Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 87911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“Hey,” Ian said, winking at him.
He got close to his friend, shook his hand, and then punched him in the face.
Ian went down onto the bleachers.
“What the fuck?” Riley asked.
“You tripped her, didn’t you?”
“What?” Ian asked, covering his eye. “That fucking hurt, man.”
“You tripped Chloe when we were leaving homeroom.”
“Damn, is this what I get for helping out?” Ian asked. “A black eye? It’s no different than what we normally do. You really think she’s going to fall for a sudden change of heart? You want this plan to work, you’re going to have to get in the game and become her knight.”
The guys were sniggering, and he didn’t like it.
Ever since they’d come up with this plan over the weekend, Alfie had been torn back and forth between going through with it and just leaving shit alone.
Right now, he wanted to walk away. Chloe was more trouble than she was worth, and if his dad ever found out what he was doing, well, it would probably go from the belt to a proper beating with a metal bat. He didn’t know for sure how far his dad was willing to go with getting his son ready for the real world.
“You’re not going to help.” Alfie had seen how she’d gone down and knew she’d been hurt. He hadn’t had a chance to help her up though.
“Look, I trip her, point at someone else, and you play the hero, helping her. It’s not my fault she actually moved faster than your ass to help her up,” Ian said. “You should be thanking me. So far, your show of being the nice guy is cringeworthy.”
A couple of the other guys agreed.
“I don’t know. I thought you were handling it well,” Riley said. “I mean, first cleaning the shit off her locker.”
“Who did that?” Alfie asked. “I know it wasn’t us.”
“I haven’t written shit on her locker in years,” Ian said. “It got boring really fast, and to be honest, she doesn’t even react to that shit anymore. What’s the point of doing something that’s so boring? She just goes to the janitor’s closet, gets her things, cleans it up, and goes to class.”
“She does this often?” Alfie asked.
Riley chuckled. “You never noticed?”
“I’m starting to think one of you two should be acting my role seeing as you know so much about her,” Alfie said, finally taking a seat. He should be in history class, but he had no interest in learning about the past.
Sure, he should be sitting next to Chloe, trying to bring down her defenses, but he needed a break.
Before the guys had come up with their plan, he’d bumped into her most days of the week, nearly every single hour. Today wasn’t one of those days. He’d barely seen her after her fall.
He’d gone to help her up, but she’d grabbed her books and run away.
The laughter had followed her down the long corridor. He’d never lingered on the outside of the bullying before like this.
He either wasn’t around, or part of it.
This had been different.
“So, why aren’t you in class?” Riley asked.
“Same reason you guys aren’t. I needed a break.”
“In case you haven’t seen it yet, Chloe’s not going to be an easy target. I’ve seen her around you already, and she doesn’t trust easily.” Ian dropped his hand from his eye, and it was red and bloodshot. Alfie didn’t feel any remorse in hitting his best friend.
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?”
“It’s everyone’s fault,” Ian said. “But that means you’re going to have to work hard.”
“She’s not going to fall for this. This is a stupid plan,” Alfie said. “You two can’t come hanging around with us either. You guys are everywhere with me.”
“Which is why I think it would be good if some of us stayed hating her, helping with the hurt. Come on, what chick wouldn’t fall for you picking your girl over your best friends.”
“I don’t like this,” Alfie said.
“It’s going to be fun. Believe me, when we’re done with this at the end of the year, you’re going to thank me.”
The bell rang, and Alfie wanted to just leave. The lessons he had left this afternoon were all pointless ones anyway. It wasn’t like he needed them. He was hungry though.
“Come on, Alfie, this is going to be fun,” Riley said.
“Fine. Fine.” He got to his feet. “We do it my way though.”
“Of course, man,” Ian said. “This is all on you. This was your plan to start with. If you remember, I just wanted to pay someone to do this shit. You were the one willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.”
The plan was mostly his idea, but Ian and Riley had helped to build it up to what he knew was going to happen, so long as Chloe played her part well.