Popularity is something that Daisy never knew, and she was happy with that. To her that perfect place in the social hierarchy was in the middle. Although that made you invisible, that was far better than being the center of attention and it meant that you wouldn’t become a target. And becoming a target would be the worst thing that could happen to Daisy. 

 She transferred to St. Albert Catholic Academy that school year after her dad’s job got transferred. So now she has to spend her senior year in a school where basically everyone grew up with everyone. Daisy didn’t even know why her parents decided to send her to a Catholic school specifically for two reasons. 

Reason 1. Up until this school year she had gone to public schools. 

Reason 2. Her family wasn’t Catholic.

But here she was, in a Catholic high school trying to attract as little attention to herself as possible. 

 With her headphones covering her ears, Daisy sat at the very back of the cafeteria drinking the juice box she had smuggled in from home. Outside food and drink wasn’t exactly banned, it was just frowned upon if you were buying lunch from the school. 

 Looking at the crowd forming around a certain someone caused her to duck her head down and pull her phone out, trying to shrink as much as she could. 

 The person at the center was Ellie Pastor, the queen bee of the school. Captain of the cheer team and she had some real mean girl vibes. Well Daisy assumed she did, she’s never actually talked to Ellie. Their only meeting was scary enough to keep Daisy away. The way Ellie just stared at Daisy, like she didn’t even exist was a reality check of how lowly she must be. 

Standing behind Ellie’s group was one of the only people at school that Daisy might actually call a friend. Her name was Julia Casal-Loyola and she was the prettiest girl in school in Daisy’s opinion. If Ellie was the mean girl in a teen movie then Julia was the lead. Kind, pretty, a little dorky, the perfect main character for any YA book or teen movie. And she’d end up with the star quarterback, who happened to be David O’Leary. 

 As far as Daisy could tell, David was dating Ellie. But she had never gotten a clear answer on that front. Apparently they were neighbors and have known each other since kindergarten. If neither had practice or any other things they needed to get done at school they would go home with each other. So Daisy just assumed that the quarterback and the head cheerleader were together, cliche as it might seem. 

 Maybe she does read too many shitty romance webnovels and watch too many teen movies. Well anyway that still leaves Daisy watching from the sidelines, exactly where she wants to be. She’ll just be cheering on her top girl Julia silently and curse Ellie from the shadows. And she’s very happy that set up. Daisy only needs to survive until the end of the school year and she’ll be home free. 

  When Bio Lab rolled around Daisy was anxiously sitting in her assigned seat. It was one of the few classes she had where Ellie sat right near her. Luckily they weren’t lab partners but just being within earshot was enough to cause goosebumps to form. And Daisy’s lab partner was late…as usual and Ellie was always on time. Well actually better than on time. Every class that the two of them shared Daisy noticed that Ellie was always early. It seemed to be a habit of hers since some of the teachers made comments about her being late if she arrived after they did. 

 Pulling her phone out Daisy tried to distract herself by reading the webnovel she’s become slightly addicted to. Slightly could possibly be an understatement but that’s an issue for a different day. The webnovel was titled “The Lady’s Second Chance”, a normalish reincarnation villainess tale but it did everything so well. It also had the honor of having Daisy's only fictional husband, his name was Jax. Although he was considered the secondary love interest she knew he was meant to be end game. And the fandom doing gender bent versions of him made her love the character even more. 

When the teacher walked in Daisy perked her head up. The teacher Mr. Adami saw that there were only a few people in the room so far and called out for two of us. 

“Miss Pastor, Miss Song, can you come to the front?” 

Daisy jumped out of her skin and meekly stood up putting her phone into her bag. And Ellie simply walked up to Mr. Adami with perfect pasture, perfect hair, perfect everything. 

“I need you two to put two of these at each table. We’ll need them for our in class project.” 

“Yes, Mr. Adami.” Ellie said, with her melodic voice. She then turned on her heels and walked down her side of the classroom putting two papers on the tables. 

Daisy hesitated but quickly got to work once she saw Mr. Adami look at her silently telling her to hurry up. 

 Sitting back in her seat after passing out the sheets Daisy touched the table with her forehead. She wanted to scream but that would have made a scene. 

She only perked her head up when she felt someone’s hand on it. Looking up Daisy saw her lab partner, Hayle. 

“You alive,” She said with a laugh. Picking her hand up from Daisy’s head and she pulled her blonde hair into a ponytail. 

“Yeah.” Daisy sat up and stretched. “Mr. Adami made me pass out papers.”

“Oh, he didn’t just have Ellie do that, damn.” Hayle laughed, “This is why you don’t show up early, you’ll become the teachers’ next victim.” 

 The in class assignment was dissecting a mouse. It was pretty obvious that they were feed mice for snakes but that didn’t change the uneasy feeling that Daisy got from it. Hayle had to take over partway through. Daisy looked around the classroom trying not to directly look at the poor mouse. While doing so she saw something surprising, Ellie was the one dissecting the mouse instead of her lab partner. Daisy had assumed that it would be the other way around. 

Five minutes until the end of class Mr. Adami had everyone stop dissecting so he could grade them. Walking around the classroom he checked over the answers that each pair wrote and the cleanliness of the cuts. After the mouse was looked over the pairs were free to leave meaning that Daisy and Hayle walked out of class before the bell rang. 

  The ride home from school was a tense one, as Daisy’s dad drove them. The two didn’t speak as the radio played whatever music station that had been turned on that morning. Daisy simply looked at her phone and read through a webnovel that had updated while she was in class. 

But the silence broke when her dad asked a question. 

“How was school?”

Daisy looked over at him, shocked he asked a question at all. 

“It was…fine,” Daisy replied confused. 

“Are you being bullied by anyone?”

“No.” 

“Any boys you like?”
“No.” Daisy kept herself from telling him that she doesn’t like boys anyway. He didn’t need to know that, she knew how he’d respond. 

“Good.” 

And that was the last word spoken between the two of them for the rest of the drive.