Someone else will come to her aid.
My stride carries me past the juncture, lockers now either side, my classroom at the end of the hall and the time ticking down till second bell.
Then a girl laughs, and it’s like the sound unleashes a spell. Another girl giggles, a boy makes a groaning sex noise, others murmur, probably nudging each other as they gather to watch the entertainment.
And a moment later my traitorous feet reverse direction. My head cranes around the corner to view the developing situation.
She’s tipped onto her hands and knees, shoulders hunched as she tries to hold in her reaction. I compare her crumpled form to the firestorm that raged at me on Monday, shouting at the topof her lungs until I dragged her into an empty classroom before someone thought to ask what the fuck was going on.
This no-account girl with so much courage she didn’t think twice about screaming at a royal in the hallway now looks broken, battered.
I’d ask why but it’s clear from Saturday you enjoy hurting me.
The words sweep across my mind, stripping away my armour until my lungs constrict and it hurts to take a deep breath. Another boy teases, taunts, demeans Avon but it’s still my fault.
If she laughed now, gave the kid the finger, made a disparaging comment about his size or justsomethingto show her backbone, they’d stop. Doesn’t she know that?
It appears not and my mind replays the horrors from her counselling session. The words that dripped with self-hatred; certain that every cruel taunt, every spiteful joke, was deserved.
This isn’t my business. I need to get my head straight and get to class. Early in the week I clocked up a demerit for being late. Enough of those and someone in the school administration will compile a report for my parole officer and I’ll be stuck in the gigantic mausoleum of a house all day, every day.
My current emptiness will be a dent compared to the sinkhole that would open in my spirit.
Then she sobs.
A tear falls, dropping from the edge of her lash to the floor, hitting one of her scattered pages, making the ink of her jotted notes run so when it dries, it will leave a small, watercolour reminder of her current torment.
I stride towards her, moving swiftly but silently, the lockers blurring beside me as I reach the boy and wrench the phone from his hand. Avon’s tear-streaked face gazes up at me, flinching as though she expects me to join in with the mocking laughter.
Rage fires inside me, finally something to fill the void. My hand bunches in the boy’s shirt, yanking him away from her so hard his feet briefly leave the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I roar into his astonished face. “You think this shit is funny?”
While his mouth sags open, I drag him sideways, slamming his phone—screen first—into the corner of the metal lockers. His appalled wince triggers a rush of satisfaction, and my grip tightens on his shirt as I do it again, feeding off the sound of the shattered glass, the crunch of metal against metal.
“Don’t!” the boy shrieks. “I need—”
“What do you need?” I thunder in his face, watching him cower like the snivelling rat he is. My voice drops lower, slowing to extract every morsel of satisfaction from the situation. “If you don’t want me to hit your phone, would you prefer me to start on your face? I’m happy to do it, just give me the fucking word.”
But this kid doesn’t have a word left in him. His mouth utters a strangled gasp, echoes of the same noise coming from the students lining the hallway. His nostrils pinch together, hand reaching for my fist before his rational mind steps in and forces it back to his side. Dots of deepest crimson fire into life, high on his cheekbones. His breath rasps in and out of his spasming throat.
I slam his phone against the metal corner again, revelling as he flinches from the destruction. It’s so good, so juicy, I carry on until the phone is so damaged, there’s barely any device left.
Then I turn, altering my grip to lift him by the scruff of his neck, bellowing along the corridor, “You all see this boy?”
Eyes stare at me, some gleaming with excitement, others dull with shock.
“What’s his name?” I ask, focusing on the girl nearest me. She must be the one whose giggle unleashed the wider wave of abuse, and I lock her face into my memory because if she everpulls this shit again, she’ll be taught the same lesson, regardless of gender.
“J-John,” she stutters, shrinking away from my cold fury.
My gaze lengthens until I’m glaring at every single student along the corridor. “You all see John?”
A few nods. A few muttered yeses. I turn back to the boy, watching with grim satisfaction as his expression showcases his distress.
“John isn’t allowed a phone at school any longer. Spread the word. If anyone sees him holding one, even if it belongs to another student, you have my permission to destroy it.”
I toss the splintered remnants of his current device on the floor, wiping my palm against his shirt to rid it of the clinging shrapnel.
