—

Melanie wasn't apart of the FML friend group.

She got along with each member individually, but she wasn't there for their formation, nor was she there for their departure.

She got along well enough with each member separately. One of which was because he had somehow weaseled his way into the friend group that consisted of Liberty High Jocks. The other two were simply because their school counselor thought she would be a good influence for the new girls.

One would assume that because of who Melanie surrounded herself with, and who she had to "protect" her, her name wouldn't have even crossed the mind of anyone who decided to participate in the "Hot or Not" List.

The list in question consisted of Liberty High's female students being picked apart by the male's.

Or, at least, that's what Melanie thought.

Alex Standall came up with the idea, is what she was told.  Apparently, he wanted to get back at Jessica Davis after their breakup. Mel wasn't entirely sure why he made an entire list, dragging in a bunch of other girls who had nothing to do with their situation, Hannah Baker included.

Mel figured that if he wanted to be an asshole ex boyfriend, he could have simply told one of the jocks that he thought Hannah had a better ass than Jessica did. Soon enough, the rumor would have spread and Jessica would have been as upset as she was when she saw the list.

That's not saying that Mel believed any of it should have happened. She strongly felt that comparing women to one another was as vile and disgusting as the taste of applesauce.

She hated applesauce.

What made the "Hot or Not" situation worse was when she would enter the girls bathroom and see her fellow classmates pinching at their stomach because they got "worst body". Or pulling back the skin of their face because their names didn't have a spot on the list at all but noticed that Sky Miller got "butter face" and they "didn't want to look like her".

Truthfully, Melanie didn't understand what the fuss about the list was. She was jotted down as "best eyes" and she could only assume her boyfriend (at the time), Scott had gotten pressured into writing something and didn't want to disrespect her or be shunned by the team for the day for not participating.

While she was content with her rating, she completely understood why Hannah wasn't at all okay with her name being written under "best ass".

While most girls at Liberty would take it as a compliment, Melanie immediately noticed that it was a target.

As if it wasn't bad enough that Hannah and Justin had their previous problems that the Baker girl still hadn't recovered from, her name was now jotted down under best ass, which practically (and unfortunately) gave any Liberty High student the "right" to smack, grope, touch—whatever you wanted to call it.

It was even worse that Hannah didn't have people to help her like Melanie did.

No one, aside from the Dempsey girl, really cared how Hannah felt. Most girls were jealous that they didn't get best ass, and the boys were only focused on the fact that Hannah had the best ass.

Melanie often let Hannah know that, despite their falling out, she was there for her if she wanted to talk.

Hannah never took her up on her offer.

It was even worse that the teachers didn't even notice what was going on. Or, maybe they did and just weren't bothered enough to do anything.

—

Melanie yawned quietly into her hand, struggling to focus her attention on the teacher.

She could hear the chuckling of a few students behind her, along with the scribbling of a pencil against paper.

Justin sighed next to her, the Foley teen clearly having an idea of what was going on. A hand made its way in between the two, a slightly crumbled, piece of paper coming into view.

Before Justin could grab it, Melanie was snatching it out of the hand of the unnamed jock that had it.

"Uh, Mel, that's not—"

"Shut up."

Her brows furrowed as she read the paper.

Best Tits- Sofia Miller
Worst Tits- Emma Wilson

Best Eyes- Melanie Dempsey
Worst Eyes- Leah Turner

Best Ass- Hannah Baker
Worst Ass- Jessica Davis

The list went on.

"What the fuck?"

Before she could go any further, the paper was taken from her and thrown onto the desk of Hannah Baker.

Her heart sunk as she watched her face fall.

Justin shuffled in his seat as Melanie glared past him, her eyes set on her brother who laughed along. He was silently thankful that Zach was making a fool out of himself so he didn't have to face the angry look of the Dempsey girl.

Hannah stood from her chair, moving to throw the piece of nonsense in the trash.

"Hannah, I need your seat in a chair." Mrs. Bradley cut herself off to tell the girl.

Melanie felt the embarrassment as the class laughed at the girl, Zach included.

She could only shake her head in disappointment at them.

—

Melanie entered the library, her eyes set on one table in particular, before her eyes darted to another. She quickly redirected her steps,

"Hi, Jeff." She greeted the Atkins boy.

The baseball player gave his bestfriends girlfriend a bright smile, before her eyes landed on Clay,

"You're never going to get a girlfriend."

"Wow." Jeff let out.

Clay stared in shock, "W-what?"

"You know, when the girl you like ends up on a list made by a bunch of ignorant fucks who give no shits about belittling women, you don't laugh when she's clearly upset about it."

"I wasn't—" Clay went to defend himself, only to pause quickly, "I thought you and Hannah weren't friends anymore."

She blinked.

"That doesn't matter, I have eyes."

"Best eyes according to Scott Reed." Jeff joked, too busy scribbling on his paper to notice the eye roll her got.

"Mel, I swear, I wasn't—"

"We'll talk about this later."

"That's never good." Jeff chimed in, "Hey, Scotty."

The Reed made his way to the table, smiling at his friend before he looked to his girlfriend, "What's going on?"

"Just letting Clay know that being a jerk will get him no where."

Scott nodded along, "That's true. Don't be a jerk."

"Don't be a jerk." Jeff agreed.

The Jensen scoffed, "I'm not a jerk."

"So prove it."

Scott didn't understand the underlying message behind her word, but Jeff did.

With one last look, Melanie was reaching for Scott's hand and pulling him towards their table.

—

"Melanie!"

Mattias' feet smacked against the floor as he jogged to catch up with the girl. He was slightly out of breath, but he doubted Melanie would mind.

She didn't.

He stopped in front of her, cheeks flushed. Whether it was from the run there, or something else, she didn't know. "Hi."

She gave a closed lip smile, eyes crinkling as she looked up at him, "Hey."

Her brows rose as he simply looked at her.

"Is everything okay?"

"What?" He frowned before perking up, "Oh, yeah! I'm fine."

"Okay..." She trailed off, slowly beginning to move, a silent signal for him to follow her.

"Hey, uhm. Do you maybe want to, i don't know, go to Monet's, or something?"

"Right now?"

"We can go right now." He nodded, brown eyes landing on her amused face.

"Okay."

"Really?"

Mattias didn't see Melanie as the type to just leave school, even if her free period was her last period of the day. But who was he to complain?

Her eyes held a sudden softness as she looked at him, "Why not?"

—