I Picked the Wrong Pushover

I spent a whole week picking out the softest pushover in class. Because I figured if I looked mean enough, nobody would mess with me. I took his breakfast. I drank his water.

After school I cornered him at the gate and slapped him across the face. Then one day I watched that pushover grind the guy who'd shaken me down into the floor. "Pretty bold of you.

You'd really go after the king of our school?" The guy stared up at him, lost. "Aren't you the king of our school?" Wilder leaned down.

The smile never got anywhere near his eyes. "Nope." Then I heard my own name. Chapter 1 My parents got transferred, so I got dumped into a trash school. I had exactly one goal.

Keep my head down until graduation, then get into Stanford. How trashy are we talking? Ten advisory cohorts per grade.

Exactly one of them had a reputation for showing up: the honors cohort. Good news, that was mine, and most of us moved through our core classes together.

Bad news, the honors cohort had its own bullying problem. My best friend told me that a bookworm like me was first pick for that kind of thing.

If I wanted to study in peace, step one was simple. I had to look like a bad idea to mess with. "Is this scary enough?" I puffed out my cheeks and did my meanest face.

She shook her head and gave me a pained smile. "Pufferfish baby, even when you're furious, you just get fluffy and walk away." I'd been at the school a week already.

Nobody in class had touched me. But everyone looked at me funny, like they felt a little sorry for me. Nobody talked to me either. I had no idea if that was how it started.

It kept me up at night. I thought about it for days and finally landed on a plan. Maybe this pushover just needed a softer pushover to squeeze.

I studied my options like a college list. And my eyes landed on the guy at the desk next to mine, face down, asleep. Wilder.

A guy who spent ten hours a day at school and slept through eight of them. That whole first week, I never once saw anyone speak to him. Frozen out, clearly.

Which made him, barring surprises, softer than me. "Seatmate." I poked the sleeping Wilder, gently. "I have an unreasonable request. Please say yes." He didn't move.

He didn't make a sound. Silence means yes. I kept going. "When I bully you in a minute, don't make a scene, okay?" Wilder finally stirred.

He lifted his head, eyes half open. "Bully what?" Poor thing. Frozen out and hard of hearing. I said it again, one word at a time. "Bully.

You." "You." He laughed. "You're going to bully me." I nodded, dead serious. "Yes. But I have my reasons." He seemed to have finally slept enough.

He put his thin silver glasses back on. Then he propped up an elbow, rested his head on his hand, and smiled at me. "Go on.

Tell me about your reasons." I ran him through my whole Rules for Surviving a Trash School. If I looked easy, the bad kids would come for me.

So I had to look like a bad idea instead. Wilder went still when I finished. He stayed quiet a while, like he was chewing it over. That was when I got a good look at his face.

Behind the lenses, those eyes were long and sharp. Nothing soft about them at all. Chapter 2 A straight nose. Thick, long lashes.

The glasses softened those eyes back down, and he looked mild and bookish again.

The corner of his mouth twitched. "So you spent a week shopping for a pushover, and you picked me." I nodded, solemn.

He dropped back against his chair and gave me a lazy grin. "Fine. Let's see how you plan to bully me." My first time bullying anyone. I was a little nervous.

I swallowed a few times. I straightened my jacket. Then I shot up out of my seat and kicked the leg of Wilder's chair. The chair didn't budge.

But the sound turned every head in the room. The noise of passing period cut out all at once. Every pair of eyes swung to me, and the gasps came one after another. It worked.

They already looked a little scared of me. Wilder lifted his eyelids and looked up at me from below, mild and harmless. He looked so well behaved. I felt bad for half a second.

But we were past the point of no return. I bent down and murmured near his ear, "Sorry. Once I'm done bullying you, I'll make it up to you." Wilder went stiff.

The tips of his ears turned red, barely. I hardened my face and made a vicious grab for his desk. The plan was to steal his pen, but the desk was empty. Nothing on it at all.

My hand was already out there. No taking it back. So I snatched the water bottle off his desk instead. Another round of sharp breaths went through the room.

Might as well go all the way. I twisted off the cap and chugged the whole thing. That killed the gasping.

Somebody in the back said, "Holy crap." Wilder turned his head and gave that corner one cold look. Every kid who'd been enjoying the show suddenly found somewhere else to look.

A little thrill went through me. Apparently that one move had scared the entire class straight.

I tossed the empty bottle back on his desk. "I already drank out of that," Wilder said. That shut me up for a second. I recovered. "So?

I don't mind." He looked at me. "And if I mind?" I stuck out one finger and wagged it at him, extremely fierce. "Rule One of Surviving a Trash School.

A pushover doesn't get to say no." After I squeezed my first pushover. The way the class looked at me changed. Less pity, more respect. Mostly fear.

To lock in my reputation as a bad idea. I kept squeezing Wilder. He brought breakfast. I took half. The next day he brought a double order. He slept through class.

I hauled him upright to listen. The next day he showed up with earplugs. I threw those out too, obviously. Every time I came or went, I kicked his chair like I meant it.

Then I apologized under my breath. Wilder had an unbelievably good temper. I could roll him up and squash him flat and he never got mad once.

No wonder the whole class froze him out. I'm not a monster, though. Every time I pushed him around, I found some way to pay him back. Wilder never brought textbooks.

He didn't even have a pen. Maybe whoever bullied him before had thrown them all out. So I copied my textbooks and my notes for him, and I bought him a cute little cartoon bear pen.

I had no idea at the time. That bear pen was about to travel through the entire school. Whenever I got good snacks, I snuck him a share.

Chapter 3 Whenever I found a nice notebook, I gave him one. Little by little, Wilder's desk filled up. I even hung a goofy bear charm off that sad, flat black backpack of his.

Walking home after school. Some kids on my route were saying that the king of our school had finally caught feelings.

One of them said, "I heard the guy's six foot two and he's writing with a cartoon bear pen. How soft is that?" The other one snorted. "Late bloomers go down the hardest.

And this is his first one." "Think about it. Two years of people chasing him. Girls got turned down, guys got knocked down.

Now he's got his first crush and he's embarrassing himself." I kept my ears open the whole way home and never once caught the guy's name.

The next day I brought it up with Wilder. "Do you know who the king of the school is?" I asked, blinking at him.

The corner of Wilder's eye twitched. "Why do you need to know that?" I chewed on my pen and thought it through. "If we know who he is, we can get out of his way in time." Wilder looked like he had something to say and then didn't say it.

Made sense. A bottomtier pushover like him wouldn't be on that kind of guest list. I patted his shoulder to make him feel better. "It's fine if you don't know.

I heard he's got a crush going. Good mood. He probably won't come after us." Wilder started coughing. Hard. God, poor guy. Just hearing the title scared him that badly.

Turns out you get exactly what you're scared of. If I'd known, I'd have saved the fear for a rejection letter from Stanford. On the walk home, I ran into a pack of guys.

Under threat, I lost twenty bucks and gained one boba. The next morning I dragged myself into school.

Wilder glanced over, caught how flat I looked, and asked quietly, "What's wrong?" I lay facedown on my desk with no will to live. "I'm not bullying you anymore.

The scary act doesn't work." "Why not?" "Some guys took twenty bucks off me yesterday." "They what?" That clearly rattled him more than I expected.

I hurried to smooth it over. "It's fine, don't be scared. Worst case it's twenty bucks." "I'm not scared." He stopped himself halfway and switched tracks. "Never mind.

Tell me what he looked like." I thought back. "Uh. His hair looked like it was rotting." "You know the type.

Bleached blond, with half an inch of his real hair grown back in at the roots." Wilder let out a short laugh before he could stop it. "Got it." He pulled out his phone and started typing fast.

No idea who he was messaging. At our school the teachers didn't manage anything. Phones in class, no. Sleeping through class, no. Fistfights, also no.

Security just stood off to the side with their arms crossed and watched. Not that stepping in would have helped.

And letting a pile of problem kids stay glued to their phones was honestly less work. I felt bad, so I mumbled at him. "I've been feeling guilty about bullying you anyway.

Since it doesn't work, I'll stop." Wilder kept messing with his phone.

He didn't even look up. "Who said it doesn't work?" "Ever consider the problem is that you're not bullying me hard enough?" I blinked. "Huh?" He raised his eyes.

Something cold came out from behind the lenses and landed on me. Chapter 4 "You haven't noticed that the whole class has been scared of you since you went after me?" I nodded.

I had noticed. The kid passing our worksheets to the teacher practically ducked his head at me.

Wilder watched me, and his face went soft again. "After school today, when the front gate is at its busiest, you're going to bully me for real." "I promise, nobody touches you after that." I was a wreck.

Before, I only had to bully Wilder in front of one class. Now I had to bully him in front of the whole school. Just walking next to him, I could feel eyes stacking up on us.

They couldn't tell I was about to bully him, right? My palms wouldn't stop sweating. I breathed like it was a job. "Okay.

You can start." Wilder leaned in near my ear out of nowhere, and the sound of it went through me like a shock. We'd reached the gate without me noticing. His eyes crinkled.

He was smiling at me. "Want me to hold your backpack?

So you can really put your weight into it." The setting sun sat behind him and poured gold over his whole outline, and it made every line of his face sharper and better.

The evening wind lifted the hair off his forehead. Soft eyes. All the time in the world. I forgot what I was doing. Something in my chest tripped over itself.

Wilder gave me a small nod. Go ahead. I let out a long breath, raised my hand, and shut my eyes. I put everything I had into a slap aimed at his shoulder. Crack.

Everything around us went quiet. The sound was too sharp. And it hadn't landed the way a shoulder lands. My eyes flew open.

Wilder had bent forward slightly, and his face was turned to the side. On that pale cheek. Four red finger marks were already coming up