Taylor was practically bouncing out of her seat when I entered home room. To this day, I don't know where she got her energy from. Wednesday mornings were for sleeping and moaning about how the weekend was so far away. As soon as I sat down, she launched into her plans for Saturday night. The Malibu was, of course, mentioned again, along with some dares and a few horror movies. Dares and horror movies...not my favourite of things. I guess my sleep would just have to suffer for the benefit of my friends. The things I did for these girls...

My next class was with a far less energetic girl. Charlotte greeted me with a quick, half-hearted wave as I stepped through the door. Now this was my kind of girl. Someone who hated Wednesdays as much as I did. Charlotte really liked her sleep, and school was just an inconvenient interruption of nap time to her.

“It's so good to talk to a normal person,” I breathed, sitting down. “Taylor’s been bouncing off the ceiling all morning.”

“Where does she get all that energy from?” Charlotte shook her head disbelievingly.

“Caffeine and rainbows, I believe.” We both laughed. It was a joke between Charlotte and I that Taylor lived in a make-believe land of fairies and unicorns. Her head was always somewhere other than Earth.

The sleepover was only mentioned briefly before we both entered the comatose state that a combination of sleep deprivation and biology always put us in.

Lunch. I had been waiting for this all day. A time to eat and switch my brain off while the girls talked about meaningless TV shows that I had no interest in. Maybe I could get a bit of sleep in too...

I walked towards the cafeteria with Ebony, Taylor and Megan. The sleepover had, once again, become the topic of conversation. I swear if they kept hyping it up this much for the rest of the week, it would be a complete let down when Saturday finally comes.

Who am I kidding? Malibu is never a let down.

I was about to have my say when I was interrupted by a commotion up ahead.

“Watch where you're going, retard.” I heard the voice of one of the footballers - Mitchell Woodall - echo through the hall. Picking on another kid three years his junior, most likely.

“Sorry, couldn't get past your ego.” Another familiar voice rang out. Oh no. What is that joker doing?!

“What did you say to me?” I saw Mitchell’s eyes bulging at the lanky, black clad boy as I rounded the corner towards the cafeteria. Despite Mitchell’s bulky appearance, Gerard seemed to be the one dominating the situation. Until we arrived.

“What’s going on?” Ebony asked, immediately announcing her presence, her bag swinging wildly from the crook in her elbow. Like the obedient sheep we were, we flanked either side of her, looking partially interested in the disruption.

“The fucking freak thinks he can bad mouth me,” Mitchell said quickly, trying to impress us with his total disregard for Gerard's very existence.

“I’m a freak, am I?” Gerard said, squaring up to the footballer.

“I'd leave it if you knew what was good for you, Way,” I snapped dangerously. He glared at me, but I'd meant my statement as a warning, not a threat. I tried to express this fact in my stare. He seemed to get it, because he stepped away, signing sharply as he did so.

“Asshole ain't worth it anyway,” he mumbled before stalking away.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Mikey emerge from the crowd that had formed and join his brother. As I watched them both disappear into the chaos that was lunchtime, I hoped that Gerard had taken my warning the way I wanted him to.

We made our way into the dinner hall with no other distractions. The rest of lunch was, predictably, filled with planning for Taylor's sleepover. Ebony was, as usual, glued to her phone throughout the entire conversation, only making an input when something wasn't being planned as she would do it.

French was my next class, but since that clash with Boucher all those weeks ago, he didn't give me the chance to speak to Gerard. I kept turning around to look at him, but every time I tried he didn't notice. Or maybe he was ignoring me. I knew it, he was mad at me! I decided I'd catch him at the end of the lesson to explain myself. Smiling happily to myself, I continued to match English sentences to their French translations.

I finished my work early and began packing away my things. The bell rang before I'd finished, so I hurriedly shoved everything into my bag and turned around to speak to the lanky boy, but he was already gone. Sighing, I pushed my chair under the desk and left the room, catching a glimpse of the tail of Gerard’s hoodie whipping around the doorframe ahead of me.

Well that confirmed it. He was angry at my remark. He didn't give me one smirk all lesson, and didn't even stay to whisper some sarcastic comment in my ear before he left. I knew an angry Gerard when I saw one; it was probably just best to leave him to sulk for a while. I'd learnt my lesson - chasing him would get me nowhere.

My last class was spent with Ebony and Megan, both of whom were tapping away at their phones whilst pretending to read Act Five of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I continued with my struggle to pronounce Hippolyta while Ebony let out a snort of laughter. At first I thought she was laughing at me, until I turned and saw her thumbs frantically moving across her screen as she replied to the amusing text she had just received.

“What is it?” Megan asked, leaning over to look at Ebony’s phone.

“Mitch is gonna kick the shit outta that Gerard kid after school,” Ebony smirked, not taking her eyes off her screen.

My heart dropped as Megan began laughing along with Ebony. I heard her say, “I've gotta tell Louise about this,” and I knew that by the end of school, the entire student body would be waiting for this fight. I looked at my own phone resting on the desk beside my left hand and cursed myself for not having Gerard’s number. I needed to get the message to him, but I didn't know anyone who I could trust with the news. The only thing I could do was try to get to him before Mitch did.

The end of lesson couldn't come soon enough. I'd already packed my bag in preparation for the mad dash out of the classroom, and my bum had already left my seat before the bell had stopped ringing. I was easily going to make it Gerard in time; most of the class hadn't even woken up from the last-class-of-the-day slumber yet. The door was within my reach when suddenly -

“Evie, you’re not waiting for us?”

I spun around to see Ebony and Louise just leaving their desks. In my panic to get to Gerard, I'd forgotten all about my friends. I'd even forgotten that I was supposed to hate Gerard, too. That was close.

But did it matter? Gerard was literally in danger.

“Oh, yeah...sorry,” I grumbled, slowing down and letting other people past me.

“Eager to see that emo get what he deserves?” Ebony laughed at herself. I had to fight my face muscles to stop them from forming a frown.

“Something like that.”

As I walked out of the classroom with Ebony at my side, I felt like I could cry. I knew at any moment Gerard would be getting jumped by a bunch of guys three times his size and I was the only one who could stop it. Yet I was too busy keeping up appearances to even try. I hated myself.

I heard the evidence of a fight before I saw it. Upon leaving the school, I didn't even dare look over. But of course Ebony dragged me right to the circle of people that had accumulated, so I had no choice but to watch. There I saw a bloodied Gerard spitting insults at the, surprisingly battered, footballer.

“Can't you fight me on your own?” Gerard growled as one of Mitch’s friends took a jab at his ribs.

“Shut it, homo,” Mitch snarled through his rapidly swelling lip.

“I'll hold him while you punch, Mitch,” a familiar voice laughed. I looked over at Dean Stainton smirking at the situation in front of him.

“Dean?” I half exclaimed, disapproval heavily present in my voice. I knew I'd also alerted Gerard of my presence because I saw his head turn slightly in my direction.

“Oh, hey baby,” Dean drawled. I rolled my eyes and ignored him.

The fight resumed, with Gerard diving straight at Mitch. He managed to get a few punches to the footballer’s stomach before he was dragged off. Mitch took his turn, hitting every inch of Gerard he could in quick succession. I winced at every strike, trying my best not to yelp. Gerard had no choice but to cower and he was soon on the floor. That gave him little protection, as the kicking started after that. I couldn't take it anymore.

“Mitch, leave it!” I jumped forward, pushing him away from the bloody mess on the floor. He tried to get around me, but I pushed him back. I could hear the other footballers still kicking and punching behind me. Mitch struggled in my grasp. “He’s had enough!” I shoved back at him. He seemed to realise my point and stopped forcing himself forwards. Before he'd even fully stepped away, I'd spun around and was pushing everyone away from Gerard. Dean was the only one not listening to me. I wormed my way in front of him and pushed against his chest as hard as I could.

“Dean - stop! You're going to kill him!”

He stopped trying to resist me and looked me hard in the eyes. I felt him grab my arms and try to throw me to one side, so I dug my heel into his foot. He barked a curse and I stopped applying pressure. He took hold of my arms again and shook me, glaring angrily at me.

“You know what your problem is, Evie?” He snapped, “you care too much. So what if I fucking kill him. He wants to die, don't you get it?”

With that, he turned and limped away. At any other time, that sight would satisfy me, knowing I'd caused him pain, but at this moment I couldn't care less about Dean Stainton. My mind was preoccupied with Gerard laying helpless on the floor.

Most of crowd had started to disperse by now. I guess they figured that once someone began to intervene, the show was over.

My friends were still there, bar Ebony, who probably thought herself too important for such affairs. Taylor asked if I needed a lift home, but I shook my head. My mum was picking me up anyway.

The girls left me to wait for her by the front gate, and as soon as they were out of sight, I hurried back to Gerard, now sat under the railings and having a cigarette.

I hesitated a little, wondering how much he hated me right now. Probably a lot, if you add on the hate from earlier.

“Are...are you okay?” I didn't know what else to ask. Of course he wasn't okay, but at least it showed I cared.

“Fantastic,” he muttered, pinching his cigarette between his lips.

“I tried to stop them,” I said desperately. I could feel I was on the verge of tears, but I was trying my hardest to keep them in check.

“I know.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

I took a seat next to him and sighed. He looked down at me but I diverted my stare. His eye was bruised so bad it was almost closed and blood was running down his chin from his nose and lip. I just couldn't look at him.

“It's not your fault, you know?” He said after a few seconds. I guess he'd noticed my guilty expression.

“It is, really,” I mumbled sadly, picking at the hem on my skirt.

“How?”

I took a deep breath before my confession. “I could've got to you sooner, told you to go home a different way, but I didn't.” I'd now successfully de-hemmed my skirt. “I stayed because I didn't want my friends to find out about us. So it is my fault.”

The tears got the better of me at that point, and started to roll down my cheeks. I made no sound to suggest I was crying though. Tears wouldn't help me against Gerard anyway.

“I'm glad you did.”

...I was not expecting that.

“Y-you don't blame me?” Like you usually do?

“Evie...” I felt him look down at me again. “Imagine if your friends did find out about us. You'd turn into me. An outcast. And then it might be you getting the shit kicked out of you on the front steps. I wouldn't want that.”

He nudged my arm and ducked his head to look at me. I half smiled.

“Besides, I like having a plastic looking out for me. You have your uses. And I'm used to stuff like this.” He threw his spent cigarette on the floor. “Don't worry about me.”

I gave him a playful pinch at his ’plastic’ insult, but what he said made me feel better nonetheless. My mum pulled up at that moment, and I stood up to leave.

“Will you be okay to drive?” I asked, offering a hand to help him up.

“Should be,” he shrugged, grasping my arm and trying heave himself into a standing position. He didn't get very far before wincing and landing back on the floor with a thud.

“Yeah, right,” I said sceptically, my hands on my hips and eyebrow raised. He glowered at me but I just shook my head. “C'mon, I don't think my mum would mind having a visitor for the afternoon.” I offered my hand again, this time ducking under his arm to support him as soon as he pulled himself up.

Notes

BOOM. What's that? And update? So soon?

Yeah, I didn't expect to get this one finished as quickly as I did. I'm not 100% happy with it, but it's something, right?

I guess locking myself in my room and listening to InuYasha themes on repeat is good for my writing. Who knew? XD