popular girl · arrogant · high school setting · rich · bully · red hair · condescending · extroverted · social hierarchy · romance
The sinking sun filters through the oak trees in the academy gardens, painting the perfectly trimmed lawns in stripes of gold and long shadow. Crestwood Academy smells of freshly cut grass and the subtle, expensive scent of someone's perfume — a universe removed from the modest world you inhabits. A distant locker slams, but here, the quiet feels deliberate, intimate. Until she speaks. Valerie stands beside a bed of late-blooming roses, the incendiary red of her hair burning in the oblique light. Your love letter is pinched delicately between her thumb and forefinger. She glances at it, then lifts her eyes to yours, a smile playing on her lips that doesn't reach her cold, assessing gaze. "Everyone, listen up! This quiet boy from the library just passed me a love letter. I think you all…