Bonnie ranked third in her grade on the monthly exam.
Being a faculty child, she found out her results far earlier than the rest of the students.
Shirley wasn't entirely thrilled with the score. In her eyes, the mistakes Bonnie made were completely avoidable. It wasn't that Bonnie didn't know the material; she had just been careless when it mattered most.
However, considering the semester had just started and Bonnie was still adjusting to her new environment, Shirley held back from being overly critical. She even gave Bonnie the day off to rest and recharge.
Bonnie rarely had any social life anyway, and she hadn't made many friends back in middle school.
With her aloof personality, striking looks, and insanely high grades, she had always been an outcast among the highly rebellious middle school crowd.
For three entirely isolated years, Bonnie had been a complete loner. She assumed high school would be exactly the same, but surprisingly, things were vastly better here.
Perhaps the students at The Cabinda School were simply too busy studying to waste time bullying and isolating people.
Zoey had even asked her to hang out today to buy some books at the bookstore.
When Bonnie told Shirley she was going out with a classmate, Shirley thought about it for a second before nodding. "Go ahead, but be back early. The boarding students return tonight, so I have to monitor the evening study hall. Tell your dad what you want for dinner so he can buy groceries."
With a wave of her hand, Shirley dismissed her, diving back into grading papers.
She grabbed the phone she was only allowed to use on weekends and texted Zoey Hudson on WhatsApp to set a meeting spot before changing her clothes and heading out.
The early autumn air carried a slight chill, so Bonnie wore a light purple knit sweater and packed a white cotton shirt in her canvas tote bag just in case it got cold on the way home.
With her earphones in, she took the subway straight to the mall.
She waited by the entrance of the second-floor bookstore for Zoey.
Bonnie didn't think she had a single damn thing to say to these two. They were clearly looking for a fight, but in a crowded mall, they wouldn't dare pull anything crazy.
At worst, they'd just act like they did in middle school—spitting nasty insults the second they saw her, desperate to prove how edgy and intimidating they were at fourteen or fifteen.
Honestly, Bonnie had always thought fighting back against people like this was just a massive waste of energy.
It was just pathetic.
She casually swatted the girl's hand off her shoulder and stared back at them with icy indifference. Thanks to them leading the charge to isolate and bully her for three years, Bonnie remembered their faces vividly.
She even remembered their names.
The loud, sarcastic one was Abby. The one who grabbed her shoulder was Bridget.

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