The Bystander ✔

Chapter One

Hey guys! This is a commissioned piece by TELUS & WE Day for their campaign to #RiseAbove cyberbullying. I am so honoured to be a part of this campaign and hope you like the story! Cyberbullying happens every day and it's never a joke, it's never funny and it should never be ignored.

Chapter One

Eva had one mission.

Get through high school without attracting too much unnecessary attention to herself. That of course was easier said than done. Seeing as Westwood High was a particularly small school with no more than twenty students in each class and situated within an even smaller town where everyone knew everyone; getting by without some kind of drama surfacing was probably impossible.

But Eva was still going to try. Grab my diploma then get out, she would tell herself.

Simple.

But of course nothing was quite so simple when it came to High School.

The rusty yellow school bus staggered down the road that was filled with pot holes from the harsh frost and heavy dumping of snow Canada's long winter had come with. Eva put a hand on the seat in front of her to steady her when the bus took a sharp corner. She glanced over to the front of the bus and looked through the rear-view mirror at the driver who just hummed and pushed her shades higher up on her nose. Eva scowled but the bus eventually made a jittery stop outside of Westwood High where every student quickly made a rushed exit from the bus in a hazardous mass of limbs and backpacks.

Slipping through the side doors and narrowly avoiding a group of freshman running up the stairs and nearly colliding into her, Eva finally made it to her bright orange locker in one piece. As she hung her bag up on the hook and sorted out her binders, a person came over from the corner of her eye.

"Hey," Natasha smiled, arms filled to the brim with textbooks and notebooks.

"Hey," Eva greeted her back and crouched down to grab her textbook from the bottom of her locker before freezing. "We had homework in math, didn't we?"

Natasha winced a little. "Sadly yes, sorry."

Eva closed her eyes and took a deep breath before getting back up. "It's fine, I'll say my...dad ate my homework."

Natasha laughed and hiked her books higher up against her chest. "Just tell him you left your textbook at school. Mr. Riker doesn't seem to hate you yet so you should be off the hook."

Eva smiled amusedly and shut her locker up. "Is Carmen not coming to class?"

The second piece of the infamous trio Eva had been invited to be friends with was usually there by their lockers to head off to homeroom. The spunky blonde would come sauntering over, a new shade of lipstick on each week and a crazy story to start rattling off about some rumour surfacing around the school or a 'perfect' couple breaking up.

"She's skipping to hang out with Ryan," Tasha smirked and Eva rolled her eyes.

"Of course she is."

The two walked down the hallway towards their first class when the first bell rang and Tasha tapped Eva on the arm suddenly.

"Oh man, look, look!" she hissed at Eva with a quiet laugh.

"What?" Eva looked over and Natasha tilted her head to the side so she could look past her and see a girl she recognized as Cathy Ricks dressed in badly sized sweatpants and a shirt that clung to every inch of her body. Her light brown hair was pulled into a loose pony-tail that was about to fall out.