She was a fucking baby who had just been dropped into a tank of sharks.
“Fuck it,” I muttered under my breath. I walked over to where two sophomore girls, whose names I didn’t know, were giving her a hard time.
“Are you trying to be an asshole by wearing Jimmy Choos to school? Do you think you’re impressing us?” one of the girls asked.
“No,” Ash said. “I just…these are my shoes.”
The other girl snorted. “Right. And those diamond studs are just earrings. People around this school have money, too. They just don’t go around shoving it in everyone’s faces.”
Ashleigh shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do that at all.”
“Hey,” I said. Ash looked up at me like she always did. Like I was a hero, a God, her only friend in the world…when I was none of those things. Why did she always have to look at me like that?
“Marc,” she said quietly. Almost reverently.
I looked at the two girls, who definitely knew me. I wasthatguy in this school. “Ash is new. Maybe try to get to know her before you verbally slash her up.”
“And you,” I said to Ash. “I told you not to try too hard. You didn’t listen.”
That was it. That was all I had time for. I turned my back on the three of them and left to go to class. It would work or it wouldn’t, but I didn’t care.
Because Ashleigh Landen was not my problem.
