There wasn't much you could say to an asshole that would make them act like less of an asshole. Junior high had taught me that. Los Angeles had taught me that. Which is why I was less than surprised when Luke ventured up to me in the hallway the following day and asked me to skip English with him.

I wasn't sure how many times I would have to say no until he got the message.

"Why don't you do us both a favor and find someone else to annoy-- and preferably not a little blonde girl who responds to Mia. I'm not skipping class." I told him in my best that's final voice.

What? I had told Mia that I respected her choice to like him. I'd also told her that I didn't like him.

Luke hadn't gone to my junior high school so I hadn't known him before I left, but I could tell that he wouldn't have had half as much interest in me back then as he did now.

"You're really nothing like Veronica Hart, are you sweetheart?" Luke mused, strolling leisurely beside me as I made my way to my locker. I ignored him, hoping he'd go away. "I mean, Veronica was a good girl, but even she liked to be a little wild sometimes right? You're no fun." He probed, but I managed to contain myself enough not to take the bait. At least, not completely.

"Yeah well, it's called acting, sweetheart." I offered him a sarcastic smile and turned abruptly to the left to locate my locker.

Luke slunk off, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his hoody pulled over his baseball cap. I took a steadying breath and forced my locker open, swapping my Chemistry books for my English ones. As I went to close the door, a small square of paper fluttered onto the floor, landing face down. Thinking it was a handout that had fallen out of my binder, I reached to pick it up and discovered that it wasn't a handout at all, but a polaroid photo.

Of me.

Only, I had never taken this photo, nor had I asked for it to be taken. Because it had been taken as I stepped off of the plane from LA, having just landed in South Carolina.

I was no stranger to having my picture taken, but no paparazzi had ever given me their photo afterwards. Especially when they weren't supposed to have taken it.

An uneasy mob of butterflies gathered in my stomach, but I pushed them away, trying to reason with myself. No one except for the McCormacks, my agent, some of the cast and my family had known that I was coming to Beaufort, but maybe someone had just spotted me at the airport and wanted an autograph but been too shy to ask, so they shoved it in my locker. That was a reasonable thing to do.

I tucked the polaroid safely into my purse and ran my fingers through my pin-straight hair, allowing myself a second to gather my thoughts before I headed towards English class.

I sat down next to Mia, offering her a smile before I opened my books.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention," Mia said, chewing the end of her pencil absentmindedly, "on Fridays I usually have to hang around and wait for Brooks to finish football practice to get a lift home. That cool?"

I shrugged. I had a bunch of homework that I could do, so I didn't really mind. "That's fine. Why do they have practice now though? Didn't the football season just end?" I asked with a frown. I didn't know much about football, but I did know that the season ended in September and it was currently December.

Mia's brow furrowed as she rolled her eyes daintily. "They're trying to make year-round practices a thing now." She pulled a face. "Yay me."

I chuckled and turned back to my binder, unable to help myself from thinking about the last time I'd gone to watch one of Brooks' football practices. I was in the seventh grade and I was meant to meet him and hitch a ride with Sarah afterwards, but a group of kids had cornered me on the way.

"Look it's Slutty Savannah." The shortest boy, Peter, teased.

"Nah she's not a slut. More of a prude I'd say. You haven't even kissed a boy yet have you?" The bigger one, James, turned to me with a menacing smile. The others laughed.

Jacinta Melrose scowled at the two boys with false anger. "Now now guys," she stared at me viciously, "no need to rub it in. She already knows what a loser she is."

I'd had to tell my family and Mia that I'd gotten a black eye by accident, playing dodgeball in gym. They'd been skeptical, but I'd never told them the truth. Brooks was the only one who knew, and it had taken me almost an hour to stop him from going and beating those kids up.

I shook my head and forced myself back into the present. I was a different person back then, and those kids had been expelled from Beaufort high long ago, Mia had informed me. Besides, if I ever did meet them again, I would just love to give them a piece of my mind. I'd dealt with bullies my entire career, and a couple of messed up school kids had nothing on me now.

***

The end of the day rolled around reasonably quickly, and I met Mia at her locker before we walked over to the football field and made ourselves comfortable on the bleachers. I lay flat on my stomach and pulled my laptop out, Mia doing the same but in the opposite direction so that we could face each other.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Mia queried quietly, chewing on her bottom lip. I glanced up from my English paper, noticing how wide her blue eyes had gone.

"Shoot."

Mia looked down and started to fiddle with her keyboard, running her fingernail in between the keys. "When you got the job on the show, the first thing you did was tell me, right?"

I nodded slowly, trying to grasp where this conversation was going. "Of course."

Mia paused, as if she were trying to choose her words carefully. "Why didn't you tell Brooks you were leaving?"

My stomach clenched and I frowned. Oh. That's where this conversation was going. I glanced out at the football field, spotting Brooks easily amongst the group of guys.

Brooks, Mia and I had always been inseparable. Mia was my best friend, but Brooks and I had had an understanding back then. He was the only one who knew about the hell the other kids put me through at school. I was the only one he'd ever told about the time when his whole family thought he had the stomach flu, but in reality he'd smoked pot for the first (and last) time and thrown up everywhere. We trusted each other, and me leaving without saying goodbye had broken that trust.

But I didn't know how to tell Mia that without alienating her. Oh yeah we kind of had this thing going and it was too hard to say goodbye to him so I didn't.

"I don't know, I just didn't know how to tell him I guess." I said eventually, my eyes following Brooks as he tackled someone to the floor. The coach blew the whistle and both boys stood back up, doing one of those bro handshake things to prove that none of it was personal.

Mia was quiet for a moment, focusing on her computer. And then, so quietly I almost missed it, she said, "He was a mess for weeks, you know."

I suddenly felt like someone had reached into my chest, latched onto my heart and squeezed it. Guilt washed through me like a river, starting at my head and cascading all the way down to my toes.

I swallowed loudly, unable to even look at her. "Yeah, me too." I whispered.