The Bully's Possession

            Moving here was a mistake. My parents were business consultants, which required them to travel quite often. They opened their own business about five years ago, and ever since then, I have mostly been alone. It wasn’t like I minded being alone because my books gave me more than enough company. Reading was my escape from my dull life. Picking up a book and reading the pages of a beautiful love story made me feel as if I was a part of their story. Each character had their own personality, whether it be a bad one or a good one. I loved all kinds of books, but romance held a special place in my heart. Anything about a guy falling in love with a girl that he never could see himself with or a sweet girl who hasn’t lived until she finds her soulmate who shows her an entirely different world than the one that she always knew were the ones that captured my heart.            I clutched at my heart as my eyes skimmed the pages of my book, tears threatening to fall out because the male protagonist in my book confessed his love to the woman that I have wished he would end up with throughout the book. It was about time that he owned up to his feelings and dropped the woman that was doing nothing but using him.            My heart nearly dropped to the floor when I heard my name being called. “Ms. Bexley, is my teaching interrupting your reading?”            The entire class locked eyes with mine, my heart began pounding, my body sweating, and my face turned numb. I had to be the shyest person at this school, making me the most vulnerable. “No, Mrs. Wilson.” I placed my bookmark back into my book, closed it, and placed it in my backpack.            Girls in the classroom started giggling, while the boys ignored me completely. That was the way that I liked it, though. I hated drawing attention to myself. I just wanted to get through the rest of the school year unnoticed by anyone. Besides, being the new girl gave me free rein to do so. Mostly everyone in this school, Central Valley High, already knew one another. I was the odd one out, which both terrified me and made me happy. So far, no one had noticed me, but that changed now that I had drawn attention to myself on only the second week of school.            When the bell rang, I gathered my belongings and was the first one out of class. I practically ran through the halls and ducked into the girl’s bathroom. Please, oh please, I hope no one noticed me. Maybe I could just hide out here for the rest of the day just to be sure. “Good luck with that,” my subconscious sneered at me. “Your parents would kill you if you skipped class.” She was right. I didn’t have a brave bone in my body and would never purposely skip any of my classes.            After splashing some water on my face, I left the girl's bathroom, casting my eyes on the ground as I walked. A few more steps further, I ran right into what seemed like a brick wall. All the chatter around the halls died down and turned into shocked gasps. When I turned to look at the students around me, they all started powerwalking, some even running away from me. I then remembered that I crashed into something. I turned my head forward to see what it was and swallowed hard. My eyes didn’t even have time to focus on anything other than his muscled chest before I knew who it was. I didn’t just run into something. I ran into someone. I ran into not just anyone but none other than Cole Parker. He was the black cloud of the school, always getting into trouble. He made a name for himself around here because of his bad attitude and reputation for getting into fights. As far as anyone knew, he controlled the school. Even the teachers feared him. I had heard rumors that he fought one of the teachers right before I got here and put him in the hospital but never confirmed it because of my shy nature.            “E…excuse me.” I dropped to the floor, picking up the books that had fallen out of my bag when I collided with him.             The only thing that I could see was his black boots that had metal spikes on the back of them. I gulped as fear began to make my body shake. No one ever dared to get this close to Cole unless he wanted you to.            When I stood, I began to go around him, but he grabbed my arm, stopping me right in my tracks. “You are Mia Bexley, the new girl.” I nodded my head as I couldn’t form a coherent thought to say to him. “Mia, that is a problem. Make sure to get caught up with what goes on around this school. Because you are new here, I will let it slide, but do not ever let it happen again.”            My body relaxed the second that he was gone. I didn’t know that I was holding my breath until I finally exhaled. I gathered the rest of my books in my hand and ran outside to the empty courtyard. Mostly everyone was inside the cafeteria area, where it was nice and warm. I liked to stay out here, even though it was freezing cold, because I had it all to myself. When I sat down, adjusting myself to as much warmth as possible, I pulled out my book and began to read where I left off.            The rest of the day seemed to go rather quickly, considering that none of my other teachers seemed to give a crap whether I read my book in their classes or not. My grades spoke for themselves, so much so that they didn’t care whether I was paying attention or not. When our last period ended, I walked out to my locker to put my bag inside for tomorrow morning, all except for my book. When I opened my locker, there was something there that has never been there before. One single, blue chocolate M&M sat there on top of my other books. I picked it up and turned around to see if I could find out who might have put it there. No one seemed to be acting out of the ordinary, and definitely, no one was paying me any attention. However, this struck me as odd. Someone in this school knew that my favorite color was blue, and my favorite candy was M&M’s, but who? Surely it wasn’t Cole freaking Parker, not that I wanted it to be him.            Cole Parker scared me to death among everyone else at this school. His bad reputation was one that was hard to ignore. It surprised me more to learn from rumors around school that he, in fact, did have friends. Those friends of his must be as crazy as he was. I closed my locker door, leaving the M&M tucked inside.            The house was empty when I got home, much like it always was. It was the same routine every day. Come home, make myself something to eat, take a shower, stay cooped up in my room for the rest of the night, wake up and do it all over again. My parents usually got home much later in the night and were gone by the time I left for school in the mornings.            I heard my doorbell ringing when I stepped out of the shower, which was an odd thing. Since moving here, we haven’t received any visitors. I knew it wasn’t for me because I had no friends here. “Just a minute,” I yelled downstairs as I was pulling my long-sleeve shirt over my head. I ran down the stairs, opened the door, and nearly fainted when I recognized the boots that I memorized from earlier today.            “Hello, Mia,” Cole said as he stomped past me and right into my home. I dared not to say anything out of fear. He was here to hurt me after getting in his way earlier. I just knew it. “The woman in the office at school gave me your address,” he explained.            Why would someone willingly give up my address like that? I thought stuff like that was illegal unless she didn’t have any other choice. Seeing as how Cole Parker was standing in my home and how terrified I was by it, I figured I would probably do the same.            “Aren’t you going to offer me something to drink, Mia?”            I rushed into the kitchen, turning on the faucet from the sink. My breaths got heavier and heavier. This was just a bad dream. It had to be. There was no other explanation as to why Cole would be in my house right now. If that was the case, then why, oh why was I dreaming about Cole Parker? He wasn’t anything like the guys I read in my books and was certainly nowhere close to the guy of my dreams.            My body stiffened when I felt an arm move around my waist. In a split second, I went from staring out the kitchen window above our kitchen sink to facing that same built chest that I ran into earlier. “Look at me,” Cole said as he gripped my chin with his thumb, pulling it up to him.             When my eyes finally got to see what he looked like, I was taken back. He was hot, and I mean like crazy hot. Cole had these light green eyes that had a hint of brown in them that also matched his messy black hair. He had a strong, sexy jawline that made my knees grow weak as I continued to stare. Cole was wearing a black leather jacket, ripped blue jeans, and those spiked black boots. For some odd reason, he reminded me of a dark-sided male model, the ones that you saw on the cover of a magazine that talked about falling in love with the bad boy.            Cole smirked as he noticed how concentrated I was on his features. “It isn’t nice to stare, Mia.” I instantly cast my eyes down to the floor. “I like you. I had time to think about it after you crashed into me earlier and couldn’t seem to stop thinking about you.”            What? Was I hearing him right, or was I imagining things? It must have been me imagining things because otherwise, this would be a nightmare.             He pressed my chin up to him again, and I tried to look anywhere but directly at him. “It is also bad manners not to look at me when I am speaking to you.” He sighed, letting my head fall to the center of his chest. “I came here because I changed my mind about you. Starting tomorrow, I will pick you up from school and take you home. You will be with me when I see fit for you to be with me.”            “Why me?” I finally chocked out, though I sounded miserable just asking that question.            “Because why not?” His fingers fell to my light golden-brown hair. “You are an attractive girl, Mia. Don’t sell yourself short in that department. Maybe I am attracted to you. Did you ever think of that?”            No! Because there was no way in this world that he was attracted to me out of all other far more attractive girls at school. Please, please, please, let me wake up, and this all just be a horrible nightmare.