Back and Stronger: Alpha's Daughter
Chapter 11

Lunch period, one of the hardest periods of the day for Sophia to get through, had arrived. Since she never knew if she could eat supper in the evening, it wasn’t something she could afford to skip. The spillage of careless students marked the shiny linoleum floors. The fluorescent lighting overhead had cast a washed out green on the pallor of all the students. It had been Taco Day, one of her least favorite days. The smell of spicy, greasy, low-grade meat and artificial shredded cheese permeated the air with its pungent odor. Sophia stood in line for her daily dose of nausea, pleased that everyone had seemed to ignore her, for once, though she knew it wouldn’t last long. She grabbed her foam tray from the stack and moved through the line, careful to not get too close to people in front or behind her. There were options other than tacos. The ever-present square pizza, fries, fish sticks and other unpopular choices, though it hadn’t mattered to Sophia. The cafeteria staff never asked her what she wanted, unlike the other students, who got to pick their preferred brand of slop. No, not Sophia. They just shoved whatever they felt like at her and she had to take it or starve. She glanced at the foam tray. Two grease covered shells sat on the ugly green. Slop, slightly browned lettuce, and fake cheese fell out the side. She sighed...lovely. Just lovely...

When she exited the line and walked into the seating area, her gaze skimmed the tables. Though Matthew and the rest of the football team often sat in the same place every day, a place where they could hold court to the rest of the brainless students, sometimes they moved, and Sophia needed to sit as far away from them as she could, and preferably alone. She dodged a bucket that smelled faintly of bleach. Remnants of spilled milk floated on top of the murky water, and she wrinkled her nose. She slid onto the cold, backless, black bench of the table furthest away from the masses as she could get. The gymnasium was on the other side, so the sour milk, greasy slop and bleach now mixed with the repulsive smell of sweat. Others sat at the table, but they were several seats away. They eyed her briefly, then turned their backs to her. Sophia was fine with that, and it was very much preferable to being ridiculed.

Sophia was lost in her own thoughts. A place she seemed to have been more and more as time went by. The test swap, as she thought of it, was in her mind and she replayed the interaction with her and the teacher. The only thing that bothered her from the events was that now she was being moved to advanced math when she couldn’t even pass regularly. She only hoped her father would not sign the paper for the schedule change. Otherwise, she was screwed.

She opened her carton of milk and lay the napkin on her lap, so she didn’t stain her skirt worse than it already was. Plus, she had just gotten to wash her laundry the day before and it would be two weeks before she was given that ‘luxury’ again. She looked down at the table, not making eye contact with anyone around her. The loud sound of hundreds of people talking at one time and music blaring from their cell phones echoed in the cavernous room. She noticed there was etching on top of the laminate tabletop. The words “Emma K is a piece of shit” and “if you want a good time, call ---.” with the number scratched out had been carved into the fake wood. The person it belonged to probably scratched the number out, or maybe someone from the janitorial staff took pity. Emma, phone number person, Sophia thought. Whoever you both are, I feel you. I’m sorry you had to deal with assholes.

She was through her first taco and forcing down the second, ignoring the rolling of her stomach, when a conversation at the end of the table caught her interest.

“Did you hear about Matthew?”

“Huh uh. I haven’t heard anything. What’s up?” the other girl said.

“He’s kicked off the football team.”

“What? No way. He’s the quarterback!”

“He’s off. For at least the rest of the semester. I guess he failed a math test, and it dropped his GPA.”

The corner of Sophia’s mouth quirked in a secretive smile.

“I call bullshit.” The girl cracked her gum loud like the snap of a whip. “He’s a math whiz.”

“I know, but I’m telling you it’s true. I was in the athletic office when the coach called him down. Matthew swore he knew every answer on the test. He begged the coach to let him retake it and he’d prove it. But coach wasn’t having any of it.”

“Holy shit.”

Sophia’s stomach bounced with restrained laughter.

“Yup. That’s what I said. But it got worse. Coach called his parents and told them to ’come get him out of there and that he didn’t want to see his face until he got his shit together.”

The girl cracked her gum and made snorts of doubt.

“It’s true. The door slammed so hard I thought the glass would shatter. Then I heard from Bella that his dad showed up and they’ve been in the principal’s office since then.”

Sophia lifted her head and found Joss and the rest of the team. Matthew wasn’t with them.

“Oh, my goddess.” The gum cracking girl exclaimed. Her eyebrows had been so far up into her head they blended with her wispy bangs.

For the first time in longer than she could remember, Sophia was having a good day. She smiled broadly, not feeling the tiniest bit of guilt that her actions caused Matthew to lose what had likely been the most important thing in his pathetic life. She couldn’t stop the full smile that spread across her face from ear to ear. As far as vengeance goes, it wasn’t much, but it was still a tick under her name. She’s not the fucking victim anymore. Not all the time, anyways.

It was still on her face when the bell rang, and she rose to go to her class.

“What are you smiling at, bitch?” The gum cracker said.

Sophia didn’t answer and just kept walking, her feet light of step. It took everything in her to not jump, fist in the air and yell “take that you son of a bitch.”

Her next period was uneventful. Everyone had been too distracted by Matthew’s plight. Sophia just sat there, taking it all in. As far as victories and revenge went, it wasn’t much, but hell, it was the first taste of it she’d had in longer than she could remember. Goddess, it tasted good.

When the bell rang with its annoying, tinny peel, she made a spur-of-the-moment decision to skip her next class. She was going to replace Neil. She wondered if he would react to seeing her without pain or fear on her face. Would he notice that for once, shame or embarrassment did not cloud over her? Or that she wasn’t cowering in fear? She hoped. The thought of him seeing her in a different light, a less pathetic light, filled her with excitement. She lifted the student hall pass from the teacher’s desk on the way out the door.

As she looked for him, she warned herself to keep things chill. She knew, with the mating to Matthew, that nothing would ever come of her and Neil. It was just a silly crush. And a one-sided crush at that. But Neil didn’t judge her, and he made her feel safe. Sophia thought she could probably even tell him about the math test swap and about Matthew getting into trouble. She had seen how he looked at Matthew. Contempt for him would be on his face, anger in his eyes. Yeah, she thought, she could tell him what happened. Even if he didn’t approve, she knew he wouldn’t turn her in.

Sophia strolled the halls with the stolen pass in her hand. She had only been confronted twice, once by the assistant principal who scowled at her when she happily showed the pass, and once by the art teacher who had been on her way to wash the yellow, orange, and red paint off her hands. Sophia thought she may have been painting a sunrise.

She checked the main doors where the guards scanned the students, then the secondary doors in the back by the cafeteria and gymnasium. Feeling deflated, she figured she’d give the locker banks a walk through. Maybe he was busy doing something security guard-like. Having a crush on someone as kind as Neil wasn’t such an embarrassing thing. Plus, whoa, he was hot. Her thoughts ran rampant in her mind, but she wasn’t so lost in thought that she walked past the principal’s office, pulling herself up short just outside the door. She took the stairs right next to it to the second floor and kept her eyes and ears peeled. Nothing. She couldn’t replace Neil anywhere. Sophia went back down to the main floor from the stairwell on the opposite side of the principal’s office. She pulled the door open and stepped into the hall and ran smack into the security guard who had come up to the top of the auditorium stairs to get Neil that one day. He grabbed the top of her arms, his hands large enough to wrap completely around her biceps. My gaze flew up to his, and though I hadn’t winced, he dropped his hands quickly.

“I have a pass.” She stammered.

She held it out for him to see.

“I wasn’t asking.”

They stood in silence for a moment. He, eyeing her from top to bottom, and she not moving so much as a muscle. She let her arm drop, the pass still clutched in her hand and took a deep breath. Relax, she told herself. If he wanted to cause her harm, to get her in trouble, he would have done so already.

Sophia stepped to walk around him, but he blocked her. She knew she didn’t need to be afraid. He and Neil seemed to be friends, and he didn’t turn her in last time, or anything.

He ran his eyes from her toes to her face, for the second time. Not in a creepy way, but she felt like he was accessing her for injuries or something. Like he was taking stock and committing it to memory. His dark brown eyes pierced hers through the wire-rimmed glasses that were perched on his nose. He nodded once, then stepped back, allowing Sophia to leave.