Stay for Me (Hold Me Close Prequel)

Chapter Six: Work

-=Sam=-

I sat at the front of the bus today on the way to school. I sat with one of my new friends who is also on the baseball team with me. We were talking about trivial things, such as which teachers I hated so far and just normal talk that high school juniors talk about. But I could help myself from looking to the back of the bus to see if I could find him. My assumption that he would be sitting in the same spot that he was yesterday was correct, but it was hard to see who he was. He was dressed in a gray hoodie and had a pair of sunglasses on, even though it was cloudy out (cliché much?). He was leaning his head against the glass window pane all by himself. He stood out from everyone else, only he was by himself, not talking to anyone. My friend, Daniel, noticed that I was looking at something and turned to follow my gaze.

"Whatcha looking at?" He asked.

"Nothing, sorry." I said, turning back around.

Later when we reached the school, I walked straight to first period, English. I walked in and sat in the back of the classroom, taking out all of the materials that I would be needing from my backpack and setting them on my desk. But I forgot that Evan shares the same first period class that I do, and he soon walked in, just before the late bell, still wearing his getup that totally didn't scream terrorism.

"Evan take that off." the teacher said, motioning to herself to show him what she wanted him to do. He hesitated for a second before pulling down his hood and removing the sunglasses. He was still facing the teacher and I don't know what happened but her eyes widened...a lot. He then turned around to sit in his seat, and I saw what she was surprised about. He looked like shit. Two black eyes, and three long scabs that were recently gashes covered his cheeks. He sat in a desk, separated from everyone else and kept his head down, and the teacher didn't say anything about it this time. What the fuck happened to him?!

-<☆>-

Fourth period. Chemistry. Hell. Just in that order. But thank God that lunch is right after or else I think I might never be able to get through the day. So I can't begin to explain how glad I was to hear that bell, excusing me from my cell and onto freedom. Two days in and I feel like I've been subjected to years of Chemistry. On the way I ran into Elliot and his click of friends, so I decided to walk with them down to the cafeteria.

"Oh, hey Sam." Elliot said, talking to me.

"Hey. Say did you see what happened to Evan?" I asked, hoping that maybe he of all people would know something about it. I mean, he does seem to have many connections at the school. But he actually snickered.

"Yeah I did. Pretty nice isn't it?" He said, holding back a blowup of laughter.

"Well I wouldn't say nice, kind of brutal." I said. He rolled his eyes.

"Well then, I guess we did our job pretty well now didn't we guys." He said, nudging someone on the other side of him. They all broke out laughing, unable to contain themselves any further.

"Wait, you did that?!" I asked in shock.

"Well of course we did, we can't just let a little gay fag like him go off easy, now can we?" He said, causing my stomach to wrench. I hate homophobic people, for personal reasons. So when we got to the cafeteria, I made an effort to hurry and get out of there. Maybe the library is free...

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-=Evan=-