Monday morning, I walked into the hallway, and it felt different. The whole environment of the place that gave me the happiest moments in life wasn’t as fun. People were whispering as I walked through the hallways. I held my backpack straps and started walking faster, trying to get the idea out of my head that it was me they were laughing at, but I couldn’t. My skin crawled as I rushed to my locker to get my books, and then I stood still in my shoes when I saw why everyone was laughing.

WHORE. SLUT. TRAMP.

It was written in bright red spray paint across my locker. A janitor stood with a sponge and a bucket of soapy water, scrubbing away.

“Oh, shit,” Todd said, sliding behind me and placing his hands on my shoulders. His nose was taped up, and the skin underneath his eyes was black and blue from when Elliott punched him. “Isn’t that your locker?”

“Why would you do this?” I asked, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Me? What makes you think it was me? Trust me, everyone knows you have a million guys on your roster. It could’ve been anyone. As for me”—he moved in closer to my ear and whispered—“I wouldn’t touch your STD ass with a ten-foot pole. I told you, you committed social suicide, Hollywood. Now deal with it.”

He walked off, and I stood shaking as a crowd stood around me. Some girls mocked me, laughing, calling me “disgusting”, repeating the rumors they’d heard about me and Todd’s parties. I didn’t know what was worse—the rumors being spread or the fact that most of them were true.

“Come on,” someone said, grabbing my arm and pulling me down the hallway. When my eyes focused enough to realize who was yanking me, a bit of relief hit me.

Katie.

She led me through the hall, and we walked down a set of spiral stairs until we hit the basement floor. No classes were held down there except for auto shop, which was mostly taken by guys, which meant the girls’ bathroom on that floor was almost always abandoned.

We walked in, and she hopped up on the countertop by the mirror. “You okay?” she asked.

“Define okay,” I joked.

She frowned. “I’m sorry that happened.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, but it does. What they did to your locker is crap. They’re jerks because they struggle with the fact that this is it for them. High school is where they’ll shine before going out into the real world and realizing they are nothing more than just assholes who belittle girls because they’re terrified of being lesser than us.”

“Are you always so passionate?” I asked.

“Only when it comes to guys treating girls like crap. Yeah, I’m always passionate about that.”

My hands raced over my face. “What if they aren’t wrong, though? What if the words are true?”

“True or not, what they did is still disgusting. You didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”

I swallowed hard and hopped up onto the counter beside her. “Elliott’s going to see it,” I whispered, nerves writhing in my gut.

“He won’t care.”

“It’s just…embarrassing, him seeing that.”

“He won’t care,” she repeated.

“But—”

“Jasmine.” Katie placed a comforting hand on my shaky leg, and gave me a stern look. “He won’t care.” I listened to her words, but still, they were hard to believe. I wasn’t sure how I could face him, especially after seeing how he reacted at my place when he found out I was screwing around with guys to keep him from getting beat up. I saw it in his eyes when he told me it wasn’t just sex—I saw how I had let him down.

“He’s too good for me,” I told her.

“He’s Elliott.” She laughed. “He’s too good for everyone.”

“Why did you pull me away up there? Why did you help me?”

“Because I know how it feels.” Katie ran her hands through her dark curly hair and shrugged her shoulders. She looked just like her brother in many ways, from her caramel skin to her hazel eyes. The only difference between the two was how she carried herself. She held her head high while Elliott’s confidence shook. “Last year, I was you. I was the one the guys talked about. I was a junior getting attention from senior guys and I felt unstoppable. All the girls hated me, but I didn’t care. They were just jealous, I told myself. They just wished they could be me. Then, one night I made a mistake at a party. I got wasted and…” She swallowed hard. “There was a video of me doing things with a group of guys, and it got around. Needless to say, I wasn’t as unstoppable as I imagined. Come Monday morning, my locker was painted red, and the video was viewed by just about everyone at school. I was humiliated. I mean, Jesus, even my little brother saw it.”

“Oh my God,” I muttered, stunned. “I can’t even imagine.”

She nodded. “It was bad. I spent a lot of nights crying in my room. My mom didn’t know how to help me, because I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what had happened. I was too ashamed. Then one night as I was crying, Elliott came into my room, and he sat on the edge of my bed and said, ‘It’s not true, what they wrote about you.’ I laughed, because it was comedic, ya know? I knew it was true. I told him that, too. He’d seen the video, so there was no real way to deny what had happened, but still, he said, ‘It’s not true.’ I asked him how it wasn’t true, and he said, ‘Because they don’t get to label you. Those guys don’t get to tell you who you are.’”

Oh, Elliott.

“When he overheard the guys talking about me at school, he got into a fist fight with them, and obviously, he lost. That’s the reason he gets beat up so bad now. He beat up Todd’s older brother, who graduated last year. So now, because of me, he’s bullied every day.”

“It’s not your fault those guys are jerks. They would’ve found a reason to hurt someone regardless.”

“I know, but I just wish it wasn’t Elliott. He’ll never admit that it bothers him, you know? He just takes the bullying,” she told me. “Which is why I worry about him, because he’d rather get himself hurt than his loved ones. He’s been that way all our lives.”

“I can see that.”

“When my mom was with my dad, he used to shout at her all the time. Then, one day the shouting turned into shoving. The next time, hitting. He normally hid it well from us kids, but one night, Dad got so upset that he went to slap Mom in front of us. Elliott leaped up and shoved Dad into a wall.” She snickered and shook her head. “He was seven years old and stood up to our dad, to protect Mom. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Elliott is a stick—there’s no part of my brother that should be fighting.”

“But still, he gets up and goes to war,” I said, my chest feeling tight.

“Yup. Every day. Every day he goes to war for the ones he loves, and he’ll make sure to go out of his way so you know it wasn’t your fault. So, I get you feeling embarrassed about him seeing what they wrote on your locker, but don’t, because he won’t care. He’ll just want to make sure you’re all right.”

When I finally built up the courage to leave the bathroom, I headed back to the world of high school. I didn’t see Elliott, though. I was both happy and sad about that fact; I was afraid of what he’d think of me, but I also craved being in his presence.

At the end of the day, I walked toward my locker, and when I saw Elliott standing next to it, butterflies formed in my stomach. He gave me a half-grin, and I gave him one right back. My locker was scrubbed clean, but still, the memories persisted.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” I shifted my weight around on my feet, unable to stand still. “Did you see my locker earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

I looked down at my hands and started to fiddle with my fingers. My nerves were building more and more as I waited for his reaction, but he didn’t give me one.

“I should get going so I don’t miss the bus home.” He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

He parted his lips as if he wanted to say something, but no words came out.

I smiled. “Are you okay, Eli?”

His smile was laced with nerves. “Yes. Sorry. Okay, well, I’ll see you later.” He started to walk away, but then he paused, turning back to face me. “Can I t-t-take you out?”

“What?”

“I just…I was wondering if I could take you out on a date, and not like a friend-date, but like a date date.” As he spoke, the butterflies in my stomach kept swirling around. “You can say no!” he added quickly.

“I want to say yes, it’s just…” I bit my bottom lip. “Is it because you feel bad about what happened to my locker? Is it a pity date?”

He laughed. “Trust me. It’s not a pity date.”

“I’ve never been on a date before.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged his left shoulder. “Neither have I. So, Saturday?”

“What about your show?”

“I’ll skip it for you.”

My heart stopped beating and beat faster all at once. “Okay.”

He smiled so wide and anxiously raced his hand over his head. “Okay. Good. Um, I’ll see you t-t-tomorrow at school.”

“Bye.” As he walked away, I turned back to my locker and opened it. I started collecting the books from the shelves, and I jumped a little when I heard my name.

“Sorry, it’s just me again,” Elliott said. “I just forgot to say something.”

“Oh, what?”

“First, can I…” He stepped toward me, but then stepped back again. “Can I hug you?”

I laughed, always so amused by everything about his movements. “Please.”

He wrapped me in a hug, and I breathed him in.

I relaxed a bit as he held me.

“I forgot to tell you that none of it is true. The words they put on your locker—none of it’s true. I’m going to hug you right now until you believe me, and don’t say you believe me, because I know you don’t.”

“It may take a while.” I shut my eyes as he held me closer. “You’re going to miss your bus.”

“It’s okay,” he replied, so matter-of-fact. “I’ll walk home.”

* * *

“Are you seriously asking me to do this, Snow?” Ray wondered, standing in the doorway of my bedroom that afternoon. He had a look of disbelief in his stare as he crossed his arms. “The answer is obviously no.”

I groaned. “But it’s just a small lie,” I promised.

“Just to be clear”—he narrowed his eyes—“you’re asking me to set up a fake meeting between a music producer and your mother this Saturday so you can go out on a date with a boy who was randomly in my house this past weekend wearing my clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Jasmine.” He sighed heavily. Whenever he used my real name, I knew he was annoyed. “Normally I’d agree that your mom is over-the-top and out of line, but this time she was right. You lied to her and you snuck around.”

“It’s the only way I can have a life!” I argued.

“That still doesn’t make it right,” he replied. “Listen, Snow, I’ll go to bat for you with your mother, okay? I’ll stand up for you and fight for you to have some freedom as a kid, but we can’t win the war if you go into battles lying.”

“I’m sorry I lied, okay? I knew she wouldn’t have let me go, but this Saturday…this is important. I promise I’ll never ask you for anything ever again if you help me out with this. Plus, if you actually set up a meeting with someone, it’s not a lie at all.”

“No, the lie is me telling her I’m taking you to the studio to work.”

“You can take me to the studio afterward—then it’s not a lie. Pleeease?” I begged like a five-year-old. I gave Ray my best ever puppy-dog eyes, and he cringed.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” I asked innocently.

“Look at me with those stupid Snow White doe eyes.” He groaned. “Fine, fine, but if we do this, I have a few rules of my own, like one: we will go to the studio after this date thing.”

“Okay, deal.” My grin spread from ear to ear.

“Wait, I’m not done, and you’ll also let me meet this boy. I drive and drop you two off.”

I grimaced. “You’re not going to harass him, are you?”

He laughed. “Oh, I’m going to harass him. I’m going to inform him that I’m going to make his life a living hell if he ever tries anything or breaks your heart.” He held his hand out toward me. “Deal or no deal?”

I grumbled, stood up, and shook his hand. “Deal.”