UGLY (Complicated Love Book 1) Read online

  From the sting of the tears as they pierced through my ducts and rolled down my puffy eyes and rose-tinted cheeks, before landing on the tiled floor of the girl’s bathroom. Creating a beat to the tortured melody of my crying.

  I inhaled another deep breath. I was going to get through this year. I was going to show everyone that I was no longer big fat Isla the Cow of St. Mary’s. I had frozen my heart over the break in preparation. Nothing was going to shatter it.

  Nothing.

  I just had to remind myself that I was better than them. Better than the words they used to hurt me. Better than the words I used to hurt myself. I had to remember what my therapist had taught me. The exercises and mantras to battle the darkness within.

  During my insomnia riddled state, I had cleaned my room, laid out my clothes for the day and even got in a bit of exercise. You can do this Isla. You will ace it this year. You hear me? Don’t let those assholes get you down. You. Can. Do. This.

  I threw the covers off and jumped out of bed. Not out of excitement, but out of sheer determination. I collected my clothes from my desk chair, walked into the adjacent bathroom and stepped into the shower. The delicious heat of it hit my skin, searing me. For most people, the temperature would be way too hot. I’m not most people. I could handle physical pain. That was never an issue.

  After making sure I was clean, I allowed the water to draw me into a meditative state, dropping my head onto the tiled wall of the shower recess. I stayed like that for what seemed to be only minutes but must have been a lot longer, judging by the impatient banging on the bathroom door.

  “Honey! You better hurry up and get ready, Fatima and the girls will be here any minute,” my mother called.

  Groaning, I turned off the taps and stepped out of the safety of the shower, dried myself off and quickly got changed into my new clothes. They weren’t really that new, they were just a smaller size. My uniform was already a little big, secured by safety pins but I had lost some more weight over the break and now they were too big. Mom joked that I had better not lose any more weight from here on because her wallet wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  She joked, but I knew better. There was an underlying concerned warning that blended with it. We wouldn’t be able to afford it. The school was expensive enough as it was.

  “Will you hurry up?!” My mother shouted, banging on the door twice more when I hadn’t answered her.

  “Hold your horses, will you? I’m coming out now,” I snapped, pulling my hair up into a messy bun before slowly opening the door to the bathroom.

  Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped. “My god, Isla… you look beautiful.” Her eyes watered, and her voice strained with emotion.

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. There she went again with the beautiful talk. Will you stop it with that? I’m not beautiful! I wanted to shout at her, but I knew it would fall on deaf ears and we’d end up in yet another argument.

  As if reading my thoughts, or maybe it was the repugnance she read, she ate up the distance between us, cupping my face with her soft hands, forcing me to look at her. “You are beautiful, and I’m not just saying that because I’m your mother. I’m saying that because it’s the truth. Don’t you dare let anyone make you feel any less than.”

  And there it was. The habitual pained look on her face. A pain I had caused because of my inability to see past my own inclinations. I would have done anything to have been able to take the stress away from her, from my parents. To make them happy. I just didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to fix me. I only knew how to get by.

  The only thing I could do was give her the same automated response I had perfected over the years. One I knew she realized was my instinctive response to satiate her worries. It was something we had both become complacent in and had accepted. Neither of us liked it but knowing it was all I could give at this time. We both accepted it. I gave her hand a quick squeeze, walked into my room and grabbed my things.

  Checking my phone, I noticed a missed call from Fatima. The girls were here and waiting outside for me. That was our thing. The days we picked each other up, we never actually got out of the car and knocked on the front door. We just pranked or messaged each other and waited. It’s what best friends did.

  “I gotta go, Mom, the girls are here.”

  I wanted to get out of here. Out of this situation and away from this discussion.

  “Okay, honey. Have a good day at school. You call me if you need me, okay?” Her eyes targeted mine and held me there.

  “Sure thing, Mom. I will.” Another lie. It was becoming all too casual and comfortable lying to her, it was almost scary. It shouldn’t be this easy to lie to the one person I should never lie to. Yet, here we were.

  Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I walked down the stairs. Taking each step slowly, like if I wasn’t careful, the ground would break away and I’d fall down the rabbit hole, but instead of landing in Wonderland, I would fall to my death.

  I opened the front door and saw my fun-loving friends, laughing and involving themselves in animated chatter. My family. My sisters from different mothers. They were my heart and soul. My everything. They were also my best cheer squad and protectors. Because of them, I would try to be better. I would be happy and mean it. Or at least fake it so it was believable, because if anything, I was a pretty damn good actress when I needed to be.

  Most of the school dared not mess with me because, like a gang member, I was under their protection. They weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and fight fire with a blazing inferno. The only people they couldn’t help me with—and it wasn’t for a lack of trying, it was because I begged them not to—was Stephanie Brynsworth and her little posse of narcissistic sociopaths. I had practically threatened my friends, well, my version of threatening, because I knew it would end badly if they went up against them. They were friends with everyone in the school, and while they weren’t seen as the popular girls, part of the main clique of bitches, they were popular. They were that well liked that being friends with me hadn’t hurt their social standing. They kept up pretenses to uphold the peace. Much to their chagrin, they played nice. They always let me have it though whenever they found out she had messed with me, but their loyalty forbade them to seek retribution.

  A flurry of butterflies was released in the pit of my stomach. A prelude of what was sure to come. I was close to back-peddling and running up to my room and locking it, never to be seen again.

  As if catching my nervous steps, Aniyah removed herself from Fatima’s vehicle and glided towards me, her beautiful dark hair swayed gracefully as she walked. She was one of the four stunners that were my friends, and a spitting image of Mila Kunis, with her big brown eyes and oval shaped face. She stood at just five foot five and hailed all the way from the motherland of the Czech Republic. She was a sight to behold, especially with the countless guys that tried to break through the wall she built to get into her pants. She wouldn’t have it though, she abhorred the guys at school, deeming them to be drooling Neanderthals who thought only with their pea-sized brains, and she wasn’t even referring to their dicks. She was a firecracker and a feisty one if pushed to the brink of her patience. She could also be extremely argumentative and somehow won most arguments she entered. Even if she was wrong. This was why she was the captain of the debate team. Also, the reason she was pursuing a career as a lawyer.

  She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and looked at me. “It’ll be okay Isla, we will be with you every step of the way. Even though we can’t be in all of your classes, we will walk with you to all of them. It is our highest priority to ensure that no harm befalls you.”

  I had argued with them to not go to such lengths, but they had insisted. To quote, verbatim, “No bitch or asshole is going to mess with our girl this year. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.” As much as I execrated it and argued with them until I was blue in the face, begging them to change their minds, I was extremely grateful. I supposed that deep d
own, I wanted the protection. The familiar. Last year had been hell for me, especially with Stephanie. I wasn’t sure I could last this time if I suffered a repeat this year.

  I draped my arm over her shoulder and looked down at her. “I know, and again, thank you for doing this for me, I—” she held her hand up to stop me.

  “There is nothing to thank us for. We are rodina, which means—”

  “Family.”

  “Exactly. And there is no way we are going to forget a member of our rodina.”

  I smiled at her, and I could feel the tears starting to brew. Blinking rapidly, I managed to force them to retreat back into their home. We walked to the car and got in the back with Aurora, while Thea sat in the passenger seat, with Fatima in the driver’s. I kissed my girls on the cheek before Fatima pulled away, and we headed to the reason I had spent half the night flitting around my room and bent over the toilet bowl, chucking my guts up.

  Chapter Two

  Isla

  “Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.”

  - Japanese Proverb

  Somehow, I had made it through the morning without any issues. I had my friends who walked to classes with me, stopping any snickers or taunts from people who dared to throw them my way. When I was in class, it was a little different, and I wished I could have held onto them and dragged them in with me. However, knowing that wasn’t remotely possible, I just took my seat at the back and put my headphones in and listened to my music until the teacher came. When I used to see my therapist, she asked me what was the one thing in this world that calmed me and allowed me to escape into a place that was just my own. My own haven away from the crowd, the noise, the angry and harsh tones that attacked me and sedated the inner voice attempting to burn me to ash.

  Music.

  It was my everything. I couldn’t hold a tune or play an instrument to save my life, but I loved it. It helped me through a lot of the tough times. Multiple playlists were created to help me through different struggles and emotions. It was my lifeline, and I used it to shut the world out when I wanted to be alone or when it was caving in on me.

  I sat down next to Thea in AP Chemistry. She was rattling on about god knew what, I wasn’t paying an ounce of attention to her. She hadn’t seemed to notice as she kept yammering on. I hadn’t seen my bully Stephanie all day, and I was becoming worried. Granted, it was only the morning, but usually, by now, I would have already run into her twice. My stomach had pulled tighter and tighter as the day went on. I just wanted to get it over and done with. Weird, right?

  I didn’t want to see her at all, but I hated knowing that she was out there somewhere and I had yet to see her. Because it was inevitable. What was she doing? What was she planning? This wasn’t some high school movie, where the popular girls were dumb as dog shit. Stephanie seemed to be blessed in all the ways that mattered. She was incredibly hot with a kickass body and everyone threw themselves at her feet. She was also incredibly smart and her future was exceptionally bright. Because of her high status in society and the positions her parents held within the community, she was set for becoming partner one day at her father’s accountancy firm.

  It was an excruciating five minutes waiting for her—even though there should be no reason she would be in this class—the ticking of the clock on the wall pounded in my ears as rivulets of sweat started to form and worm its way down my forehead. Thea’s voice was now a low drone as I continued to place all my attention on the door of the classroom. When the bell rang the warning for everyone to be in class and she still hadn’t appeared, I relaxed a little. She was never late.

  Mrs. Albright, the chemistry teacher, went to close the door until a hand held it open, making my head stop abruptly. Oh my god, she is here. This was it. My stomach dropped and my breath hitched. Why? Why did she have to ruin my favorite class? Accountancy had nothing to do with chemistry, but aeronautical engineering did. It had been my dream for a long time to become an aeronautical engineer at NASA. I had stupidly hoped, even if it was a sliver, that I could avoid her again. I would be facing the girl who made my life miserable ever since the first day of middle school.

  Everything around me ceased to exist, and I couldn’t even hear Thea who was trying to get my attention, I think. All I could think about was seeing Stephanie again and every single bit of pain I had felt at the hands of her bullying. The way her face lit up whenever she saw me alone because it meant that she could dole out whatever she wanted because I had the propensity to keep it all to myself. She knew that and had made damn sure that none of my friends were witness to her punishments. All of it came flashing through my mind like a demo reel.

  It wasn’t until a sharp pain raised up on my arm, that I was jerked out of my head and back to reality. I looked over to Thea whose eyes were screaming with fear and concern for me.

  “Isla? Are you okay? You’ve gone white,” she whispered.

  “Stephanie just walked in,” I responded numbly.

  Her brows furrowed in confusion and she glanced around the classroom before landing back on my face. “Ummm, Isla, no she didn’t.”

  What? I couldn’t have heard right. I took a brief moment, my eyes scanned the room, and because I couldn’t trust my vision, I looked again and no, she was right. Stephanie Brynsworth was not in my AP Chemistry class. I sunk into my seat, relaxing, ever so grateful for not having to face her at this exact moment, in this exact class. It would come, I still had Advanced English, Math and Religion, however, I was holding onto some miracle that she would not be placed in them.

  Downright foolish wishing, I know.

  “Isla. Isla Davenport. Isla!” The sound of Mrs. Albright’s annoyed tone forced me to pay attention. My head shot up to the front of the class.

  I looked at her sheepishly and could feel my cheeks being illuminated with a blush as embarrassment set in. The students around me snickered, which made me feel even worse. “I-I-I-I’m sorry, Mrs. Albright… what did you say again?” I stammered.

  With a heavy sigh, she repeated herself. Something I knew she detested doing. “I asked if you could lend Kristopher and Zayne Shai your textbook until they’re able to get theirs.” Her tone dripped with annoyance.

  I glanced over at the two guys who—when the hell did they enter?—stood next to her. I gulped at the sight of them. They were….fuck. They were gorgeous. You could tell they were brothers, as they looked remarkably similar to one another, except one had dark blonde hair and the other jet black with darker skin than the other. Both had piercing blue eyes and stood at around six foot three if I had to guess.

  I quickly averted my gaze when I saw that the dark haired guy’s attention was focused on me. Why is he staring at me? Great, another person that would be making my life miserable this year. Refusing to show any sign of weakness, I straightened up my back and nodded at her. She gestured for them to sit down, which was—great—next to me. Yep, well that would be why she asked me to share my textbook and not anybody else.

  I groaned inwardly as Thea leaned over and whispered, “Fuck, they’re hot. And their accents. Damn, I’m getting wet just hearing it.” And that’s my friend ladies and gentlemen. Extremely uncouth and downright embarrassing.

  “Oh, say that a little louder, I don’t think Canada heard,” I hissed back, a plea for her to shut up before they heard her.

  “Oh, lighten up. They can’t hear me,” she scolded, her eyes never leaving them as they sauntered over to their seats.

  I rolled my eyes at her blatant disrespect for social etiquette. Before they could speak to me or acknowledge my existence, I grabbed my textbook from my table and leaned over, practically throwing it down in front of the guy with the dark blonde hair.

  “Thanks.” Oh, mother of pearl, Thea was right. That accent could melt the panties off of anyone. Guys and girls. South African.

  Kristopher or Zayne, whichever one he was, had a moderately strong accent and it sparked a tingle of heat down below. Oh for god’s sake. Great, my damn ovaries were
alert and voicing their approval of this guy. His brother remained indifferent and didn’t even thank me for the textbook, which, to be honest, I was appreciative of. I rebuked my body for reacting this way to these guys. It knew better than to be so responsive. Nothing was ever going to happen. Because hot guys don’t fall for rejected, ugly losers like me. I didn’t even look at them or acknowledge the dark blonde guy. Instead, I focused all my attention on Mrs. Albright as if she was the only person in the room.

  ……….

  “Holy cow, have you seen the new guys?!” Thea exclaimed when we sat down at our usual spot at the back of the school for lunch, which was away from everyone else. This spot had become one of the few places on school grounds I felt relatively comfortable being in, but only when my friends were around. It was still too close to school, even though not many people ventured out this way.

  The other girls lifted their heads up and nodded. “They are probably the hottest guys that have ever stepped foot in this school,” Fatima announced, practically swooning.

  I shook my head at them, they were ridiculous. Aurora shuffled back, making room for me as she patted the seat next to her, gesturing for me to sit down. I obligingly took the spot she offered.

  “Seriously, these guys are the cremé de la cremé of the male gene pool. Like fuck, I need to get myself to South Africa if this is how they breed them over there… or just bag myself one of the brothers. I wonder if they have girlfriends,” Fatima mused, tapping her finger on her chin as if deep in thought. “Surely they wouldn’t have girlfriends since they migrated all the way over here.”