The boy I grew up with, the one who was supposed to be my childhood sweetheart, was nice to every girl in our orbit. Except me. We were playing a round of 'Never Have I Ever,' and when one of the other girls giggled and simply smiled at him, he immediately jumped in as her “Black Knight,” downing her drink for her. Then he pointed at me. “Croft, ten laps around the field, or down this shot. Your choice.” When someone started to intervene, he stopped them with a hard stare. “Laney’s got two legs, two hands. She can manage a dare, can't she?” The time he designed the custom spirit wear for the whole junior class for Field Day—he made a shirt for everyone but me. He just snickered. “The princess doesn’t need to slum it with the rest of us in this trash, does she?” But the one time I actually wore a different top to school, a simple, non-uniform sweatshirt, he crumpled the water bottle in his hand, his eyes burning. “Are you two seriously wearing matching clothes, you little—” 1. Our class had forty-nine students, but the box of custom Field Day hoodies only held forty-eight. The class representative for the Spirit Week committee was supposed to handle the order, but Lachlan Wilder—Lock—had taken over. He stood at the front of the room, slapping his hand down on the podium. The whole class snapped to attention. “Alright, Field Day is next week,” he announced, his voice carrying the easy confidence that made him the unofficial King of our high school. “The school is making us all wear matching gear for the opening rally. My dad knows some hot-shot designers. I took care of the whole thing. What do you guys think?” The initial silence broke into a flurry of cheers. Everyone knew he had the connections and the money to get something genuinely cool, not the usual cheap merch. Lock lifted his gaze, lazily skimming the room until his eyes caught mine. My pen froze above the margin of my notebook, and a cold dread settled in my gut. Lock had changed since middle school. The kid who used to cry if I went anywhere without him, the one who needed to hold my hand in the hallway, had become an expert in subtle cruelty. It started with the teasing. When anyone showed interest in me, he made sure to broadcast it to the entire school, turning it into a punchline. His best friend, Zack, would sometimes chime in, “Hey, Laney, heard some sophomore has a crush on you. Can’t have that, can we?” “You’re our Lock’s future wife, after all. What if you get stolen?” Lock would usually just kick Zack's chair, looking annoyed. “Shut up, man. I’m not interested in soft girls like her.” Yet, I remembered the afternoon when he was seven, pleading with our parents for a "childhood betrothal." He’d even snuck his mother’s heirloom gold jewelry out of their safe. “Here,” he’d whispered, pressing a small, intricate gold charm into my palm. “Mom says you need a five-piece set to get married. These are the down payment.” He got grounded for a month that night, but the pact, at least in our childish minds, was sealed. His cruelty escalated from verbal jabs. He started "forgetting" my portion whenever he bought the class pizza, or getting the group text for our study sessions wrong, always telling me to show up an hour late. At first, I’d bite my lip, trying to hold back tears. He’d ruffle my hair and murmur in my ear, “Don’t cry, Little Lane. I just thought you needed to rest a little longer.” Once, twice… After a while, I realized it wasn't forgetfulness. He was deliberately excluding me, deliberately messing with me. My mother, blissfully unaware, would just say, “Laney, he always makes it up to you later, doesn’t he? And no one ever actually says anything mean to you at the meetings, right? He’s just a teenage boy, trying to get your attention, and totally failing at it. He cares about you more than he lets on, sweetie. You should talk to him.” 2. The talk ended with a basketball whizzing past my head, missing by inches. I flinched. His face was flushed—from anger, or heat, I couldn't tell—and his lips were pressed into a furious line. “Who the hell wants you to look at me, Laney?” he spat. “I have a line of people chasing me. Stop making everything about you. Stop thinking you’re that special. It was a damn mistake. I told you, my memory sucks. You’re the one who’s psychoanalyzing everything because you want to be my wife so bad.” He walked away stiffly, but then spun back, his brow furrowed with rage. “And for the record, Delaney,” he snarled, “I’ve been looking at you for years. I’m sick of looking at you. And I will never like you.” That night, I cried until my eyes were swollen shut. Every promise he made as a boy—I had believed every word. And I was truly, hopelessly in love with him. As schoolwork piled up, I buried those feelings. But now, seeing the class representative counting the spirit wear, she whispered an embarrassed question. “Wait, there’s one missing again?” I sat frozen, unable to grip my pen, and met Lock’s gaze. His eyes held a flicker of cynical amusement. 3. The low murmur of the class suddenly felt amplified. “It has to be Laney’s again.” “Lock seems so cool and collected with everyone else. He helped me to the clinic when I twisted my ankle. Why is he always so awful to Laney?” “Thank God it’s not me. I’d be mortified. The whole class has one but you? I’d spend all night wondering what I did wrong.” The conversations triggered a sharp memory. Just last week, I'd overheard Lock and Zack talking by the gym. Zack had been laughing. “Lock, messing with Laney is hilarious. She’s like a little rabbit when she deals with you. You bully her, and she just looks at you with those big red eyes. Honestly, the look on her face—I swear, it’s kinda hot.” Zack was immediately slammed against the lockers with a heavy kick. “You stay the hell away from her, Zack. She’s my punching bag. Only I get to mess with her.” Someone else pressed the issue. “Why, man? You got a thing for Laney?” “Go to hell! I hate looking at her, that’s why! She’s always hovering, always smiling at you guys. Every time I see it, I just feel this gut-wrenching fury.” “But dude, we’re in the same class.” The second guy was also shoved hard. In an instant, everything clicked into place. This wasn't the "special attention" my mother had talked about. This was simple, possessive, mean-spirited fun. My blood ran cold. My teeth started to chatter. Cruelty, I realized, always leaves a trail. Lock finished handing out the hoodies and sauntered over to my desk. “Princess can’t possibly wear this garbage, can she?” I looked up at him, and a strange, liberating calm washed over me. I smiled, genuinely. “You’re right. The trash you’re handing out? Trust me, I already threw mine away.” 4. A collective gasp went around the room. Lock’s eyes narrowed, turning a dangerous, bloodshot red. No one dared to speak. The silence was broken only when Briar Jennings, the class beauty from the junior section across the hall, waved from the window, calling Lock’s name. He ignored her but slammed his hand down on the test paper on my desk. “Is that so? Well, that’s a real shame.” “I was actually going to give you the custom one I designed, but you clearly don’t want it.” A few weeks ago, I would have broken down, pleaded with him, and then, when he inevitably slipped me the gift later, I would have burst into tears of relief and forgiveness. But realizing that all those years of devoted love had been ground into nothing more than a nasty game, I felt only a profound emptiness. Nothing he did now mattered. The belated make-up gift, the supposed "special treatment"... My mind was finally clear. His "being different" was simply setting me up, again and again, to be the public target. Besides, one different hoodie in a class of identical ones would only make me stand out more. It wasn't kindness; it was a cruel spotlight. While we were still locked in a stare-down, Briar Jennings walked right into our classroom, slipped her arm around Lock’s shoulder, and smiled sweetly. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking me to the soccer game? Why are you wasting time here?” Lock was still glaring at me, fire in his eyes. He wrenched free, stormed back to his backpack, and pulled out a light-colored garment wrapped carefully in plastic. He threw it at Briar. His eyes never left mine. “The princess doesn’t want it. It’s yours.” I recognized the designer label. It was the same exclusive, cult-favorite streetwear line that Lock had always gotten me for my birthday before I turned fourteen. That designer had retired three years ago, and rumors said he only came out of retirement if you literally volunteered as his personal assistant for a month. Lock had disappeared for a month over the summer. To say it didn't hurt would be a lie. “Ooh, a good one. I’ll take it. But, Laney,” Briar said, looking me up and down, “a joke is only funny if you don’t take it seriously.” She tugged on Lock's sleeve, and he patted her hand with an air of exasperated resignation. Exasperated resignation. If I was even a step too slow, he would get impatient and snap at me. I forced a bitter laugh. He knew how to be gentle. The bell rang, shattering the tension. 5. The crowd of gawkers dispersed. I took a deep breath, gathered my scattered emotions, and went back to my work. I didn't acknowledge Lock for the rest of the day. When the final bell rang for evening study hall, Lock came over as usual. For years, he’d waited for me to pack up, always reaching out to take my bag. It was a habit from early childhood, an unspoken rule. This time, I batted his hand away. “Don’t bother. I can manage this fine on my own,” I said, my voice cold. “And you won’t need to anymore.” He froze, then his face hardened. My backpack landed on the floor with a thud. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Laney? You’re cutting me out? Are you seriously that much of a sore loser?” I didn't know where the line between his "joke" and his true malice was, or how much of his torment was genuine. But none of it mattered. It didn't justify the pain he caused. Love is love. Unlove is simply that—unlove. Someone gasped. “Woah, Laney is suddenly savage.” I stared at Lock, saying nothing. Spending so much time with him, sharing our commutes, my feelings had taken root. I’d unconsciously suppressed my own personality, my temper, just to keep the peace. There was no need for that now. He wasn't worth my niceness. I picked up my bag and walked away. Behind me, a chair scraped violently across the floor. 6. The next morning, after the first bell, I pulled a gourmet box of chocolates from my desk and placed it on Lock’s table. “Stop giving me these. I don’t like them.” I was lying. I used to love them. But that was before he changed. Back then, he’d scavenge for the most obscure, delicious things and gift them to me, propping himself on my desk with sparkling eyes, like a puppy waiting for praise and a tail wag. That changed the day Zack gave him a brilliant, cruel idea: hide a dead, slimy garden frog in my favorite box of chocolates. I have a deep-seated phobia of wet, slick creatures. The sticky feeling on my hands that day still made my skin crawl. I’d sat there, paralyzed, a choked scream caught in my throat. That was the first time I recoiled from his touch. And I never ate a chocolate he gave me again. Lock stared at the box, then frowned, his expression turning to annoyed confusion under the scrutiny of the whole class. “You used to love these, Laney. What’s wrong?” I ignored him, walking toward my seat. A sharp, painful grip on my wrist yanked me back to his side. “You tell me, Laney. Say it out loud.” I seized the moment of his confusion, snatched my arm back, and glared at him with cold detachment. “Lock, I don’t need your pathetic apologies anymore, so—” He interrupted, running a hand through his hair and sneering. “Apologies? What the hell are you talking about? Who said I was apologizing? What did I even do wrong?” “Look around, Laney. Everyone has one of these in their desk.” I stiffened, my back rigid, and scanned the room. Sure enough, several people were sheepishly pulling the same boxes from their drawers. Shame, hot and searing, crept from my feet to my fingertips. But in my peripheral vision, I caught the slightest upward twitch at the corner of Lock's mouth. “I told you before I just forgot to get yours,” he said, his voice laced with false exasperation. “Now I remembered, and I put it carefully in your desk. And you still don’t believe me.” He sighed, shaking his head with forced helplessness. “What do I have to do to make you happy, Laney?” Briar Jennings’s voice cut in from the doorway. “Exactly. Come on, Laney. This time, I can vouch for him. Lock wasn’t messing with you.” 7. They shared a look—a shared joke, a perfect synergy. Lock’s other friends stepped in to smooth things over, but my heart felt colder than ever before. I bit down on my lower lip, preventing the tears from falling. “Lock,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, “is this your new trick? Your latest way to mess with me?”
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "390764", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel