So this story begins when Jared was a freshman in high school. He had absolutely no standards at all over who he dated. None. So many of his exes were standard guys/girls who were insecure, emotionally unavailable, toxic, and mildly attractive that always ended up hurting him. The relationships lasted 2 days on average and a week at the longest.
Evan was trying to be a good best friend and help Jared through his weekly breakups and terrible relationships, but he had no idea why Jared would do this. Jared's parents weren't exactly the most caring people, so it could've been he just liked the attention and affection he received, and ignored the red flags. (Credits to TheMelodramaClub for coming up with that)
But then when he was a sophomore, Leon, a senior, came along. Jared fell in love with Leon, but also had 4 other people who wanted him, but chose Leon. For the next 3 months, Jared had an extremely toxic and very unstable on and off relationship with Leon.
Leon would always have some shitty excuse after the breakups as to why he did whatever awful thing he did, cheating, emotional abuse, manipulation, and many worse things. Another one of his manipulation methods was telling Jared "I'll kill myself if you break up with me" to get him to stay. Despite how miserable he was, part of the reason Jared stayed with him because he didn't want to be responsible for Leon's death.
Leon made Jared spend most of his time around him and the relationship was completely centered around what Leon wanted. He was super controlling, especially when it came to who Jared could be friends with. Leon didn't want him hanging out with Evan and Connor, which didn't happen.
And despite what I just said, the moment Jared wanted to spend time with Evan and/or Connor or wanted something different in the relationship, Leon would be like "you always make everything about you" and "why do you never spend time with me?" He was very codependent. He also talked about running away together all the time. Jared was only 15, he was 18. Dead serious about it.
About 1 month in they were at a house party. Leon slipped something in Jared's drink and then attempted to take advantage of him. He didn't get too far (clothes hadn't come off yet, but he was already trying to force himself on him) before Evan caught him. Evan just tried to get Jared away from Leon, he was out of it for the most part from the alcohol and rape drug.
Evan spent the rest of the party sitting in another room with Jared so Leon wouldn't try anything else, and because he couldn't find Connor and didn't want to leave Jared by himself to look for him. Leon's friend found them and told Evan "well he saw the chance and took it before you ruined it, maybe he shouldn't have gotten so drunk."
Meanwhile the entire night, Leon's friend group was drunk and hitting on Zoe, who was a freshman at the time. The more drunk they got, the more aggressive they got too. At one point Oliver, one of Leon's friends, shoved Zoe up against the wall and started kissing her even though she didn't want it, but unfortunately for Oliver that's when Connor showed back up in the party and Oliver got his ass absolutely beat.
The next morning Leon tried to excuse what he did by saying he was drunk and that Jared didn't say no. Oliver and his group made excuses for what they did to Zoe too, by saying she should've enjoyed it because she didn't get much male attention, and that she was dressed like a hooker. She was wearing overalls, and was also only 14, yet others at school still blamed her too.
Connor got a lot of shit from Leon and his group, as well as other people in school for beating Oliver up. He was told by one of Leon's friends "maybe instead of using violence you should tell your sister not to dress like a hooker" before Connor choke slammed him into a locker and got suspended.
One time when Jared had Evan over at his house Leon showed up and got mad at him for not spending time with him, and pulled him to another room to talk and locked the door. He got into an argument with him and ended up stabbing him in the side. Evan went to see if Jared was okay and the door was locked. Once he finally managed to get the door open he found Jared like that and Leon with the knife in his hand. Jared almost died from it, but luckily he was okay. Leon's excuse this time was "I was just angry."
There was occasional physical abuse as well, but it was mostly just grooming and emotional manipulation. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse about 3 months into the relationship. Leon was told by one of his friends that Jared cheated, which wasn't true, but Leon went insane. At a party, he locked Connor, Evan, and Jared in the laundry room with him.
He had a knife and said because Jared cheated, he was going to kill Evan and Connor and force him to watch, so the only person left in his life would be him. Jared tried to explain himself and say he didn't cheat but Leon got even angrier. Jared tried to take the knife from him and Leon stabbed him in the chest 3 times.
When Leon tried to stab Connor, Connor slammed his head on the washer and knocked him out. So Jared is dying, Evan is holding Jared's hand and having a drunk panic attack, Connor is just kind of trying to figure out what to do, and Leon is bleeding everywhere.
They ended up finding Zoe and asking her to drive them to the hospital, she was 14, drunk, and had never driven before, but she was the most sober out of all of them. Alana wasn't there. Connor told Zoe "speeding is not illegal if you don't get caught". But she did. 4 goddamn times to be exact.
So Zoe is absolutely horrific at driving, Connor is in the passenger seat and being a smart ass to the cops every time they get pulled over, Evan is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Jared is bleeding out all over the back seat, laying in Evan's arms and struggling to stay conscious. The second time they got pulled over, and the cops asked if they knew how fast they were going, Connor said "well we would've been going faster if you hadn't stopped us" like a dumbass.
It took over 30 minutes to get to the hospital, Jared had completely passed out and lost a ton of blood, but he ended up surviving, and finally left Leon for good. Leon only got 1 year in jail for what he did, so just the second stabbing. The judge didn't believe Connor or Evan about the other stabbing or the attempted rape. Jared was just left with years worth of trauma, dangerously low self esteem, and significantly worse mental health.
