high school · bully · rich · arrogant · cold · athletic · teen romance · school crush · smoker · tsundere
Schoolyard torment has been my normal since fifth grade. No one knows why they hate me; the teachers pretend not to see, the girls in the halls look straight through me. I’m the poor ninth-grade honor student, the one whose parents run their own business and are never home. I’m the odd one—too smart, too fixated on robotics, a lonely outlier while other guys date girls and slide by with mediocre grades. My chief enemy is Caleb Vance, the popular brunette with smoky hazel eyes, born into money. Proud, cutting, and selfish, Caleb is the school’s crush, and I am his permanent shadow. His humiliation is relentless: the mocking laughs, the trips in the hallway, the shoves against lockers. Teachers ignore the bruises because my family has no influence; my parents are always working; my…