Chapter 3

I went to school the next day. I came with only a few bruises on my back. I wanted to thank Colin for helping me. The sun's rays rested on my shoulders and I took in the lovely day. Melissa and Kayla swarmed me when I entered the school. “Are you okay!? Oh my god!!! I’m so sorry!!!” they cried. “Girls, it’s alright! I only have a few bruises, see?” I said, showing them the bruises. They stared. “So who saved you?” they asked. I paused. “Colin.” They gaped at me. “The new guy Colin?” they said. “Yeah,” I answered, wondering if that was a bad thing. “Oh my gosh!!! How did he know you were there? Didn’t the jocks like trample him or something?” They said. “I don’t know, I couldn’t see.” I answered. “So if you’ll excuse me for one minute.” I pushed through them.

I searched all over the school then went outside. There he was under our apple tree. He looked up as I approached him. “Colin,” I began. He put up his hand. “It’s alright. I did what had to be done,” he answered quietly. “No Colin. No one would have saved me because the jocks would have killed them. You of all people did though. How did you know I was there? And how come the jocks didn’t destroy you?” I asked. He put his head down. Minutes went by. “Okay then, don’t answer me. I just came to say thank you,” I said. Then walked off to a picnic table.

The rest of the day I noticed Colin sneaking a few peeks at me. He was in my English, Math and Science classes. I, for some reason, thought he was going to do something like tell the jocks to forgive him and beat me up again, or do it himself. But nothing ever happened that day.

I went along as usual and ignored the hated glares of the jocks, along with the curious ones when people saw my bruises. One girl even went up to me and asked, “Did your boyfriend beat you up?” I sighed and answered, “No I don’t have one, the jocks did.” She looked at me like I was hiding something then carried on.

I tried thinking of ways to talk to Colin again but always came up with a blank. Melissa and Kayla started teasing. “Oh! There’s your black knight Hannah!” they would say or “When are you going to get the makeup from Dead and Depressed?” “Shut it you guys,” I would always answer.

Days passed and a bad flu started going around. I came to school prepared for Melissa and Kayla to start swarming me any second. They didn’t. I opened my eyes. My cell started ringing so I picked it up. Melissa. “Talk to me,” I said opening the phone. “Sorry Hannah. I can’t make it to school today. I caught that flu that’s going around,” she said. I heard her blow her nose. “No prob, I’ll just hang out with Kayla,” I said calmly. “Okay bye!” was her reply then shut off the phone. My phone went off again. Kayla. “Let me guess, you have the flu,” I said. “How’d you know!?” Kayla exclaimed. “Lucky guess,” I said. “See ya.” She hung up. Now who was I going to hang with?