Less Than Perfect: A Bully Romance Read online

  Perfection is in the eyes of the enemy.

  Don’t let him win.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Kids on the Block

  Chapter 2

  Kids on the Block

  Chapter 3

  Kids on the block

  Chapter 4

  Kids on the block

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Kids on the block

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Kids on the block

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Kids on the block

  Chapter 13

  Kids on the Block

  Chapter 14

  Kids on the block

  Chapter 15

  Kids on the block

  Chapter 16

  Stay Connected

  Prologue

  When I was a little girl, I dreamt of being the Eiffel Tower.

  That’s right.

  Not an astronaut.

  Not the first female president.

  The Eiffel-fucking-tower.

  Tall and graceful, beautiful and iconic, Parisians once considered her bold arches an eyesore. She ignored the naysayers and the haters of course; stretched her arms high toward the sky, and continued to bask, glistening under the sun. People who’d once spit on her gazed upon her glory in pride, and millions flocked to her side to bask in a shadow that refused to shrink for anyone.

  I loved her because she’d turned something ugly into a symbol of romance and passion. Of indomitable will. I loved her because she’d been forged with fire and steel. I loved her because she was made of iron rather than weak, broken, flesh. I loved her because I loved anything that wasn’t me, even a tourist-trap thousands of miles away from my hometown of Beloxi, Mississippi. In fact, maybe that’s the part of her that I loved the most; the fact that she was anywhere but there.

  It was, I thought, as twin shadows fell over me, a freedom I’d likely never know.

  Momma had a mantra: “Ignore the bullies and they’ll go away, poof, like magic.” When I was still naïve enough to believe her, this suggestion had made perfect sense. Only for some reason, it never worked for me that way. At first, I thought that I wasn’t ignoring them hard enough. Then I realized that magic only works when you’re pretty.

  For me, ignoring my tormentors just seemed to make them angrier. The girls at school loved watching me cry and they took my reticence as, not only a challenge, but also as permission and encouragement.

  I was their favorite punching bag.

  Most days I woke up only to lay in bed trying not to cry at the thought of having to go to school. Each year got just a little worse and my only respite came in the form of Summer vacation. Unfortunately, it seemed as if my luck had finally run dry and the one day I was brave enough to venture down to the ocean for a swim, my peers just happened to be in the midst of a beach party.

  Everyone who was anyone was there, which meant that by default I wasn’t invited.

  Sarah-Lee, Marcus, Azalia, Drake, Patrick, Phillip, and Ark. People who never once bothered to call me by my name despite the fact that we’d been going to school together for the last ten years. Seeing them at the beach, drinking and laughing around a low burning bonfire made my stomach drop to my toes. I wanted to run away but I was feeling unaccountably, stupidly, brave. This was just as much my home as it was theirs, I reasoned, and I should be allowed to enjoy the sand and sun just like everyone else.

  It was one of those days when dusk lay heavy on the world. In the south there’s a sweet spot between hotter than the devil’s ass crack and colder than a witches’ tit where the sun sits warm and polite on your skin and the air fits comfortably in your lungs, its wet heat reminiscent of molasses wrapped in honeysuckle. This was the time of day when pale girls like me could venture forth and not get third degree burns due to our lack of melanin. With my blonde hair and non-complexion, I didn’t tan so much as my freckles levelled up and evolved. Sort of like little Pokémon scattered across the landscape of my face.

  I thought, maybe if I held still long enough then none of the ‘It’ crowd would notice me there, skulking amongst the dunes, but it’s like they had a sensor.

  “Oink Oink little piglet.”

  I froze, a deer caught in headlights. When I finally worked up the courage to look up, it wasn’t because I didn’t know what to expect, but because I did. Sara-Lee and her brother Marcus stared down at me as if I were a bug instead of their next-door neighbor. Sara-Lee always seemed vaguely disgusted to see me. Which made a certain amount of sense. If I looked like Sara, I’d detest being around someone like me too.

  There was a lot about me that Sara didn’t like, but our biggest point of contention seemed to be my weight. I was fat. The school counselor referred to it as being morbidly obese or big boned. To me there was no difference between the words other than the fact that one phrase made folks feel better about themselves when they made mention of it. As if calling me ‘morbidly obese’ was a call to arms mired in concern for my health. Advocates for this politically correct phrase told themselves that their way was preferable to whispering about how fat I was behind my back when they were feeling petty and small.

  No matter which way you cut it, I was a fat, pasty, vertically challenged (read ‘short’) nerd. I usually tried to keep as much of my body covered up as possible, so I often wore my foster brother’s clothes because they reached down to my knees. When I was feeling particularly low, I imagined his jerseys as armor. Impenetrable walls that no nasty word or mean look could pierce. ‘Piglet’ might not have been the kindest nickname, but I was self-aware enough to realize that it made a painful sort of sense.

  Sara-Lee was my complete opposite. Her jet-black hair was kept short so that those perfect curls could frame her heart-shaped face. Her breasts were small, and her hips were narrow, but when combined with her painfully long legs, she looked more like a model than a tomboy. Sara had a small, lush, mouth that most of the boys at our school drooled over. Personally, I never saw the appeal. Probably because whenever she was around me, one corner of that perfect mouth was lifted in a snarl.

  If it were only about looks, Sara might have simply been apathetic toward me. But we were fundamentally different. Everything from our attitude to our view on life clashed. We were almost friends once, in the third grade, but Sara stopped talking to me after Marcus, her twin, freaked out the first and only night I slept at their house.

  I never asked why. Hell, I wasn’t really sure what Marcus’ problem was, but I knew better than to try to find out. Never tried to clear things with Sara either.

  Everyone hated me and a single person wasn’t going to change that even if it happened to be the illustrious Sara-Lee. For the most part, Sara and I weren’t talkers. Our conversations consisted of cutting looks and cold disregard. When she addressed me at all it was usually something short, sweet, and to the point.

  “Move, pig.” Seemed to be her go to for our senior year, but it was better than ‘Bitch’ or ‘Dump truck’.

  I think.

  Either way, Sara was one of the only people at school who didn’t go out of her way to make my life a living hell. Unless, of course, she was accompanying Marcus.

  Marcus.

  Marcus.

  If I had to choose one word to describe Marcus, it would be ‘nightmare’ or maybe ‘monster’. Whereas my other tormentors were creatures of habit, Marcus liked to think of new, exciting, ways to fuck with me.

  Since getting her degree in psychology, Momma liked to analyze the people in ou
r lives whenever the mood struck. According to her, Marcus had a lot of pent up aggression - thanks to his toxic relationship with his stepfather.

  Personally, I didn’t care as much about his origin story as I cared about the fact that he’d shoved me down the stairs at homecoming after I’d finally worked up the courage to tell him to stop treating me like trash. The teachers hadn’t seen it and the rest of the student body was eager to protect their golden boy. In everyone’s defense, I hadn’t tried terribly hard to tell anyone what had happened. I’d been scared that he would lash out at me again if I said anything, so I’d kept my mouth shut and my head down and avoided him like the plague while my arm healed.

  This time, it worked.

  By the time the school year wrapped up and graduation came and went, my bones had reset, and I felt confident in the belief that Marcus had forgotten all about me. We were graduates now. What point would there be to continue the abuse? Maybe that was why I’d come today. Why I refused to leave when I saw the vultures on the sand. I’d be on my way to college soon and something, maybe me, would need to undergo a metamorphosis if I had any hope of making the next four years better than the past twelve.

  But Marcus had always been full of surprises.

  Looking up at him, my body broke out in a cold sweat and the recently mended bones in my left arm began to ache as if my very cells could sense the threat he represented. Like his sister, Marcus was darkly beautiful. His face was slimming into the hard-jawed masculinity of adulthood. These days, whenever he looked at me, there was a new light in his blue eyes that I didn’t like but had no name for.

  That light was there now as he looked down at me. I shifted uncomfortably, regretting my decision to wear the simple black one-piece Momma got for my birthday, instead of my usual beach attire of jeans and a t-shirt. Momma desperately wanted me to step out of my shell and I wanted to make her happy, so occasionally I did something outside of my comfort zone. This was the first time it had bitten me so spectacularly on the ass though.

  Marcus’ eyes traveled down the length of my body, lingering in all the places I never thought a man’s eyes might skim over. I covered my body with my towel in belated shame.

  Marcus’ lips parted and I knew better than to think he was going to say anything good. “What do you call a sunbathing piglet?” He crooned, crouching until we were eye level. “Bacon.” He made an oinking noise and my eyes darted away. Just like that, my resolve to stick it out and try and enjoy myself for the day went up in smoke.

  ‘Just like bacon’

  For a moment the imagery was so strong that I almost thought I could smell it and I resisted the urge to sniff self-consciously at my own skin. I hated Marcus - not just for everything he did to me - but for how he made me feel. I surged to my feet, grabbing the towel as I straightened so I wouldn’t have to bend down in front of the two of them and put my wide ass and belly rolls on full display.

  “Oh piglet, don’t run away,” Marcus laughed, following me as I hurried back toward the parking lot. “I was just having a little fun.”

  I ignored him, keeping my head down so I wouldn’t have to look at the rest of my graduating class while I stumbled past the bonfire. I knew that the sand was gritty beneath my toes, but years of walking barefoot on gravel had toughened the soles of my feet. Built calluses so that it wouldn’t feel as if I were walking across razor-blades for the rest of my life. My feet were the only parts of me immune to concentrated cruelty. My heart had yet to build up the calluses I’d need to survive.

  It is why tears were already blurring my vision long before Marcus was done with me.

  “Hey!” His grip on my arm was like iron. “I’m talking to you.”

  I didn’t want his hands on me. It was the only clear thought I had as I turned and shoved him, jerking my arm out of his grasp with a viciousness that startled even me. He rocked back on his heels, but it was more of a testament to his surprise than my strength. His eyes narrowed and mine grew wide as he took a step toward me. Before I could stumble back, he reached out, striking with the quickness of a viper, to grab me by the throat.

  My blood pressure rose on the wings of fear and dots danced before my eyes.

  “Marcus!” I looked over his shoulder to find Sara glaring at the back of his head. We were far enough now from the bonfire that no one was paying us much attention, too focused on Julie gyrating in the center of the circle with a beer in one hand and her bikini top in the other.

  “I’ll be there in a minute Sara.” Marcus growled, impatient with his sister for interfering, but unable to outright ignore her. “Piglet and I are just catching up. It’s been a while since we’ve talked. Hasn’t it, piglet?” he asked, lowering his voice so that his words were just for me. “I was starting to think you were avoiding me.” He tsked and shook his head. “But you wouldn’t do something that stupid. Not to me. Not to your only friend.”

  Friend.

  Is that what he thought we were?

  I was pretty sure that this wasn’t what friendship was supposed to look like, but I had nothing else to compare it to. The tears in my eyes spilled over, rolling down my cheeks to stain my lips with salt and Marcus’ eyes glowed with pleasure. Grunting in satisfaction as if he’d just seen something delicious, he caught one tear with his thumb and licked it away.

  I shuddered in revulsion and he laughed.

  “If you shake it more than twice, you’re playing with it.”

  Marcus froze at his sister’s words and his expression darkened. When he let me go to turn and glare at her, I sagged in relief.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  She shrugged, her expression just as blank as always, and nodded toward me.

  “Just that if you keep playing with the pig people are going to think it’s because you’re trying to get into her circus tent sized panties. I already told you, Marcus…you can’t save her.”

  I winced, but couldn’t help but notice the way Marcus’ jaw clenched at Sara’s words. Save me? What on earth could he be saving me from when the only danger in my world was him? Marcus shot me a look full of venom and turned on his heel.

  “Whatever. I’m bored now.”

  Sara stared at me until her brother was several feet away before she shifted to follow him.

  “Why?” My voice was small and strangled. At first, I didn’t think she heard me, but then she paused. “Why do you hate me so much?” I asked her disapproving profile. Sara sighed, her shoulders lifting and falling with the motion. She was quiet for a long time and I was shocked that she would give the answer any serious thought whatsoever. When she faced me, her eyes blazed with the first real emotion I’d seen from the Ice Queen.

  “Because you’re pathetic,” she said finally, her face twisting into its typical sneer. “I could forgive you if you were nothing more than a fat loser Cornelia, but you’re so much worse than that.” Her voice lowered further, and she took a step closer to drive her point home. “You’re a quitter,” she said, shaping the word as if it were the foulest of curses. “You roll over, show predators like Marcus your throat, and then expect everyone to get on the bandwagon of ‘poor Lia’ when he gives into the urge to rip out your jugular.” She rolled her eyes and readjusted her board. “It’d be gross if it weren’t so sad.”

  Before I could even think of something to say in response, she turned on her heel and stalked away.

  “See you later Pig,” she sing-songed. I stood there for several long minutes watching her sashay over to the crowd surrounding the bonfire. She urged a few intrepid souls to join her in the ocean. Shrieking with laughter and exuberance, they all splashed into the rising tide. Amidst the gaiety only one set of eyes looked for - and found - me. As I met Marcus’ gaze from across the sand, I knew that his sister was right.

  This world wasn’t kind to little pigs.

  We don’t live long.

  Sooner or later someone always comes along to blow our worlds down around us.

  If I wan
ted to survive, if I wanted men like Marcus to leave me alone, I’d have to become something different.

  Something new.

  Something better.

  I’d have to grow teeth and claws.

  I’d have to be willing to bite back. To kill the piglet and transform myself into a big, bad, wolf. My jaw tightened with determination and I left my former classmates to their revelry to lose myself in the gathering shadows of a day finally drawn to a close.

  Little did I know that my humiliation would be the least devastating thing of the day.

  As it would turn out, it wasn’t only little piglets that died young. Big, bad wolves like Sara. Well, sometimes their candles went out while they were still fresh.

  1

  Ten Years Later…

  The tapered candles numbered in the thousands. They stretched from one wall to the next, casting dancing shadows across the exposed brick and grandiose beams that made up the centuries old monastery where the wedding was being held. A violinist in one corner played a painfully sweet rendition of ‘here comes the bride’ and I straightened my shoulders. I should have been terrified, but instead, a thrill ran through me.

  This was it.

  It was finally happening.

  The double-doors of the monastery swung open and I stepped from the shadows and further into the room. The crowd gasped, but I ignored them, lifting my chin in defiance. So what if I wasn’t what any of them were expecting? My soon to be husband was a surprise to me too. The camera men stationed strategically around the room followed me with their lenses. The director was standing in one corner with the wedding planner, their heads together as they pointed out different angles in the room for mood shots that would be edited later into the final product.