HSMTMTS: The Core Four

5

Big Red's POV

It was the next day of school, I asked my dad to take over my shift at Salt Lakes Slices. Yeah, my family owns a restaurant, no big deal. I was waiting outside on the sidewalk for Ricky, I asked him if we could skateboard to school together, we used to do that everyday as kids, but after 14, he would kinda leave me hanging, but today he agreed to.

I texted him last night to see if he was okay from the other day, he still wasn't feeling 100%, but he said he could walk again, s that's something.

Finally, I saw him skateboarding up to me with his hood over his head, maybe he was trying to cover up the bruises on his face. "Hey, dude!" I smile at him, hoping it would put him in a better mood.

"Hey" he mumbles, he keeps his head down, but I lift his chin up to get a good look at his face, he still had some bruises, but there was something else, was that...a cut on his lip? Where did that come from?

"What happened?" I ask him, he grabs my arm and gently pushes it down. "Nothing, I just fell off my skateboard on the way here," he says, but come on, I've known Ricky long enough to know when he's lying, did he get in another fight? Did he get jumped again? "Ricky..."

"Let's go" he cuts me off, he helps me up and we get on our skateboards, I know something bad happened to him, but why won't he talk about it? When I told him I'd always be there for him, I meant it.

We made it to school to find our friends on their phones with scared looks on their faces. We also saw everyone staring at us, whispering and snickering, wonder why. "Hey, guys, what you looking at?" I ask them, for some reason, they didn't wanna show us, was it something embarrassing, did someone post a video of me sleeping with my CPAP machine. What? I have sleep apnea.

"Come on, show us!"

Nini then shows us her phone and we both see something we wished we didn't ask for.

It's a video on youtube, of Andrew and his gang beating up Ricky. I take her phone and scroll through the comments, some were from Andrew's friends, saying he's weak or so easy to take down or that he acts all tough and mean but he's such a weak link. "Sorry, Ricky" I hear Gina say. I take the second to realize this was Ricky we were talking about, he doesn't let this kinda stuff fly by, he'll get payback and when he's out for payback, no one is safe.

I look next to me and see that Ricky's gone, I quickly turn towards the front, as does everyone else, we see Ricky speed walking somewhere, every step he takes it's like his rage increases. We quickly follow him, afraid of what he's gonna do.

In the halls, next to Mr. Mazzara's classroom, we see Andrew and his friends laughing on his phone, guess they were watching the video. But Ricky wasn't there. At least, I didn't so.

"HEY!"

We looked to see Ricky walking towards Andrew, he threw his bag next to my feet and I actually got a good look at his face, he was mega angry.

"Hey Bowen, did you see my video?" Andrew smiled, but as soon as Ricky got close enough to him, he slapped his phone out of his hand. "What's your deal?"

"My deal?!?! Do you think that's okay? You think it's okay to do this to a teenager?!?!" Ricky pulled off his hoodie and everyone gasped at the bruises on his face.