Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 51243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
I’m not “bullying” her.
I’m not being mean.
If only you knew what she did to me …
Audrey Parker has been my number one nemesis since seventh grade, but she’s somehow convinced everyone that I was the bully. (Please don’t believe any of her tears. She literally majored in Drama.)
She got me suspended for placing scorpions into her locker.
I forced her to transfer after she nearly drowned me in the pool.
She swore on her life that she was “done ever talking to me after high school,” but her yellow notes and mean emails still invaded my life like clockwork.
It wasn’t until we graduated college that we saw each other again, when a mixup forced us to share the same suite for a fall program.
Until one filthy night in the library changed everything.
Well, it should’ve.
I’m not “bullying” her.
I’m not being mean.
Now I’m starting to question what she means to me.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
AUDREY
Ionce heard someone say that “our hair holds memories,” but I desperately wished mine clung to grudges. If it did, maybe my curls would’ve jumped off my scalp and suffocated Taylor Wolff the second he stepped onto the bus today.
Instead, they hung docile and blissfully unaware that he was sticking wads of his disgusting chewing gum in them.
So, here I was, for the third time this month, sitting under the harsh bathroom lights with tears in my eyes as my mother hovered behind me. Her scissors clicked like tiny jaws, salvaging what was left of the strands Taylor ruined.
“Repeat after me,” she said, snipping another curl. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but—”
“He called me a fugly bitch with buck teeth,” I cut in. “He said it in front of the entire class, and everyone laughed.”
“The principal suspended him for an entire week.”
Ugh, whatever. I groaned. His suspensions never did anything except make his return ten times worse.
And I’d never done anything to him to deserve his vitriol.
At least, I didn’t think so…
“I’m in the business of words, trust me.” My mother smiled at me in the mirror, motioning for me to smile back.
I refused.
“Words only have power if you let them,” she said. “Now, finish it. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but what?”
“Words will never hurt me,” I muttered.
“Perfect!” She washed my hair and styled it, and when she was done, I avoided looking in the mirror to assess the damage.
Her expression—and the oversized yellow glitter bow she slid into my hair—told me everything.
“Now, let’s make it even better.” She crossed the room to the bookshelf. “We’ll reread a scene from Jane & The Bully Boy, so you can get your confidence back!”
I folded my arms and braced for another unwanted book-club session.
As a bestselling children’s author, my mother never knew how to separate real life from fiction. She got so wrapped up in her characters she swore they lived among us, and she thought I was as obsessed as her readers.
I really freakin’ wasn’t, and any of her books that I’d read were against my will.
“When Jane was being bullied by Johnny, she didn’t take it personally.” She flipped through the pages with a little hum. “She knew it came from his inner dark trauma, right?”
“Right…”
“Slowly, they shifted from fighting to understanding, and they became enemies to lovers.” She squealed like one of her fangirls. “Now, of course you’re way too young for the details, but I think you and Taylor have potential to shift from enemies to friends. Or maybe even—”
I mentally muted the remaining words that fell from her mouth.
There was no point in buying into any of her fictional hopes because I’d known the truth since we first moved here: Taylor Wolff was a fucking bully.
And it wasn’t because of some bullshit “trauma.”
He was born as Satan’s spawn, and it was simple as that.
He hated me, and I hated him.
End of the story.
No plot twists ahead.
I didn’t know it then, but as the years unfolded and our paths continued colliding, he became the type of guy that decorated the pages of romance books—the brooding bad boy who knew everything about sex and was “broken” at the age of seventeen.
Except... he was real.
And he wanted to break me.
So I refused to believe that we were blazing a trail “from enemies to lovers.”
We were enemies to the death—and I refused to let him kill me first…
BULLY YEARS: SIXTH GRADE
TAYLOR
Dear Audrey,
I’m sorry I stuck gum in your hair this week.
I’m also sorry that I ruined your favorite jacket with permanent marker & paint.
I’ll never do these things to you again.
Very very sorry.
Hope you’ll forgive me,
Taylor
If it were truly up to me, I would crumple this letter and throw it right at Audrey’s ugly face, but I have an audience…
And for whatever reason, they seem to have missed the first act of this show and forgotten exactly why Fraudrey Parker deserved far more than some cheap gum in her hair.
She’s not innocent AT ALL.
“Get out of the car and do it now, Taylor,” my mother said as I stared at Audrey’s house. “Then walk home and tell me how everything went.”
“Why can’t you come with me?”
“Because I wasn’t with you when you behaved terribly to that girl.” She leaned over and unbuckled my seatbelt. “Go apologize. Now.”
I rolled my eyes and opened the car door.
“Make sure you apologize to her parents as well,” she said. “Oh, and be sure to look directly into Audrey’s eyes when you speak, too.”
“If I do that, I’ll turn into stone. You know she’s a witch, right?”
“Taylor…”
“Okay, fine.” I stepped out and took my time walking down the long stone path that led to Audrey’s front door.
I looked over my shoulder, hoping my mother had pulled off so I could turn around and run home, but she was still there watching.