The next morning I roll out of bed, and my entire backside is in flames. It hurts to breathe, and I fume at the thought of Graham Ryan and his friends. How can anyone be so senseless and rude? I guess when the entire town fawns over you, you can act however you want and still be praised.

Walking over to my full-length mirror, I pull the back of my black Nike shorts down to reveal what might be the nastiest bruise I've ever seen. Instead of the black and blue colors that I'd been expecting, there's a dark green bruise spread across my entire lower back right around my tailbone.

I waddle out of my bedroom to shower, and Hallie stops me in the middle of the hallway. Her eyes look sleepy, but I can tell she's about to say something that is bound to piss me off.

"Why are you walking like a fat penguin?" She quirks an eyebrow before backing up a few steps, knowing that she shouldn't even be talking to me this early in the morning.

"I fell trying to pull into a Biellmann," I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands and yawn. "Why are you talking to me? You know the rules. You may speak only after we’ve gone through the Starbucks drive-thru, and not a word before that," I push past her even though I know I won't escape the hallway without hearing another comment from the peanut gallery.

Right on cue, she opens her brace-filled mouth again.

"I got mine down like a year ago, and you still haven't,” she scoffs and looks down at her French manicured nails. “Guess I'm just the better skater. Who'da thunk?" She smiles obnoxiously before spinning on her heel and heading toward her bedroom. Her long blonde hair is braided down her back and I could so easily just reach my arm out and pull it as she bounces down the hallway.

When I get into the bathroom, I lock the door behind me and roll my eyes. I should never have admitted I fell trying to pull a Biellmann, but in actuality, it wasn't really my fault that I was interrupted but a bunch of asshole jocks. I probably would have had it if they hadn’t interrupted me so rudely.

I lean over the sink, and the way I'm bent relieves a small fraction of the pain that is pulsing through my back. I reach into the cabinet for some Icy Hot and when I can't find it I groan.

"Mom!" I yell without opening the bathroom door, which I know makes my mom mad, but the door handle is just too far right now.

"What, sweetheart?" Given how close her voice is, I figure she’s in the hallway so I open the door and she steps in.

"Are you okay? Why does your face look like that?" she scrunches her nose up at me and her usually plastered-on smile morphs into a frown.

I quickly glance into the mirror to see my red, puffy eyes reflecting back at me. I hardly got any sleep last night because no matter which way I laid I was uncomfortable.

"Oh, uh. Nothing. I'm just a little sore. Do you know where the Icy Hot is?" I force a small smile, and she nods her head at me.

"Yeah, it's in my bedroom. Follow me, and I'll help you put it on," she starts walking, and before I can oppose, she spins back around to look at me slowly making my way into her room.

"Oh dear, what did you do?" she frowns at my imperfect posture.

I rest my hand on a small decorative table outside of my bedroom. I'd always hated having that stupid table in the way, but right now I'm so thankful for it considering I can barely walk five steps without needing to relieve the pain that shoots across my lower back.

"I just fell on the ice yesterday," I admit, looking to my feet in embarrassment. Falling is not acceptable in this household, it has never been.

"Let me see it," she walks around me and lifts the hem of my shirt up. I now have both of my hands holding me up against the small table, and I keep my eyes glued to the floor below me. "Oh, God. Scarlett Rae,” when she says my middle name I know this isn’t going to end well. “You know you can't skate with your back like this right?" She touches the center of my back, and I wince in pain. "I really hope you had planned on showing me this and wouldn't have forced yourself onto the ice."

"I meant to show you, I just saw the bruise five minutes ago," I lie. I had no intention of showing her, or letting her know that I'd fallen in the first place.

When I hear the familiar annoyance of tiny feet making their way down the hallway I roll my eyes. Great. This is just what I need. The peanut gallery chiming in with my mother as they inspect my injury.

"Jesus, that was some fall Scar," she reaches her hand out to touch my bruise, and my mom smacks her hand away before she can make contact. "Sorry," she mutters before continuing down the hallway and down the stairs where our dad is making us breakfast in the kitchen.

"You can't skate like this, Scarlett," her voice is stern and I know there’s no use in arguing with her. When I turn my head to look at her, her lips are pursed, and she's still looking at the bruise on my back as if it's a work of art. I want to slap her hand off of my skin and tell her to leave me alone, but instead I just nod my head at her.

"How long?"

Her eyebrow raises when I wince again, and she shakes her head.

"Well, I was going to say maybe a week but considering you can't even move without wincing, I think we need to take you to Dr. Lipinksi's office," her nose scrunches up, and she looks away for a moment. "I won't have you on the ice hurting yourself any worse than you already are. I'll give him a call while you're in school this morning. Hopefully, he will be able to squeeze you in today at some point."

She drags her long skinny fingers through her dyed blonde hair and places a light kiss on my forehead.

"You'll be okay, sweetie. Just need to rest up a little," she cups my shoulder with her tiny hand before following in the same direction that my sister went.

Well this is just freaking fantastic.

****

The drive to school is unusually quiet, other than Ed Sheeran music blasting through the speakers of my car. Hallie is never this quiet. Ever.

As I’m pulling up to the light in front of Hallie’s school, she turns to look at me for the first time since we’ve been in the car.

"Does it hurt?"

I nod in answer to her question and hope that my lack of verbal communication will be enough for her to realize that I’m not in the mood for a chit-chat.

"Real bad?" she questions. I guess she didn’t get the hint that I don’t want to talk.

The light turns green, and I lift my foot off of the pedal.

"Worst pain I've ever felt," I sigh. "But, it'll heal with time."

When the words leave my mouth, I don't know if I'm trying to convince myself or her.

I see her nodding her head from the corner of my eye, and I pull into the middle school parking lot. She looks down at her thumbs and picks at a hangnail which is something she only does when she's worried or upset.

"I'll be fine, Hal," she looks up at me, and I can see tears swelling her eyes. "You don't have to worry."

I put my car in park, and she reaches over to give me an unexpected hug. Hallie is a hugger, just like my dad. I, on the other hand, could go without physical human contact. People are germy.

"Ow," as her arms wrap around me it causes my body to shift and a shot of pain tingles down my spine.

"Sorry," she frowns as she pulls away and reaches below her seat for her book bag. "I'll see you after school?"

I nod as she gets out of the car and skips over to her friends. The same two girls who wait for her every day outside of their building. The brunette of the friend group, Mila, shivers from the cool late-November air, and the red-headed girl, Annie, adjusts her skirt before pecking a light kiss on each of my sister's cheeks. They’re so exhausting.

If Mean Girls had been set in Maplewood, Minnesota, in a middle school, Hallie would be Regina George, and her two best friends would be Gretchen and Karen. I shiver at the thought of what high school will make of the three of them next year. Thank God I won't be around to witness it.

I put my car in drive and turn the volume up to listen to the radio. Bad Blood by Taylor Swift comes on, and I'm singing along to it as I pull around the corner to my high school parking lot. Luckily, our schools are right next to one another so I don’t waste much gas, or time, dropping Hallie off before I go to school myself.

When I pull into my usual parking space, the hockey team has formed a large cluster in front of the building. A few sophomore girls stand near the group of muscular guys twirling their hair and batting their eyelashes at the boys.

As I walk past the group, I watch as Kira Smith, the captain of the schools cheerleading squad, bats her obnoxiously mascaraed eyelashes at Graham.

Kira has been all over Graham since before he even stepped foot in our school. We'd all heard through the grapevine that a star hockey player was transferring to Hill-Murray the summer after our junior year. This new boy apparently had obvious hockey talent, which instantly earned himself Kira's interest before she could even lay eyes on him.

Once we all saw him face to face, though, her interest, along with every other girl’s, peaked even more. At 6'1 with his athletic build and hazel eyes, you'd have to be blind to not be at least slightly interested in him.

Too bad that in reality Graham Ryan would never waste his time on Kira. He's destined for a certain type of greatness that Maplewood, Minnesota just cannot provide him, and everyone knows it. A certain kind of greatness that takes focusing more on the sport you play rather than going out and getting laid.

I'm snapped out of my own thoughts when Graham looks up from his conversation with Kira and gives me a slight head nod. The kind of head nod that boys in movies do when they’re too cool to say hey, but want to acknowledge your presence. Since when does Graham Ryan give me head nods?

As I’m walking away from him and his teammates, a jolt of pain shoots up my back, and I realize that I'm walking far too quickly for an injured person. I slow my pace, and when I get to my locker, I lean up against it to regain my strength. As Graham and the rest of the kids who were outside make their way into the building and walk past me to their homerooms, I let out a deep breath and reach into my book bag for two tablets of Aleve.

Today is going to be a very long and painful day.

****

During lunch, my phone vibrates, causing the entire lunch table to shake with it. From the end of the table, Kira looks over at me and shoots me a dirty look. I roll my eyes at her and pop a gluten-free pretzel into my mouth before wiping my hands on my plaid uniform skirt. When I see my mom's contact pop up, I open it immediately.

"Sweetie, Dr. Lipinski can fit you in at 3:00. You should be able to make it over there in time if you leave right when the bell rings. I hope you weren't in too much pain today *kisses*"

I’ve told my mother time and time again to stop writing out the word kisses and use an emoji, but she doesn’t know how to get to them on her phone. I throw my phone back onto the table and Sienna, my best friend since the first grade, looks at me from across the table. Her nose twitches slightly and her eyes squint as she looks at me, clearing trying to figure out what my problem is.

"You alright?" She reaches over me to stick her hand into my zip lock bag of pretzels and after she grabs three I smack it away. “Geez. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

That’s an understatement.

"I'm fine. My mother is just making me go to the doctor's after school today," I cross my legs before leaning closer to her and she follows my lead. Our faces meet at the center of the table, and I can tell by the way Sienna’s blue eyes grow wider that she’s ready to hear some dirt. But this dirt is about me, unfortunately. "I fell on the ice yesterday and hurt myself pretty badly."

"I kind of thought something was off," she shrugs, clearly unaware of the severity a back injury could have on a figure skaters life. She looks over to the table where all of the senior boys sit before squinting her eyes at me again. "Also, Graham Ryan and two of his friends keep looking over here. God, isn’t Jake so cute?"

So that’s the blonde kid’s name. I knew I should have known his name last night, but I was so angry I couldn’t remember it for the life of me.

Ignoring her comment about the boys, I continue the conversation. I don’t care if Graham Ryan is looking at me or not. He should be looking for a way to escape my wrath once I’m healed and can physically handle arguing with him over what he and his friends did to me yesterday.

"What do you mean you knew something was off? I thought I was doing a good job at hiding it."

"Well, to all of them," she motions her hand around the cafeteria. "You are doing a great job. But I've seen you wince every single time that you've had to stand up today. Sometimes I think you forget that I've been your best friend since we were six," she smirks and pushes the forest green headband on her head back to hold her mess of curly blonde hair out of her face.

I lean back in my seat and glance over my shoulder to look at the boys. I make eye contact with Graham for a split second before we both flick our eyes away. Awkward.

"What's that about?" She chews on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and when I crack my neck she winces. "You know I hate when you do that."

"That's exactly why I did it," I grin.

She scrunches her nose up and shakes her head at me.

"You're annoying.”

"So are you," I laugh.

The bell rings, and I pack my lunch bag back into my book bag. As I walk out of the cafeteria, slower than usual, I type a quick text to my mom.

"I'm feeling fine, really. Much better than this morning." I press send, and as expected, a text comes through immediately. She'd seen how much pain I had been in this morning so she'd absolutely never believe that I'd miraculously healed.

"You're going to the doctor. I will pick your sister up."

I decide not to argue with her and head to class, I’ll never win an argument against her anyway so why bother.