Sandy laughed incredulously, batting my hand away as her eyes turned hard. “I’ve never even been to your house. Get a grip of yourself.” She sneered at me hatefully, looking down her nose at me as if I was something nasty she’d just stepped in.

“It was you! The police will be able to prove it’s you somehow. Your fingerprints will be on the meat wrapper or something,” I said confidently, lifting my chin confidently.

“Someone gave your dog poisoned meat?” she questioned. Some sort of emotion flicked across her eyes, but it was gone before I could work out what it was. She shook her head incredulously. “You seriously think it was me? You’re crazy. Crazy-Maisie,” she mocked in a sing song voice, smugly looking around at the people that were gathered to watch. When some of them gave a little half chuckle, obviously appreciating her stupid rhyme of my name, I ground my teeth from anger. “I think that should be your new name. Crazy-Maisie. It fits you even more perfectly than Can’t-keep-a-boyfriend-Maisie,” she teased, pursing her lips as she folded her arms across her chest.

A sob was fighting to break out of my throat but I swallowed it down, not letting it escape. “You just stay the hell away from me and my family, you hear me? Or… or…” I gritted my teeth, still trying to maintain some degree of control over myself.

She raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow as a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Or what?”

I growled in frustration. I’d never wanted to hurt anyone in my life, but for her I was willing to make an exception. Chester’s face came to mind as my eyes burned with tears. I knew I should walk away. I knew I shouldn’t have even said anything in the first place, and that I should have just left it to the police, but my feet seemed to be rooted to the floor as the last of my restraint slipped. I couldn’t stop myself. It was like someone else was controlling my limbs. That smug smile of hers was my undoing. My hand collided with the middle of her chest, hard. She stumbled backwards a couple of steps, gasping from shock, before righting herself and looking up at me with disbelief clear across her face.

“You little slut!” she hissed as she launched herself at me.

One of her hands went straight to the back of my head as she gripped my ponytail, pulling roughly. Rage boiled in the pit of my stomach as every single bad thing that had happened in the last couple of weeks seemed to taunt me. I pushed forward against her, using my bodyweight as leverage. We both slammed into the lockers beside us making a resounding crash that seemed to echo in the hallway. Gasps erupted around us immediately, just like last time as everyone watched with excited eyes. Her hand connected with the side of my head making me grit my teeth so I didn’t squeal from the pain of it. My hand shot to the back of my head, gripping her hand that held my hair. My scalp was starting to burn where she was pulling so hard, so I dug my nails into the back of her hand as hard as I could, feeling her blood wet my fingertips as she gasped and jerked her hand away. Taking advantage of her momentary shock, I lifted my hand and slapped her as hard as I could across the face making her head whip to the side.

The name calling started then as she threw herself at me again, wrapping her arms around my waist and tackling me to the floor. Pain coursed up my back as she landed on top of me, straddling me quickly and slapping and scratching at my shoulders as face as I struggled to grip her wrists and fight her off.

The fight probably lasted just over a minute before hands came down and lifted Sandy off of me, just like last time. I sat up quickly, preparing myself to go after her again. I wasn’t exactly doing well, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. Unfortunately, a pair of hands grabbed me too and lifted me to my feet.

“Let go of me!” Sandy screeched, struggling and wriggling, trying to get out of the arms of the person holding her. In the back of my mind I vaguely recognised that it was Zach that had pulled her off of me and now had her in a vice like grip opposite me.

“Calm down, Maisie,” a voice I recognised as Alex, hissed in my ear as the hands tightened on my waist.

“I hope your stupid dog died!” Sandy screamed, still thrashing wildly.

Rage built again inside me. “I’ll kill you! You stay away from me or I swear you’ll regret it!” I shouted, swinging wildly, hoping that one of my blows would come into contact with her face. Unfortunately, she was too far away from me, also swinging blindly in an attempt to reach me. “You spiteful little bitch! I’ll kill you!”

“Maisie, stop it!” Alex growled, pulling me back a step or two just as Sandy’s foot came up about to hit me in the stomach. “Get her out of here, Zach,” Alex ordered.

Zach nodded; turning a red faced Sandy away from me and giving her a little shove up the hallway. “Just go to class,” he instructed, stepping to the left so that he blocked her path to me in case she attempted to make a dive for me again. He gripped her upper arm, nodding up the hallway, motioning for her to walk.

The shock of what had just happened and the pain of her blows were only now starting to register. My scalp burned, and my shoulder and back hurt where I had hit the floor.

Sandy then seemed to turn her frustration on Zach. “Get your filthy hands off of me! I don’t want your scumbag hands on me!” She twisted, slamming the palms of her hands on his chest. Her voice was full of acid as she sneered at him, her eyes hard and calculating. “I know all about you. My cousin goes to the school you used to go to. He told me all about you and what you used to get up to at school. I know all sorts of things that you probably don’t want common knowledge here. Now get the hell off of me!” Sandy spat, shoving on his chest again.

Zach’s eyes widened as he let go of her this time. “You shut your mouth,” he growled through his teeth as his hands balled into fists.

“Why? You gonna make me? I’d heard that about you. Fists first, brain second,” Sandy taunted, raising one eyebrow in invitation.

Zach’s hand tightened even more. “Screw you,” he snorted. “You think I give a shit what you’ve heard? You’re some slutty little girl who takes pleasure in seeing others miserable. Maybe it makes your pathetic little life more interesting or something. Just go to class and stop embarrassing yourself.” He didn’t move as she glared at him for a couple of seconds. Then all at once she huffed and span on her heel, marching up the hallway with her gaggle of followers trotting along behind her.

I stood there with my mouth wide, trying to take in what Sandy had said about Zach in his old school. Just what was it that he didn’t want common knowledge here? Zach turned, his eyes meeting mine for a second before he pulled back his shoulders and marched off through the crowd without another word.

Alex’s grip loosened on me so I turned and looked up into his angry face. I winced, rubbing at my shoulder as the crowd started to dissipate. He shook his head dejectedly. “Oh yeah, you did so well with the ‘I’m going to ignore her completely’ plan that we agreed on,” he stated, raising one eyebrow.

I swallowed loudly. “I thought so too,” I muttered.

He sighed dramatically. “Looks like my self-defence lessons were a waste of time too, huh? She kicked your ass big time.” He shook his head, picking up my schoolbag and holding it out to me. “You fight like a girl.”

I laughed despite myself. “I am a girl.”

Chapter 20

Everywhere I went, whispering erupted around me. People were speculating about my dog, who it was that had done it, was it Sandy, if it wasn’t Sandy then who was it… I heard Zach’s name mentioned in connection to it too after what Sandy had said about him in his last school. I even heard a couple of people suggest that I’d poisoned my own dog in order to gain sympathy and blame Sandy because I was jealous that my boyfriend was in love with her. One person even questioned if I even had a dog in the first place. They weren’t even bothering to be discreet in their gossiping. It was disgraceful.

At lunchtime, I was surrounded by friends who were all trying their best to cheer me up and keep my mind off of the fact that I was centre of attention for the whole school. I’d apologised to Charlotte and Beth for snapping at them earlier in the morning, and of course was forgiven straight away. Luke and Alex were sat with us too, both of them seeming quieter than usual. Although it was nice to be surrounded by people, they did nothing to block out the stares and gossiping of my fellow students. Everything was just too much for me to deal with. Too much noise, too little air, too many bodies around me. I felt a little trapped.

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I muttered, standing up and quickly waving a dismissive hand at Charlotte as she went to stand too. “I’m fine on my own. I’ll just be a minute.” She nodded, sitting back down again and continuing with her sandwich. Before either of the boys could protest and insist that one of them should come with me, I scurried away from the table and out of the lunchroom. Once I was out of the hustle and bustle of it all I started to feel a little better, but I still craved fresh air and solitude.

Instead of going to the bathroom like I’d said, I headed down the corridor and out of the side door. The warm midday air hit me in the face and made me sigh in contentment as I let the door swing closed behind me. After a few seconds of just standing there I decided to go the full hog and go and sit in the sunshine of the school field. As I rounded the corner, however, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one that looked like they wanted fresh air and alone time. Zach was jogging slow, lazy laps around the field. I hadn’t seen him all morning. My guess was that he was hiding and keeping out of the way of the gossip after Sandy’s comments this morning.

I watched him running for a few minutes before thinking that he was probably hot. There was a vending machine back inside the door where I came out of, so I headed back inside, buying a bottle of water for him. Once I had it I walked out across the field. He noticed me almost immediately, slowing down his pace before changing direction and jogging towards me. The frown on his face told me that he didn’t really want to see me as he stopped in front of me.

“Hey,” I greeted, forcing cheerfulness to make up for the fact that he was scowling and kicking at the grass with his foot.

“Hey,” he grunted in response.

I held out the bottle. “Bought you this.”

His brows rose in apparent surprise as he hesitantly took the bottle out of my hand. “Yeah? Thanks.”

I smiled, nodding at the track. “Why are you out here on your own? You could have eaten with me, you know.”

He sighed deeply, shrugging. “Figured you might not want to speak to me much today. You’ve already got enough attention on you without fraternising with a scumbag.” His tone was sad as he spoke and I instantly hated Sandy just that little bit more.

I snorted at his explanation. “Don’t be silly. Besides, people are gossiping about me whether I fraternise with you or not, so it makes no difference if I talk to a scumbag,” I joked, nudging his arm with mine. He laughed quietly, his eyes coming up to meet mine as he chugged down some of the water.

“I’m sorry to hear about your dog. Is he okay?” he asked, cocking his head to the side as he looked at me quizzically.

I nodded, feeling a little pang in my heart at the mention of Chester. “He’s okay. He’s at the animal hospital right now,” I replied. “They said we can probably take him home tomorrow.”

“That’s good. Glad he’s okay, he’s cute,” he muttered. “So when did all this happen then?”

I sighed and sat down, crossing my legs and picking at the grass. “Last night. When you dropped me home from tutoring I found him in the garden. Someone had fed him some meat, and he was barely breathing.” My voice broke as the memories of it surfaced again.

Zach groaned and sat down next to me, placing his hand on my knee and squeezing supportively. “I’m sorry. I should have come in with you and made sure everything was alright before I left you. I shouldn’t have just dropped you outside your house when I knew you were gonna be going in to an empty house,” he said, shaking his head and frowning.

I forced a smile and used the sleeve of my sweater to dry the tear that leaked out. “It’s fine, you weren’t to know that someone had snuck into my house and poisoned my dog.” I tried to keep my tone light, but a sob made my voice hitch in the middle of my sentence.

“I guess. I still feel like crap about it though. I’m sorry,” he muttered. His gaze met mine. I could see little worry lines in between his eyebrows as he seemed to be silently scolding himself for not walking me in to my house last night.

His hand came up, touching my cheek, just at the side of my nose. I winced and cringed away from his hand as a small stinging pain followed his touch. “Looks like you got a couple of scratches when you were fighting,” he muttered, letting his hand drop back down to my knee again.

I nodded, shrugging dismissively, not wanting to talk about me getting into a fight in the middle of the hallway. “Yeah, Alex told me off because I fought like a girl and let her kick my ass,” I replied.

He chuckled. “You are a girl.”

A grin crept onto my face. “That’s exactly what I said.”

He nodded but didn’t answer. He just looked at me, searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His eyes were so intense as he looked at me that I had to look away from them because it felt like he was trying to read all of my secrets. We lapsed into silence. Zach’s thumb stroked the side of my knee in small circles as I played with a blade of grass. It was nice actually, calming even. After everything that had happened in the last couple of days, it was nice just to sit there quietly in the sun and not feel the need to make conversation.