EVER SINCE SOPHIE SHOWED UP in Carsonville, she's been getting on Brittany's nerves at every opportunity.

She stages acts of defiance every chance she gets, even when it's profoundly stupid, even when those actions come with consequences for her and her friends. Sophie comes from some worthless town in California, so she has no clue about the Carsonville Academy and its culture, its politics, its queen. She has no idea that if she doesn't bend for Brittany, she'll break.

And yet, this time, in a nondescript school-wide assembly on a sleepy Friday afternoon, I felt compelled to help her. I was sitting with my homeroom class in the auditorium, whose walls are notoriously thin, when I heard light footsteps going up the backstage stairwell.

Coupled with the fact that Brittany asked each and every Monarch to watch out for Sophie, my instincts told me to check the noise out, and then I found her jostling the locked door to the projector booth, clearly intent on hijacking the assembly. Up to trouble, again.

See, I should have called Brittany the moment I saw Sophie trying to get into the sound booth. She would have stopped whatever Sophie was planning, dead in her tracks. But I didn't. Instead I helped her, picking the door open.

Why the fuck did I do that?

I should not have opened the door for Sophie—as soon as the door to the school's auditorium sound booth clicks open and Sophie rushes inside—that is the only thought that enters my mind. My disbelief, directed mostly at myself, shoves away everything else, and I flee down the stairs before she even has time to thank me. I need to get out of here.

I have plenty of time to ruminate on my actions on the way to Haywood Park. The inescapable truth is that Sophie makes me totally illogical. Totally reckless. She awoke a side of me that I thought had long been destroyed; the childish, carefree side. She came into my life, and suddenly my dreams of Suki stopped.

Being around her makes me feel like I'm fifteen again, before I became a boyfriend, a father, a bully. When I spend time around her—in our Home Ec. class or on the bus—I can easily imagine the past three years never happened.

Or that they happened in a different way.

I never fell in love with Suki. Cassie was never conceived. Being away from the two of them never tore my heart out. Brittany never tunneled her way into my darkest secrets. I never became her puppet, dangling on an unbreakable thread of weakness and shame.

The unsuccessful distractions I used to chase—alcohol, weekend partying, summer getaways—with the Monarchy pale next to Sophie. Perhaps it's that her dark brown eyes look exactly like Suki's, or that she has the same quick-witted, bookish aura about her. Even her name sounds similar, but it's more than that. Sophie is the first person in years that's looked at me without fear. Without thinking I'm merely a tyrant, or a freak, or a loner. I can make her laugh—despite her best attempts to stifle it—and I can make her irritated. She colours me in, instead of dulling me into black and white like everyone else.

So I helped her. That's what the person I used to be would have done. The person I used to be would never bow down to Brittany, parade around the student body, and claim a throne at the top of the social ladder. The old Terrence would raise hell. A part of me loves that I can watch Sophie do it instead. (The rest of me is owned by Brittany.)

As if on cue, my phone rings in my pocket. Brittany's frantic, murderous voice pierces me. "Are you seeing this?"

"Seeing what?" The leaves crunch underfoot as I get as far away from the Academy as possible.

"Don't play dumb: this video that Olsen and her band of geeks are playing!"

Unfortunately for Brittany, I'm not playing dumb. I know all too well the rampage she's going to embark on now that my suspicions—Sophie was seeking to cause trouble in the assembly—have been confirmed. And in case it comes to light that she had help, I want some degree of plausible deniability. "I'm ditching assembly today."

"You didn't mention that at lunchtime."

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't realize I needed to specifically request an update on my friend's life," Brittany remarks tightly.

"Well," I hum. "I'm ditching assembly today."

"Terry! This video— it's slanderous!" she shrieks, refocusing on the most pressing matter. "Reece is on her reject accomplice, and Derek is trying to get into the booth, but he can't lockpick. You need to stop it. You need to get into the projector booth and stop her."

"It'll take me ten minutes to get back to school if I sprint at top speed. Doubt I'll be that much help," I explain casually. "Do tell me how it goes, though."

"Terr—" I hang up before that annoying fucking nickname makes its way through Brittany's lips.

Never mind that I helped Sophie get into the projector booth, because unless Sophie snitches—which I can't imagine her doing—Brittany will never know.

But this. Hanging up. Abandoning Brittany in her time of severe—albeit unreasonable—need is sure to earn me some punishment. Maybe next time she needs someone beaten up, she'll send me instead of Reece. She knows I hate using violence, although I technically can to achieve results.

Or maybe she'll wrench up my worst memories of the breakup and induce another meltdown. Or, worse, she could finally just tell Suki everything I've gotten up to in the last two years. There goes my relationship with my daughter.

Or maybe my punishment is already here: living a life I hate, in a place I hate, with a girl I hate.

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If Brittany has any say in the matter, Sophie's going to get what's coming to her for releasing the video.

As I expected. Rest in peace, Olsen. It was nice knowing you.

Madison showed me snippets of people's social media posts to piece together the contents of the video. It was an obvious call to arms, sprinkled through with footage of Brittany being her insufferable self, though us four made appearances, too.

I would feel bad about having such an unflattering depiction of myself broadcast around the school, but there's no such thing as an unflattering truth. There is just the truth. I threw those punches. I vandalised that building. Broke into that car. Same goes for all the evidence Sophie and her friends collected on Reece, Derek and Madison. We did all those things.

I'm not entitled to be upset that Sophie called us all out on it.

Brittany doesn't agree with that sentiment, however.

She silently fumed the whole lunch period, putting all four of us off our food. We can smell her foul mood a mile away, so it was a painful half an hour expecting a rant or a new task but never getting it. Sophie somehow affects Brittany more than any other person has. Even her ex-boyfriends, or her ex-boyfriends' ex-girlfriends.

Or Delaney Morrison, Brittany's oldest enemy, who Sophie befriended in the first week. Like attracts like, it seems.

Maybe the reason she affects Brittany so much is the reason she affects me so much: Sophie isn't afraid of the Monarchy. Like, at all. She just gets enraged, like a feral guinea pig. When the bell for fourth period rings, Reece and Madison pack away their trays and head to their classes. Brittany asks Derek and me to stay back, finally getting her hunger for revenge off of her mind. Derek's expression was bored and unsurprised when Brittany finally voiced the vengeful storm we could see brewing in her head the whole break.

Specifically, she wants us to plan and execute a prank to make an example of Sophie at the Homecoming Fair in two weeks.

Derek rolls his eyes — earning some major stink-eye from Brittany — and drawls, "Can't we enjoy Homecoming for once? It's our senior year. I doubt Sophie will cause trouble when everyone's focused on the game and the Fair."

"We thought she wouldn't cause trouble at the start of the year, but then you guys got into a fight, and then came the carwash, and now the video. The new girl needs to learn her lesson, and quickly," Brittany growls. "She's such a headache. I'm not going to just tolerate it for the whole year."

"And what would that lesson be?" I wonder dryly. Practically the entire school knows the lesson by now.

Despite Derek's reluctance and my apathy, I know we can't walk away from this. Whatever Brittany controls him with is just as ironclad as Suki is to me.

"That I'm the wrong girl to target," Brittany supplies. Her palms hit the table audibly as she slides out of the chair, pointing her manicured fingernail between Derek and me. "I'll let you two hash out the details of the lesson plan. But since it's Homecoming, why not stay on theme?"

I nod. "Gotcha." She always had a flair for the dramatic.

"And, word of advice, sometimes hitting people where it hurts means not hitting them at all."

I arch an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Don't play dumb, Terry. It's a disservice to your intellect."

I scoff, pulling the godforsaken Academy tie looser from around my neck. A noose, a leash, if I ever saw one. "What if I'm just dumb?"

I do know what Brittany means. She uses this tactic all the time: hate the violinist? Target her sister. Hate the mathematician? Target his life's work. Hate the girl? Target the boyfriend. Sometimes someone's weakest point is another object, another person, entirely. Brittany exploits that every single time I try to defy her, reject a task or put my foot down. She has the trump card, the nuclear detonator, to knock me off my feet and shatter my resolve.

But I won't give her the satisfaction of getting under my skin when Derek is watching. I bite my tongue and hold still. When I don't respond, she scoffs and mutters quietly, "She's close to Benjamin."

"We already went after Benjamin last year," Derek points out. While I am usually given jobs like breaking and entering, stealing shit, planting shit, Derek was given a rare long-term mission last year: infiltrate the Mathematics Olympiad team and cripple their efforts to win competitions.

He's actually quite skilled at it. His mission required him going about the tryouts and selection process like the rest of the geeks he beats up. I quite enjoyed watching him suffer through spending his precious after school hours doing maths. To Brittany's glee and the rest's utter shock, Derek even made Carsonville's A-team when they went to New York.

That was the weekend of the finals of the Eastern League Olympiad, a precursor to national and international finals, and that was when Brittany commanded him to ditch. I heard they were disqualified for having an incomplete team. They weren't even allowed to try the questions, and flew home emptier than empty-handed.

Poor Benjamin Wilks.

"Why make a spectacle of him?" Derek questions.

"Because Sophie will take it personally," Brittany reasons, her dark eyes levelling a suggestive gaze at me. "Right, Terry?"

My breath catches in my throat. Right. The math geek that steals Sophie's attention every single time he does something utterly pathetic like homework or spin a stupid fucking pencil or get a teacher's pet special mention in assemblies.

I turn my head down to my empty tray, refusing to be goaded. Edging Derek out of the conversation, who takes the exclusion as permission to leave, Brittany lowers her voice and leans closer, "You and I both know that every time she talks to you, she's looking for a way to get to me. She's using you to find dirt on me."

Fuck. She's right.

There was a part of me that saw Sophie on the first day of school and saw a way out. A second chance. A lifeline. Salvation. When we spoke, I was no longer aware of the incessant whispering and video-filming and lingering stares. When we spoke, she had no idea who I was and the things I'd done in my past.

But then, naturally, she made more friends and they were more than willing to tell her.

Delaney Morrison, especially, I'm sure had endless stories to highlight who I really am. Benjamin Wilks is a close second, considering what Derek did to him last year. Then there's Andrew Allory, who saw me threaten a freshman on the bus in junior year. Leah Dellman is someone I've never interacted with, but the same can't be said for the other Monarchs. I bet she had something to chip in, too, for the education of Sophie in how truly fucked up I am.

There's no way she would give me a chance after hearing those stories from her trusted friends.

After the first week, Sophie unsurprisingly became completely cold and unresponsive to me; much like everyone else, minus the fear. Nowadays if we interact in class, without fail, my friendship with Brittany makes an appearance. She can't get past the things I and my friends have done— do. Present tense.

That lifeline I saw fades with every day, leaving me where I've always been. Alone.

Sophie can't ever be what I wanted her to be. Suki is planning to move out of her parents' house and rent an apartment with a friend she met through homeschooling. She has started dating new people casually, which hurts like a bitch. Cassie is learning to say a plethora of words that will never include my name, which hurts even more.

At the end of the day, Brittany is the only one who stays. She's the only one who makes me not completely alone.

Brittany waits until Derek picks up his things and vacates the table before leaning closer and murmuring into my ear, "Why all the conflict? She's not your friend or ally. She won't ever know you or look out for you the way I do." Her cold fingers cover my hand, squeezing lightly. "It's us against the world, Terry. Yes?"

Raising my chin, I meet her familiar proud features and eyes like voids. I squeeze her hand back. "Yes."

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a / n :

you may have noticed, but we're going to skip pretty quickly and surface-level over the events of TGR, often with weeks/months between the scenes. this book was never meant to be "The Events of TGR from Terrence's POV" - it's a prequel. so it's about his character origin before (and a little of his character growth after) senior year. so yeah. 

hope u like the way this book turns out! only about 5 chapters left.

aimee x