Intertwined

Cracks In The Ice

Evelyn, Mike, Mara, Jordi and Rose were among the few to leave last.

"Jeez, what a day.." Mike sighed. Eve looked at him for a moment, which he noticed. "What?"

"Matt's the one who usually says that..." Evelyn mumbled solemnly. The rest tensed up and got stiff at the name, and they fell back to silence, which was shortly interrupted when they heard noises coming from nearby. It sounded like yelling...

"Yo, do you guys hear that?" Mike piped up. Eve got surprised by the sounds.

Mara stiffened. "Y-yeah."

Jordi and Rose nodded hesitatingly to answer Mike, who listened for a bit more before speaking up. "Let's go check it out"

He started walking towards the source of the noises down the hall, the three girls following him.

When they got there, they couldn't not believe what they saw...

Asher was beating Matt up, not holding back at all. All the anger he felt from the start up until now boiled him up. After everything that's happened, he reached his breaking point.

Matt was just barely holding his own, trying every tactic he knows to turn the tide to his favor with little to no success. Nobody was trying to break the two up, the few that caught up to the fight just stood there watching.

"Oh my god!" Mike instantly ran over to them, trying to pull Asher off since he was on top. Jordi went over to assist him, while Eve, Mara and Rose were paralyzed with fear and shock.

"Ash, get off him! Now!" Mike yelled. Matt was grunting and breathing heavily from the blows he received.

Ash thrashed around, trying to throw Mike off of him. "Let me go!!" He growled.

"Not until you let go of him first!" Jordi fired back, trying to get Asher off as well, with Mike struggling still.

Asher continued to thrash around, moving to kicking him since his arms were no longer able to be moved from Mike's grasp. "No! It's about time he got what he deserved!! For Insulting me in front of the class!! For taking Eve just to go and break her heart!!" He growled out.

Before anyone could intervene..

"I NEVER WANTED THAT TO HAPPEN!"

Matt's yell froze everybody....He slowly stood back up, coughing loudly. Hearing her name, Eve approached the hurt boy slowly. "Matthew..."

"There, I'm finally saying what I should've said from the start after getting the crap kicked out of me. I never wanted Evelyn to think I liked her, because I didn't. Yet when I saw how much she wanted me, I didn't want to hurt her so I played along..." Matt coughed again.

"And that makes it better?! You should've said something from the beginning!!" The fury in Asher's eyes was just as strong as before as he glared at Matt.

"I WANTED YOU TO GET HER INSTEAD!"

"Then you should have said so!!" Asher spat out. Mara was slowly backing away from the group.

too loud too loud too loud

Jordi was doing her best to calm Asher down.

"I KNOW, BUT YOU WERE RIGHT! I AM A COWARD!"

...

Matt found himself sobbing. Mike watched in shock as his friend unraveled himself in front of all of them. He tapped Asher on the shoulder as if to say "calm down now".

Asher indeed did calm down a little. He was still beyond mad, but he knew not to push it anymore. Mara was the closest she has ever been to running away from her friends. Rose and Jordi just watched, with Jordi going to help Matt.

"I don't deserve her...I never did. I don't deserve anyone to love me or care about me..." Matt shook off Jordi's attempts to help him and continued sobbing. Eve started sobbing from his words as well that she instantly went to hug him, this time Matt didn't push Eve away, he just let her do her thing.

Rose spoke up. "Matt, that isn't true. We all deserve someone to love and care about us" She walked over and put a hand on his shoulder.

Mike sighed. "You went too far, Ash. You actually beat him up?" Mike whispered disapprovingly and went towards Matt too. "Let's get you to the infirmary"

Matt didn't respond to Rose, but he shook off her hand as well. He did nod when Mike spoke up though.

So Mike and Eve helped Matt get to the infirmary. "I'll be right back, Mara. Stay outside" Mike kissed Mara's cheek gently and gave her a comforting smile.

Mara gave a small shaky smile back. It was all she could muster while trying to keep as calm as she could. As soon as mike was out of vision, she turned and speedwalked out of the building. Jordi glared at Asher before leaving. Rose turned to Ash. "You went way too far with that, Ash". Ash had nothing to say, so Rose just turned and walked away.

Ash stood silent where he was.

I'm the bad guy... That's all I've been...