Song Liu thought the sticky soda and the bike graffiti were bad, but Liang Xu was just getting warmed up, the absolute psycho. Today, the bullying went completely public, and Song Liu felt his face burn with so much shame he wanted to crawl into a hole and die, seriously.
It started right when he got to his locker. Someone—definitely one of those rich girl bitches working for Liang Xu—had pasted huge, printed-out pictures of that stupid love letter he wrote to Emily all over his locker door. The whole damn hallway saw it. The letter was so cheesy and pathetic, and now everyone was pointing and reading the worst parts out loud, like, "My heart flutters like a little bird..." God, he wanted to murder someone. He just stood there for a minute, completely frozen, until the laughter got too loud, and he finally ripped the stupid papers down.
Later, during lunch, Liang Xu struck directly. Song Liu was just sitting quietly at a corner table, trying to eat his pathetic brown bag lunch. Liang Xu walked up with his whole entourage, including Emily, and just stood over Song Liu's table. "Hey, Scrub," Liang Xu said, loud enough for half the cafeteria to hear, his voice dripping with fake kindness. "I heard your parents can't even afford to pay their heating bill. Is that true, Pauper?"
The whole cafeteria went dead silent. Song Liu felt his heart pounding so hard it hurt. His face was on fire, but he refused to look up. "Leave me alone," he muttered, his voice shaking. Liang Xu just laughed, a cold, mean sound. "Aw, the poor little worm wants to be left alone. Too bad. Maybe if you spent less time writing stupid love notes and more time trying to fix your broke-ass life, you wouldn't be such a fucking failure."
Then Emily herself chimed in, which was a new low. "Seriously, your desperation is gross," she sneered. Liang Xu then walked away, kicking Song Liu's backpack as he went. The laughter that followed was deafening. Song Liu didn't finish his lunch. He felt sick with shame and a desperate, terrible hatred. He swore again that he would make that rich bastard pay for exposing his family's struggles to the whole damn school. This wasn't just bullying anymore; it was an act of total destruction.