Bar Red's Redemption (Edited)

1: First Lie - Freshmen Year

"If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."
―Walter Langer

This was originally part of a chapter from BRR Extras, but to make the time line clearer and expand on Bar and Clementine's relationship from the 'before', I added it and put in some new bits and pieces.

Anyways, please enjoy and leave comments! I want to know how I did.

Chapter 1:
First Lie - Freshmen Year

"Red!" Coach Coelle, the gym teacher, bellowed out as he pointed at him. "Get onto the field, boy!"

"Suck my dick, Cockelle," Bar sneered, a glare finding home on the teen's face as he looked at his teacher. His busted lip felt heavy with every word and his black eye was twitching with every breath—the ache a cruel reminder of a cold fist and a colder home.

"It's Coelle," Coach seethed, mouth opening and fist clenching like he's about to have a mental breakdown right then and there and scream at him.

But then he took a breath and—probably after reevaluating some questionable life choices such as teaching high school gym—promptly excused Bar to go wait on the side, completely done fighting with him like they had been doing for the last five minutes.

All his teachers knew, at this point, that giving him detention was pointless.

There'll always be the next argument, the next stubborn refusal.

Bar rolled his eyes, not caring that he frustrated the Coach. He just wanted to get away from everyone and sit down for a couple minutes, not play a stupid game. He had enough bruises, there's no need to make more because some halfwit throws the ball at him too hard on purpose.

He knew he wasn't well liked—the group in the corner that was throwing him disgusted looks and gossiping among themselves weren't being as subtle as they thought.

He knows everyone saw his interaction with the coach, that they saw his anger.

He knows what they say about him.

Everyone saw him as some heartless asshole, so what was the point in trying to convince them otherwise? He knew that the title wasn't far from the truth.

His father was a monster. That makes him one, too.

Bar watched with his arms crossed as the rest of the kids in the class kicked the ball around, grateful for the break from the running track as they played together.

Friends were side-by-side, joking around and shoving each other or laughing.

Bar wished his friends—Gus and Law, two people who were really the only ones that were kind to him in this hell hole of life—went to the same school as him. Maybe that way he wouldn't feel so alone.

Or maybe they'd just get sick of him after a while, everyone else seems to.

His eyes cut across the field as a loud squeal rang through the air, catching onto short raven curls that went just below the chin and minty eyes. Freckles littered onto smooth cheeks and a too-small but cute button nose.

Ivory Astoria.

The girl he had a hopeless crush on—and bullied.

Bar didn't like hurting her, not really.

But there was this sick part of him—the one that dug its claws into his mind, a darkness that swarmed thick and heavy in his mind—that screamed, Don't you want to know what it feels like to be in control of pain for once?

He tries to ignore it, but that never works. There's always pain, always the next bruise, and he's tired of it being his.

He feels worse, after. The other part of him, one equally as terrifying, cries and yells and kicks, telling him Don't mess this up, don't mess up, don't mess up.

But he always ends up doing that anyway.

Ivory and he have known each other since Kindergarten, that's a solid eleven years of existing in the same space, and he's pretty much terrorized her since. Bar knew her pretty well, knew how she looked when she was happy, sad, and anything in between. He knew her smile like the back of his hand and he knew what the different twists in her lips meant.

It was hard, knowing so much but not getting the chance to know more, purely due to his own behavior. Not that he had any right to know more, but he knew how kind she was.

She gave a lot of people the chance to be her friend.

If he wasn't a bully, if he didn't treat her like that, would he have gotten that chance too?

He watched Ivory as she kicked a ball back and forth with Elijah, who Bar knew was one of her two best friends, both of them smiling widely as they laughed back and forth about something.

They were so normal, just two kids being kids—something he never got the chance to do.

She always looked a bit magical, like she was glowing with happiness and love and it pissed him the fuck off.

Why did she have to be so... alive? So there?