Chapter Text
If there was an embodiment of the word pathetic, I would be it.
As a toddler I fell behind in development. I walked late, I did not speak, I did not play with the other children during daycare. It only went downhill from there.
I was never popular in school. I was quiet, awkward, and I got along with the teachers more than my peers. Though that was usually because my teachers weren't pushing me into lockers or trying to shove my head into a toilet.
My homelife was no better. My father hated me more than the kids at my school. He blamed me for everything wrong in his life. Said that if he hadn't been stuck with taking care of me after my mother died, he would've made it big in the finance world. I had never really understood how my father's success and my birth correlated since he was a loan shark, but anytime I tried to point that out all it got me was a hand across the face.
As I entered middle school I tried for a change. I decided that I would make my place by being smart. My grades were practically perfect, especially in math. I figured that since I was a failure athletically, socially and every other way that counted, I could at least make my father proud by being a genius. He worked with money, he gave out loans, so surly if I was good at math he would be proud.
That was not the case. I quickly learned that no shinning report card would earn me affection. Strangely enough when I presented my accomplishments to my father it made him angry. Suddenly I was trying to make him seem like an idiot, I was telling him he was old and stupid and I was better than him. And the only reward I got was his belt.
By the eighth grade the only person I really spoke to was my English teacher. She was kind, with wrinkled skin and gray hair, and during lunch she would let me in her room to raid her personal library. I dreaded the days she wasn't there, days when I knew I'd have to hide in the janitors closet or under the bleachers so the popular boys wouldn't be able to give me a nice pair of bruised ribs or matching black eyes.
I never understood what it was that made others hate me. I never raised my hand in class, I minded my business, my backpack wasn't covered in charms that would jingle incessantly when I walked through the hall, I didn't carve skulls into desks or dress head to toe in black, my clothes were nice but weren't anything to be jealous of, and I wasn't particularly handsome or especially ugly like other kids who got picked on. I was just average.
One day my father was late to pick me up. Normally this wouldn't worry me. He was always late. But it was football season, which meant the athletic boys would be getting out late. I was sat on a bench, reading a mystery novel when I looked up. Just in the distance I saw a group of boys walking in my direction. My stomach churned and I knew what was going to happen.
Soon enough I was tripping over my feet as I sprinted across the school lawn. At my heels the boys whooped and cheered. They chased me to the track, throwing rocks and jeers and laughing. They cornered me and took turns trying to hit me. I managed to dart between two of them, my backpack getting ripped off in the process, but I did not stop. They chased me onto the bleaches. Their leader, a ginger boy who was tall for his age followed me up the meatal stairs. I already had a scrape across my forehead and a bruise on my cheek. My body buzzed with adrenaline and anticipation for what he would do to me.
He chased me to the top and grabbed at me. I was shorter and skinnier but in my mind's eye I saw the image of him throwing me down the stairs and I panicked. He swiped for me and I shoved at his chest with all my strength. For a moment the boy grinned as he stumbled back, but then his foot slipped, and his eyes went wide as the old, rusted chain railing gave out at his back. The world slowed to a stop as he felt back, hand grappling at air before he disappeared down. I did not have to look. The silence of the other boys, and the sickening thud that came as time went back to normal, told me all I needed to know.
That summer was the worst of my life. The boy lived but was sent into a coma for four weeks. When he finally came back into consciousness he had brain damage, and his parents took it to court.
The trail was long and nasty. But after video footage and witnesses testifying on the bullying the boy had put me through, the judge decided that what I needed was a correctional boarding school.
The judge suggested Phthia Institute.
Founded by Peleus Pelides, Phthia Institute was a prestigious correctional boarding school for young men needing discipline and guidance. As founder and dean, Peleus established the school to offer structured reform and character development.
The institute provided rigorous academics emphasizing classical studies, literature, mathematics, and philosophy, alongside structured athletics such as football, track, boxing, and swimming. Students also participated in community service and mentorship programs designed to build accountability, leadership, and integrity.
But it was expensive, and my father said plain, free military school would do. But as it turned out the judge himself reached out to Peleus, and after seeing my case I was given a scholarship for all four years of free tuition.
It was my fathers dream. The perfect way for him to wash his hands of me for all of high school except for summers, and it was all for free. He had shipped me off as soon as he was able.
Without even a goodbye I was left outside the school's front gates. Boys stared at me as I dragged my trunk to the main hall for check in.
I got my schedule, my key, my uniform, then dragged my trunk to the other side of the campus to the freshman hall.
Nestled within expansive grounds, the school buildings featured elegant stone architecture, ivy-covered walls, and large, arched windows. There were even small areas shaded by trees that boys studied under.
I was sweating by the time I made it inside, but any hope I had of being close was crushed when I was met with the stairs. The school was old, built from Peleus' family estate, so there were no elevators. I stared up at the mahogany stairs like I could will them to turn into an escalader. They did not. With a resigned sigh I grabbed my trunk and started to haul it up the stairs.
"You'll scratch the wood."
The cool words made me jump and I looked over at a dark couch I hadn't noticed. A boy with long blond hair lounged across it, an open book in his hands. He looked about my age, perhaps a grade above me with his build and long limbs. From the tan of his skin and his build it was clear he played a sport. For a moment I was thrown. He had a strange, almost feminine beauty about him that I hadn't seen before. Perhaps it was the lashes that would drive a girl to envy, or the bow of his lips.
Whatever it was, puberty clearly had favorites. His face was sharp, his jaw strong, and under those thick lashes were deep green eyes that took me in with a board onceover. The unimpressed appraisal snapped me out of whatever daze I was in. I'd seen that look before. It seemed to be how every kid my age looked at me. Like within a second of meeting me, they knew I wasn't worth their time. Like he knew he was better than me in every way.
I hated him immediately. Without a word I started dragging my truck up, the wood of the stairs be damned.
The boy closed the book but didn't get up as he watched me struggle. I felt my cheeks go red, and not from exertion.
"What's your name?"
I Ignored the question.
"You shouldn't ignore people when they speak to you, it's rude."
"I'm busy." I snaped, halfway up the stairs now.
The blond huffed a laugh, sitting up as he stared. He said nothing else, offered no help or introduction, just watched as I pull the trunk up and around the corner.