier, but right now, I want to keel over and bawl like a freaking baby!"

"Please don’t," I said, chuckling nervously. "We really don’t need to give the cheer squad another thing to gossip about."

As if right on cue, Britt and the rest of the cheer team all laughed and pointed in our direction. They were supposed to be practicing one of their peppy dance routines, but clearly, we were far more entertaining.

"She looks like the lovechild of Freddy Kruger and Edward Scissorhands," one of them shouted, and I knew that particular jibe was directed at me.

They all erupted with laughter.

"And that hair?"

"I know. Does she want to look like a boy?

"I guess anything is better than looking like an overdone steak."

"Ugly bitch."

"What a troll."

"He's only fucking her because he pities her."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh. They used to be tight before she got all mangled up."

"Ew. I don’t care how tight they were. I don’t know how he can stand to touch her."

"She's so gross."

"Daryl's a good guy. He's probably helping that reject tick off some of her bucket list."

I was supposed to hear this.

They wanted me to know what they thought of me.

My face flamed with heat and I hated my body's response to humiliation. How I longed to have one of those resting bitch faces like Mercy, or the ability to turn to stone.

But I didn’t.

I was a human being with human reactions to shame.

My eyes watered and my cheeks burned.

"Say that again, bitches," Mercy snarled, jerking to her feet, and giving the girls exactly what they wanted; a reaction. "I fucking dare you!"

"Mercy, don’t!" I called out, scrambling to my feet. "They're not worth it."

"Like hell." Furious, my friend grabbed the scissors off the grass and stormed towards the cheer team.

"Oh shit," I choked out, hurrying after her. "Put down the weapon, Mercy. Please. Just put down the scissors–"

"You think having short hair makes her less attractive?" Mercy demanded when she reached the girls. Bold-faced, she squared up the entire team, wielding the damn scissors in her hands. "You think a few burns makes her less beautiful? Let me tell you something, if I had a dick, I would be sticking it inside of that girl –" She paused to point her scissors wielding hand at me. "I would fuck her all day long before I even thought about sticking it inside any one of you. Wanna know why? Because you whores are ugly. That's right. Each and every one of you are rotten from the inside out."