The Ugly One novel Chapter 8

The next day at school, I saw Jake harassing Liliana by her locker, and my heart filled with joy. Ah, he is finally taking the initiative and bugging her directly and not trying to use me as a wing woman. Thank the Lord.

He had her pushed against the locker. He was about 6 foot 2 so he towered over her as he hovered over her face staring into her eyes. His lips twisted into a sickly smirk.

Liliana saw me passing by and mouthed 'help me' but I kept walking. Serves her right for being a bitch to me

Jake followed her eyes and saw me. He released her right away and started to walk toward my direction. The fuck...why.

"Janey wait up!" he yelled but there's no way I'm stopping.

Jake caught up to me in the hallway as I was walking to my class. He ran up behind me and yanked my ponytail. I yelped and almost fell backward but he caught me.

"What the hell is your problem?" I snarled. After seeing him way too many times, inside and outside of the school property, I realized I wasn't as scared of him as I used to be. Now I'm just plain annoyed at him.

"I called you," he said and gripped my arm firmly so I couldn't wiggle out of his grasp.

"You had Liliana trapped inside your arms' cage so why did you release her and grab me?" I snapped.

"I need to talk to you about something," Jake said.

"No, I am not going to help you kidnap Liliana," I said.

"That's not what I was going to ask smartass. I wanted to know if you are going to the spring fling dance?" Jake said.

Oh yeah, spring fling dance was coming up. I never really worried about these types of things. It wasn't like I was never invited to these things but I thought they were kind of lame. It was just an excuse for the pretty girls to show off their popularity.

"I don't know. Why do you ask? Let me guess, you asked Liliana and she denied you and now you want me to get in on your scheme to force her to go with you," I said.

"No. Actually, she agreed to go with me," Jake smirked.

What, I didn't see that coming.

"Oh, really? Congratulations," I said.

"There's only one problem," Jake said

"What's that?" I asked.

"She'd only go if you are going," he replied.

I was confused. "I don't get it. What does it matter if I don't go? It's not like we are super close or anything," I said.

"Fuck if I know. The point is if you decided not to go, you better change your mind because you are going," Jake announced.

"Oh, you get to decide my life choices now too? Are you going to decide which college I should apply for?" I rolled my eyes.

Jake pulled me aside and pushed me against the wall. His fiery eyes were boring into my soul. I'll admit his handsome face was looking quite intimidating.

"You are going and that's final Janey," he said.

"You can't hurt me, Jake. Aaron likes me so he will protect me from your idiocy," I said but I wasn't a hundred percent confident about it.

"You wanna bet?" Jake challenged.

I guess I'll be going to the dance.

A week has passed and the Spring fling dance was approaching quickly. I'll admit I was sort of excited to attend this year. Why? Because this time, I actually had a date.

I had been texting and talking on the phone with Aaron a lot. That's right, the former bad boy and the plain Jane are now friends. I could tell Aaron liked me and wanted to go out with me again so I asked him to the dance. Aaron was pleased and Of course, Jake was pretty happy about it.

But do you think he was overwhelmed with gratitude towards me and ran up to me and enveloped me in a thank you embrace? Not a chance in hell. His bullying against me continued.