Taming My Bullies novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Soup

Sean's apology is too small, Grayson trips her in the lunch line and wears his own soup, and Delaney slides a demerit under her door.

Sean caught up with me in the lobby of the Commons, where I was leaving a puddle on a very expensive rug.

"Mindy," he said again, a little out of breath. "It's really you."

"It's really me. I'm cold and I'm wet and you watched."

He winced.

He had the same wince at ten, the one he used when he'd eaten the last of the marshmallows.

"I didn't know it was you until you said your name," he said. "I swear. Then it was too late, and Rhys was right there."

"Rhys is right there for everybody. That's not a reason."

"I know."

"Then why are you still standing in it?"

He looked at his shoes.

Then he dug into his cardigan pocket and held something out on his palm.

It was a little brass compass, scratched, with a cracked lid.

I knew it at once.

It had hung from his neck all that summer, and he had let me borrow it the day I wanted to find the north end of the lake.

"I kept it," he said. "I don't know why I'm giving it to you. I think I just need you to know I remember."

I took it, because my hands were shaking from the cold and I didn't trust them to refuse.

"This isn't an apology," I said.

"No."

"The apology is on the list. You're on the list, Sean."

He almost smiled.

"I figured," he said.

The lunch line ran along the left wall of the Commons.

I had changed in a bathroom into the only dry shirt I owned, and I took a tray and stood behind a very tall girl who smelled like expensive shampoo.

Everyone was watching me from their tables.

I held my chin level and recited the soup choices under my breath, because it kept my voice from shaking.

"Tomato basil," I whispered. "Chicken and wild rice. Something called a bisque."

Something hit my ankle.

It was a boot, thrust out from the end of the nearest table, sliding right across the line of my feet.

I had half a second to see it.

I could have stepped over it. A smart person would have.

I turned my tray ninety degrees instead.

Grayson Tull went down the line with his foot stuck out and his big grin on, and the full bowl of tomato basil left my tray and landed in his lap.

The whole Commons went silent.

Then it exploded.

Someone at the back screamed with laughter, someone else dropped a fork, and a freshman by the dessert table climbed on a chair to see.

Grayson looked down at his khakis, now orange and steaming.

"Oh no," I said. "Did you spill that?"

"You did that on purpose."

"You tripped me on purpose," I said. "I'm just a very clumsy transfer."

He opened his mouth.

He closed it.

Across the room Rhys Montgomery sat with his chin on his hand, and his shoulders were shaking.

He wasn't laughing out loud. He was a boy who laughed.

But his eyes were on me, full of something sharp and bright, and then he looked away.

"Somebody get Grayson a towel," a girl called from the next table.

"Somebody get the new girl a medal," another one said.

I took a different bowl and sat down alone at the end of a long table.

A moment later, someone slid in across from me.

She had a platinum bob so sleek it looked ironed and a string of real pearls over her blazer.

"Delaney Vanderveer," she said, and held out a perfectly manicured hand. "You're so brave. I would have died."

"Mindy."

"I know. We all know." She smiled with her whole face and none of her eyes. "Rhys and I have a history, you see. I like to keep an eye on the people he notices."

"He didn't notice me. He threw me in a fountain."

"That's how he notices people," she said.

She stood, patted my shoulder, and walked off.

Birch Hall was a brick dormitory at the edge of the woods, and my key was taped to an envelope on the front desk.

The room number was 4B, at the very top.

It opened onto a narrow attic crowded with plastic crates, and each crate was stamped with the same label in black letters.

QUAD TROPHIES. DO NOT MOVE.

No bed.

No desk.

No window latch, only a single hook on the wall where a person might hang a coat.

I stood there with my wet duffel and my mother's tin.

A white slip lay on the floor just inside the door, where it had been pushed through from the hall.

I picked it up.

CONDUCT NOTICE. Unauthorized entry into a campus water feature. Demerit one of two.

Beneath it, in a small, neat signature, were the words *D. Vanderveer, Student Conduct Liaison*.

I read it twice.

Then I laughed, because crying would have meant they had won on the first day.

Two demerits ended my scholarship.

I had one left, and a bet, and no bed.

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