Chapter 2
I didn't cry. I just sat there with my hands clamped over my mouth.
Six hundred and fifty miles. Useless. He found me.
When the final bell rang, Evelyn packed her bag and glanced over at me.
She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but ultimately just turned and walked away.
That night, I lay on my bed in our cramped apartment.
My phone buzzed again. A text popped up.
Two more photos appeared, and this time the caption was longer.
[Heard she transferred from Riverbend High. Know why she left? The whole school chased her out.]
Another text immediately followed: [Ask her what kind of stuff she pulled at Riverbend.]
I stared at the glowing screen. My hands were trembling, but I didn't shed a tear.
I was done crying. I had cried for three months straight at Riverbend, only to realize that tears didn't change a damn thing.
Adrian. Six hundred and fifty miles couldn't stop you.
Fine. I was done running.
*****
Day six.
When I walked into the classroom, people were laughing.
It wasn't loud, but I could clearly hear it.
I sat down at my desk and opened my book. A voice drifted over from the back row.
"Did you see the photos last night?"
"Yeah. Hilarious."
"How does she even show her face here?"
The voices were just loud enough for me to hear.
After first period, I went to find Maxwell.
He was grading papers at his desk.
I pulled out my phone and showed him the screenshots of the chat.
He took one look and frowned. "This person isn't in our class, right? I don't recognize the screen name."
I replied, "Those are photos of me. Someone did it on purpose."
Maxwell nodded slowly. "I understand. I'll tell the class president to kick this account out."
"Got it. I'll talk to the class rep and get this person removed from the group," he said.
I explained, "Removing him won't solve anything. He'll just come back with a new account."
Maxwell looked at me and stayed quiet for a long moment. "Olivia, did you have some kind of conflict with students at your old school?"
"He's been bullying me."
Maxwell put his pen down. "Bullying is a pretty strong word."
"He is taking pictures of me without my consent, adding insulting captions, and spreading them to my classmates. What else do you call it?"
Maxwell fell silent. "I will handle it," he finally said. "Go back to class for now."
I walked back to the room. I sat down at my desk.
And I waited. I waited all day long, but absolutely nothing happened.
When I got home that night, I opened the chat again.
"Stranger" had posted a new photo. Just one this time.
I looked at it, and my blood ran cold.
This picture wasn't taken in a classroom.
It wasn't taken in a cafeteria.
It wasn't taken on a track.
It was taken outside the girls' locker room.
The image was blurry, but it was definitely me.
I had just changed into my gym clothes, and my jacket wasn't zipped up yet.
The picture had been snapped through a crack in the door.
I zoomed in. I stared at it for a long time. Then I zoomed in again.
There was a tiny detail in the bottom right corner.
There was a hand. A hand holding the phone.
Wrapped around the wrist was a red woven paracord bracelet. The exact kind Adrian always wore.
He took it himself.
In that moment, I didn't feel angry.
I felt sheer, unfiltered terror. It was the kind of fear that crawls right up your spine.
He wasn't just posting ugly pictures of me anymore. He was stalking me.
I opened Instagram and searched for Adrian's profile.
He hadn't blocked me.
His newest story had been posted just this afternoon.
It was a shot of a street in Fairhaven. The location tag was right near Fairhaven High.
He was here. He actually came to Fairhaven.
I locked my bedroom door. I pulled the curtains shut and turned off the lights.
I sat there in the pitch black.
Six hundred and fifty miles did nothing.
Locking the door and closing the curtains did nothing.
What was I supposed to do?
My mom was in the living room watching TV. The volume was low, playing her favorite sitcom.
She worked twelve brutal hours a day.
She packed up her life and moved to a strange city just so I could switch schools. I couldn't tell her.
She had already done everything humanly possible for me.
But that locker room photo was burned into my brain, and I couldn't shake it.
Adrian, what exactly did you want?
You got rejected one time, and you felt the need to destroy a person's entire life?
I didn't sleep at all that night.
Right before dawn broke, I made a choice.
I was not running anymore.
I couldn't outrun him anyway. So I wouldn't even try.
*****
Day seven.
I went to school just like any other day.
The atmosphere in my homeroom, however, felt completely different.
I could feel people staring, but their eyes held a new kind of weight.
It wasn't just curiosity anymore. It was a mocking, knowing look.
I didn't find out why until the bell rang.
Evelyn slid her phone across my desk without a word.
On the screen was an anonymous post on the Fairhaven High message board.
The title read: [Check out the new transfer in the sophomore class.]
It contained over a dozen pictures. All of me. Every single terrible, candid shot taken from my time at Riverbend straight to Fairhaven.
I scrolled to the comments.
[Who is this? Hilarious.]
[The new girl in sophomore homeroom.]
[I heard she got kicked out of her last school.]
[Lmao, eating like a pig.]
I kept scrolling through over a hundred comments.