Words I'm Afraid To Say

01 | Barbaric Stone Throwing

01 | BARBARIC STONE THROWING

Don't leave before saying goodbye you ass!

The bell rang signifying the end of the school day and year, Gabriel heaving his backpack over his shoulder still staring at the message that Isa had sent him.

The emoticons that followed told him that if he did leave right now, he'd be in for a lecture. Isa nagged him enough about his smoking and another lecture was most unnecessary.

Before he could get out of class though, the doorway was blocked by Evelyn who walked over to him with fierce determination. "Hey there, Bad Boy."

He gritted his teeth. Bad Boy. That term infuriated him to no hell. He was remotely bad. The only bad thing he might have ever done was get into drugs at one point in his life.

Gabriel Sato had been nicknamed the School's "Bad Boy". Not that the man of the title ever got why. His aloof personality, a penchant for wearing a leather jacket, biking, smoking in the back of the school and that one fight in the beginning of Freshman Year which left a senior with a broken nose certainly helped add on to the image.

Evelyn handed over an invitation. "Shall I be seeing you at my summer pool party tonight?" The invitation was glossy and too extravagant for a mere school party.

The past five attempts to hand him over the invite had ended in failure, with him simply brushing it off. Looking around, he could see his classmates were engrossed in what the head cheerleader had to say to him.

There was a lot of noise, seeing as it was the last day of School and it wasn't every day that Evelyn went up to someone to personally invite them – Gabriel Sato of all the people; the same Gabriel whose eyes were so sharp that the term 'if looks could kill' seemed as though they'd been invented for him.

She'd brought out her best charm, curling up a hand around his arm, nonchalantly brushing up her chest against his body and purred, "Come on. Everyone's going to be there." She trailed a finger down his arm and he wondered how someone could purr – something he'd never know or understand. "It won't be the same without you, Bad boy." Her confidence was betrayed by the nervous look in her eyes, but she bravely amped it up.

He sighed and muttered a single, "No," before brushing past her, out the doorway where droplets of water splashed on him. The commotion in the hallway came to an immediate stop, as Gabriel immediately sent a glare to Dylan, who froze with a bucket, in the air, his intended victim – an overweight girl whose name he couldn't remember having gotten the brunt of it – her clothes sticking to her body – a sight from which he averted his eyes.

Breathe In. Breathe Out.

He averted his eyes, and resisted the urge to push him as he walked past him to get to his locker at the end of the hall. The noise came back – Dylan, it seemed had decided to do his final prank of his high school life, with the rest of his soccer team, taunting and jeering the victim with Evelyn inserting a few remarks here and there.

He passed by a teacher's room and it was terrible how the teachers wouldn't even intervene – not wanting to go home to their families late and it wasn't as though they could really punish the graduating class.

As he opened his locker, he looked back. She had been pushed to the ground and the people gathered around her, as though she was a sacrificial lamb and said things like,

"Oh God, did you see the way her stomach hit the ground?"

"She's definitely not bikini body material."

"Bikini? Oh please. She probably wears a diving suit at the beach."

"Man, her boobs are huge!"

He couldn't understand why people of the 21st century would even act this way to a human being. A group of Female Seniors stood beside him, as he continued to ignore them, hoping he'd sign their yearbooks.