The Time I Sat on the School Bully and Made Him Cry Chapter 2

From that day on, the moment Liam saw me, he would bolt in the opposite direction.

Liam didn't get into our high school the normal way.

His mom was on the board of directors.

Rumor had it his middle school grades were so bad he couldn't even qualify for the worst high school in the city.

As a kid who had been on the poverty-assistance list her entire life, I despised people like him.

Especially since he murdered my chicken.

But I couldn't actually do anything to him.

In fact, I was terrified of him.

I was terrified he would go crying to his mom and get my financial aid revoked.

Or that they would find some random excuse to expel me.

For an entire semester, I sat in class just waiting for the homeroom teacher to tell me to pack my bags.

Every night, I had nightmares about being chased by a rabid dog.

The dog would finally catch me, bare its fangs, let out an evil laugh, and its face would morph into Liam's.

It wasn't until finals were over that our homeroom teacher announced he had news.

Sitting in the stuffy, heated classroom, a cold sweat broke out down my spine. I was already trying to figure out how to explain my expulsion to my mom.

At worst, I would just go work in the coal mines with her.

The teacher calling my name snapped me back to reality.

"Chloe Foster. For ranking first in the grade, you are the recipient of the school's newly established merit scholarship. The prize is $1,200."

That wasn't just a scholarship. It was life-saving money.

Not only did I have enough for living expenses, but my mom wouldn't have to risk black lung disease working in the mines just to scrape together an extra hundred bucks a month.

The teacher then praised Liam.

His rank had jumped from dead last to right in the middle of the pack.

My desk mate gossiped that Liam had a crush on the most popular girl in our grade, Mia.

Mia consistently ranked in the top ten and had publicly stated she would never date a guy with worse grades than her.

Liam's desk was piled high with New Year's greeting cards from various girls.

He shoved them all carelessly into his desk drawer.

Except for the one from Mia. He carefully tucked that one into his backpack.

After that, he totally chilled out. No more bullying, no more trouble.

Whenever we bumped into each other, I didn't have to hide, and he stopped calling me "Fatty."

Well, actually.

He didn't even look at me anymore.

By the time we graduated senior year, he had become the cold, untouchable heartthrob the underclassmen obsessed over.

He rejected countless confessions, all to wait for Mia to say yes.

After graduation, my only interaction with him happened when I went to pick up my diploma.

The homeroom teacher told me Liam's mom had a message for me.

"Thank the pretty, chubby girl in your class. Tell her that sitting on Liam finally knocked some sense into him."

I scratched my head and laughed.

His mom was pretty funny.

When I turned around, Liam was standing right in the doorway of the faculty office.

We made eye contact. He immediately looked away, and I dropped my gaze.

We brushed past each other, and I never saw him again.