Chapter 11 Big Reputation

Chapter 11 Big Reputation

By third period, Tessa had perfected a new version of normal.
It was the same walk, the same pace, the same expression she wore every morning when she moved through school like she had a purpose bigger than whatever drama was trending. Chin up. Shoulders steady. Eyes forward.
The difference was that now the hallway looked at her like it knew something.
Not openly. Not the way people stared at a fight.
It was subtler. A glance that lasted half a second longer. A whispered name that stopped when she got close. A laugh that sounded like it was meant for someone else but still reached her.
She kept walking.
She told herself she did not care.
Her stomach disagreed.
The corridor outside the English wing was crowded and loud, lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking, the usual noise of a school day trying to convince everyone it was ordinary. Tessa tightened her grip on the strap of her backpack and moved through clusters of students like water through rocks.
She heard it before she could stop herself from listening.
“Tessa.”
Not shouted. Just spoken with that tone people used when they were talking about you and then realized you were near.
She did not turn her head.
Then she heard his name.
“Saunders.”
The sound of it hit different now.
Not because she liked him. Not because she was suddenly part of his world. Because she had been in his house. Because she had been seen.
Pick up had been a performance she could not opt out of. It had been other parents and other kids and the kind of looks that stuck. The kind that made stories.
Tessa walked faster.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she ignored it, eyes still forward.
The echoes of Derek’s rules replayed in her head, sharp and clean like bullet points printed on a page.
No personal questions.
No discussing school.
No opinions.
No getting comfortable.
At the time, it had felt like punishment. Like he wanted to remind her, over and over, that she did not belong.
Now she understood something she hated admitting.
He wanted distance because distance was supposed to protect you from this.
Because in a place like this, attention was currency, and people spent it carelessly. Because a rumor could become a story, and a story could become a label, and labels did not come off easily.
Tessa reached for her locker, spun the combination, and opened it with more force than necessary.
A girl behind her laughed too loudly.
Tessa did not flinch. She grabbed her notebook, shut the locker, and turned, ready to keep moving.
That was when she heard it clearly.
Not vague chatter.
Not background noise.
Pointed assumptions, sharpened by certainty.
She paused near the drinking fountain because she needed water and because she could not make her legs move for one second.
The voices were only a few feet away, tucked near the trophy case, where a group of girls and one tall guy leaned in close like they were sharing something important.
They were not whispering well.
“She is literally working for them,” one girl said, voice dripping with meaning.
Another girl snorted. “Of course she is. She always looked desperate.”
“That is mean,” someone murmured, but it sounded weak and half interested.
“Is it mean or is it true?” the first girl countered. “I saw her at pickup. She was holding that kid’s hand like she belonged there.”
The tall guy laughed. “Maybe she is trying to climb into money.”
The group chuckled like it was the smartest thing anyone had said all day.
Tessa’s throat tightened.
She turned her head slightly, enough to catch faces without making it obvious.
She recognized two of them. One was in her math class. The other sat near her in history and had never spoken to her once until right now, when she was speaking about her like a headline.
“She thinks she is slick,” another girl said. “She is using Derek. That is all it is.”
“Or he is using her,” the tall guy replied, eyebrows wiggling like he thought he was funny.
A couple of them laughed again.
Tessa’s hands went cold.
She stared at the water fountain, pretending to read the little sign above it, pretending she was not hearing her entire life being rewritten into something ugly.
Using Derek.
Climbing into money.
Working for them, spoken like it was code for something worse.
A bell rang overhead, harsh and sudden.
The crowd shifted, bodies flowing, backpacks bumping, the hallway splitting into movement.
For a second, it should have broken the moment.
It did not.
The whispers continued even as people passed between them. That made it worse. Like they were so confident in what they were saying they did not care if she heard.
Like they assumed she would stay quiet anyway.
Tessa took a slow breath.
She forced her face into calm.
She walked away from the fountain and into the current of students moving toward the stairs.
The voices followed her anyway, trailing behind her like smoke.
“Also,” someone said, and the tone changed, the way it always did when a secret was about to be referenced without being named. “Is she not worried about his scandal?”
There it was.
The scandal shadow that hung over Derek like a stain no one would describe but everyone claimed to recognize.
Tessa felt her stomach twist again.
“Please,” the tall guy said, rolling his eyes. “He got what he deserved.”
A girl laughed, sharp. “He is gross.”
Another chimed in, lower. “Dangerous.”
Someone else said, “Trash,” with the casual confidence of someone who thought that word was a full explanation.
No one said what he did.
They did not need to.
They spoke in half sentences and loaded pauses, like everyone already knew. Like it had been proven. Like they were all witnesses.
Tessa’s mind flashed back to the hallway. Derek’s smirk. His lazy tone. The way he waved her off. Relax.
It was easy to imagine him doing something unforgivable. He moved through the world like rules did not apply to him.
So why did the vagueness bother her?
Why did it itch at her brain that nobody would say the actual story, and yet they spoke like they had been there?
Tessa kept walking, focused on the stairs ahead of her, determined to leave it behind.
Then someone made it personal.
“She is the nanny who thinks she is special,” a girl said, louder now, like she wanted the words to travel. “Like, you are not Cinderella. You are just the broke girl trying to get picked.”
The laughter that followed was immediate.
Tessa’s steps faltered.
She told herself to keep walking.
She did keep walking.
Two steps.
Then the tall guy spoke again, and this time the words hit like a shove.
“And if Saunders does anything to her, do not say we did not warn her,” he said, voice smug. “That guy is a problem.”
The group hummed in agreement.
Tessa stopped.
Her body reacted before her pride could stop it.
She turned.
The movement was quick enough that a couple of people nearby glanced over. The group by the trophy case did not look guilty. They looked curious, like they were wondering if she would cry.
Tessa’s hands were still cold, but her voice came out steady.
“What is your problem?” she asked.
The tall guy lifted his eyebrows. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” Tessa said. She looked at each of them in turn, making it clear she had heard every word. “Why do you keep talking like you know anything?”
A girl with glossy hair tilted her head. “We are just saying what everyone is thinking.”
“You mean you are just saying what makes you feel important,” Tessa replied.
A couple of them scoffed, but the energy shifted.
Now it was not just gossip. Now it was confrontation.
The glossy-haired girl’s smile sharpened. “Why are you so defensive? It is not like he is a good person.”
Tessa felt her pulse hammer in her throat.
She hated that she cared. She hated that her body reacted like the words mattered, like Derek Saunders was worth oxygen.
She tried to walk away again.
She took one step.
The tall guy laughed behind her. “Look at her. She thinks she is going to get paid and get the rich boy.”
Something in Tessa snapped.
Not a big dramatic break.
A small, clean one.
She turned back again, and this time her voice cut without warning.
“You keep calling him trash,” she said, sharp and controlled, “but none of you can even say what he did.”
The hallway went quiet for half a second.
It was not total silence, not a movie moment. Lockers still slammed, sneakers still squeaked, someone still yelled down the corridor. But right around them, the air held.
The group by the trophy case froze.
The glossy-haired girl blinked. “Everyone knows.”
“Then say it,” Tessa replied immediately. “Say it out loud, since you are so sure.”
The tall guy’s mouth opened, then shut.
He shifted his weight, suddenly less confident.
The glossy-haired girl glanced at her friends, searching for backup.
No one supplied it.
Tessa’s heart pounded harder. She did not understand why she had chosen this hill. She did not understand why defending him had come out of her mouth like instinct.
But now that she had started, she could not stop.
“You are talking about me too,” Tessa continued, voice still cutting, still controlled. “Calling me desperate. Like working a job is shameful. Like helping a kid is a joke. You do not know anything about my life. You just like having something to chew on.”
The glossy-haired girl’s face tightened. “Do not act like you are doing charity. You are doing it for money.”
Tessa nodded once. “Yes,” she said bluntly. “I am.”
That honesty rocked them more than any insult would have.
Tessa saw it in the way their expressions flickered.
She kept going anyway.
“At least I am earning something,” she said, eyes locked on the tall guy now. “You are standing here talking like a coward, hiding behind rumors you cannot explain.”
The tall guy’s face flushed. “You do not know what you are talking about.”
“I know you are full of it,” Tessa replied. The words came out clean, a line sharpened by truth. “If he is so disgusting and so dangerous, why are you obsessed with him?”
The tall guy’s jaw tightened. The glossy-haired girl scoffed, but it sounded weaker now.
A teacher stepped into the hallway from a classroom door, scanning the crowd. “Move along,” she called, voice firm. “Classes are starting.”
The moment cracked.
People shifted, pretended they had not been watching, went back to moving like nothing had happened.
The group by the trophy case scattered too, quick and embarrassed, laughter turned into mutters as they peeled away into the crowd.
Tessa stood there for a second, breathing hard, her hands still cold, her heart pounding like she had run a mile.
Then she turned and walked.
She kept her posture stiff. Her expression blank.
She did not let anyone see her face change until she was around the corner and out of the main hallway, where the noise dulled and the crowd thinned.
That was when the shame hit late.
It rolled in slow, heavy, and nauseating.
Why did I do that?
Why did she defend him?
Why did that feel instinctive?
Why did it feel like she betrayed herself?
Tessa kept walking, faster now, like she could outrun the questions. Her throat tightened. Her eyes stung, but she refused to cry in a school hallway.
She had sworn she would never care about Derek Saunders.
She had sworn she would never willingly deal with him, never get pulled into his orbit, never let his life touch hers.
And yet.
She had protected him.
Not because he deserved it.
Not because she liked him.
But because the way people spoke about him, with certainty and cruelty and no proof, had made something in her rebel.
Because she knew what it felt like to be reduced to a story that was not yours.
Tessa walked into class with her heart still pounding and her face carefully calm.
She sat down.
She opened her notebook.
She stared at the blank page like it could give her an answer.
And she hated herself for protecting the one person she had promised she would never care about.