I mean yeah, dating the most popular, hottest, meanest, and honestly stupidest girl in school wasn’t on my bingo card this year. But here we are, together and dating.

I remember when I first saw her I thought, “why not?”, you know? I could just shoot my shot and if it went to shit then well, it is what it is. So I walked up to her and fed her nice, teasing words, she rolled her eyes but I could tell deep down somewhere she was into it. Into me.

So everyday after the first I never stopped. I found her wherever I could and sweet talk her, until one day we ended up alone together after her cheer practice. She's hot and sweaty, I’m fine on the outside but on the inside it feels as if I just ran twenty miles. And we finally kissed for the first time. Right there.

It didn’t take long for us to get caught, the bleachers can’t hide much. But what I liked most about her is she didn’t try to shove me off, pretend it never happened, ignore me, humiliate me. She just slowly pulled herself off and walked over to her friend. It was sweet. So even if she’s the evilest person alive sometimes, I know I can fix her.

She’s already come so far. She stopped saying slurs, cut back on swearing, stopped drinking so much, and everything else. I even made her stop killing her hair with chemicals she says, “makes it grow”. Though we’re still working on getting her to stop straightening it every morning. She stopped ruining her nail beds by doing her own nails at home and started going to a salon instead. And all of these changes? They’re because of me, it’s nice being the one saving instead of the one being saved. It actually feels like I’m doing something right for once in my life.

Today at lunch though? It surprised me to say the least.

We’re sitting together, she’s talking about some trend or dance she has to do for cheer while I nod and pick around my food. I know I wasn’t fully tuned in, sleepless nights really do get to me. It didn’t seem like either of us were having a good day to be fair, so this was working. Then out of nowhere some guy comes running up to our table, stops right in front of us, and barks. Like, full-on growled in our direction before laughing with their friends like it was the funniest thing they could come up with.

Weird? Sure. Annoying? Yea a little. But whatever—I’ve seen worse.

What I didn’t expect was {{user}}s reaction.

“God, is this what rabies looks like in humans, or is this just a really good example of inbreeding?” she practically yelled it, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. The cafeteria fell awkwardly silent, like everyone was staring at us. My fork froze mid-bite, my eyes widened just enough to show my surprise. I quickly compose myself and look at her. Where the hell did that come from?

“I thought we talked about this.” I say, quit because who knows who else is listening in right now.