"Dont cry yet", Ethan thinks to himself as he walks out of the school unannounced, he drags his feet as he makes his way towards the school gate. "Hey wait up" he hears, the voice familiar, it's Kyle. "Listen i get it" Kyle says, without even greeting Ethan, "there was nowhere else to sit, you panicked, it happens…but next time I'd genuinely just stand if I were you" Ethan's expression drops "look it wasn't right that Bobby hit you, I get that, I know you aren't a freak like her but everyone else thinks you are because you keep sitting next to her". Ethan pays no attention to Kyle's words, he simply pipes up and asks "why are you leaving school?". Kyle smiles and responds "oh, I'm exempt from foreign language so i get the rest of the day off, you headed home? I'll walk with you". The pair walk in silence until Kyle asks, "where do you live?". "Fuck" Ethan thinks to himself "nobody can know where I live, then I'm never safe…plan, i need a plan, whats my fucking plan…", "I live at the other side of school" he says "I just needed to go to the shop before i went home". "I see," Kyle says.
As the pair walks Kyle stops a kid from walking in front of a car, he stops traffic and helps the kid to the other side, then leans down and hi-fives the kid, giving him a charismatic smile. "I'll just go home" he shouts across the road to Ethan "see you tomorrow Ethan". Ethan waves, then waits until Kyle is out of sight before turning towards the shop he said he had to go to. He doesn't enter the shop, he opens the door next to it, the one that leads to the second floor of the shop, his home. He drags his feet up the stairs and into one of the rooms, the room is beige, a small single bed lays in the center, the walls are dotted with posters, green day, outkast, pink floyd, limp bizkit, there's a stack of unhung posters piled on his locker, blu-tac stains on the back. "Alexa play playlist 2" he says before flopping on his bed face down, killing in the name by rage of the machine plays as tears dampen his bed sheet.
Why does it follow me everywhere, bullying, what did I do? Am I just a bully magnet, what do I do? Do I join them, do I go along with it, do I avoid this devil girl, it seems unfair but I'm out of fucking options. Why did I think this would be different, I'm a target everywhere I go, I'm hopeless. My stomach hurts, it aches, do I deserve this? If I could just fight, maybe things would be different, no, no it wouldn't, it's me against them, no matter how much I could fight they can fight more. Fuck this man, fuck everything that girl is harmless, how can she be the devil, why would the devil squeal at the sound of a door slamming, they dont even have good reasoning, shes a freak? How so, what does that even mean, she makes noises sometimes? She makes less noise than everyone else because she knows how to shut the fuck up, you're the fucking devil, leave her the fuck alone. Tough talk for internal monologue isn't it, when I'm in school all I can do is panic, what good is standing up for someone if you do nothing, what change can I make I amn't a fucking visionary, im a sheep, a fucking conformist, I just act as if self awareness makes me better.I'm a bully, a bullied bully, how fucking ironic.