Chapter 3

Sarah Jenkins looked from the game demo in my hand to my face, then glanced quickly at Brittany, whose sneer was firmly in place.

A small, hesitant smile touched Sarah' s lips.

"Okay," she whispered, taking the USB drive. "And yes, I'll go to prom with you, Ethan."

The cafeteria buzzed again, whispers erupting.

Brittany' s face flushed a dangerous red, she spun on her heel and stormed out, her posse scrambling after her.

Later that day, I found Sarah in the art room, tears streaming down her face.

Her expensive digital art tablet, her main tool, lay on the floor, its screen spiderwebbed with cracks.

Her latest project, open on a nearby monitor, was defaced, digital spray paint obscuring what looked like a stylized, almost heroic portrait of... me.

"They came in," Sarah choked out, trying to wipe her eyes. "Brittany and her friends, they said... they said I was a charity case, that you only asked me out of pity."

She picked up the broken tablet. "This was everything, my diary, my escape."

The raw pain in her voice twisted something inside me.

This wasn't just about me anymore.

Brittany hadn' t just humiliated me, she was now actively trying to destroy anyone who dared to associate with me, anyone who dared to defy her.

Sarah looked up at me, her eyes asking a silent question. Why me? Why this?

I didn't have an answer, not a good one.

My initial impulse to ask her to prom had been partly to spite Brittany, a desperate lunge for some kind of control.

But seeing Sarah like this, seeing her talent and her quiet strength targeted, my feelings shifted.

This was real. Her pain was real.