Finding Yourself

|nine|

Before I start, I'm going to have to put a trigger warning here.
This is where shit goes wrong.
This is your only warning.
~
It had been a pretty typical morning, at least up until school started. Maya had arrived via window, popped me a kiss on the cheek, and then we had headed into the dining room.

I, the Goddess of Crafts, had whipped up matching periwinkle t-shirts for us that read "100% Girlfriend Material" in bold purple cursive practically overnight. Correction. Literally overnight. I'd even gotten Maya to wear simple jeans that matched mine. Our outfits were identical.

Then we sat down for breakfast. Maya are her scrambled eggs, I had a banana muffin. Then we headed off to school.

But when we got to school...

It was a slaughterhouse.

We stepped in to hear the sound of someone crying. Two someones crying. Nearby. And people jeering and laughing.

I made a mad dash for where the sound was and was met with a saddening sight. The two someones crying were Lucas and Farkle, surrounded by the six heterosexuals in our class.

Turns out all of them were homophobes.

And that wasn't looking very good for Lucas and Farkle.

Lucas had a black eye and his leg was twisted around backwards, obviously painfully. Blood dribbled out of his right nostril and onto the floor. Four of the kids had him pinned helplessly to the locker.

The other two kids were still beating up Farkle, who was already sporting a missing front tooth and actually missing a finger. Somehow one of the idiot bullies had pulled his right thumb off and was waving it jeeringly in his face as blood fell to the ground from it, and from the stump on Farkle's right hand where it used to be. Cuts and bruises laced his broken body.

I couldn't help it. I cried out, then clapped a hand over my mouth. The bullies whipped around and grinned when they saw me.

"Hi Riley." One of them, a girl, said, smirking. "Come to join your weak motherfucking gay friends?"

"What are you doing to them?" I screeched, still gaping in horror at the sight.

"Oh, these little dipshits?" One of the boys laughed. "We were just showing these fags what happens when you disobey God's law, ma'am."

Maya was at my side by this point, and fuming. "Oh, you son of a bitch!" She screamed, pulling back her fist to punch him.

"Maya, honey, don't-" I began, but I was too late. Maya swung at the guy and hit him in the face.

Just as Dad arrived.

"What the hell is going on here?" He exclaimed, gaping at the sight just as I had.

I ran up to him and threw myself into his arms. "Daddy, hold me!"

He patted my back softly and asked, "What happened, Riley?"

"Maya and I got here and these kids were beating up Farkle and Lucas." I began, sobbing. "One of them pulled off one of Farkle's thumbs! And they were cussing...Daddy, protect me!"

One of the kids snickered. "Look at the little bitchsexual running off to her daddy. Poor little baby." She smirked and laughed, the others joining in.

"You shut up." Dad snarled. "To the office. Now."

"Sir, we were just carrying out God's law." The boy from earlier tried, but my dad was taking none of it.

"I said now." He narrowed his eyes a and the kids ran off to the office.

He let me go and we all slowly moved towards Farkle and Lucas. Lucas was able to, slowly but surely, pull himself off the ground, but Farkle was worse off. He seemed to have lost too much blood. His face was pale and he wasn't moving, but he was breathing. Barely.

"He needs a hospital, and fast." Lucas spoke with urgency, the worry obvious in his eyes. I could imagine how terrible it would be for me if that was Maya lying almost dead on the ground.

"Already calling 911." Dad replied, holding the phone to his ear and giving the situation and our address.

Kids had begun gathering. Some snickered and said things like "the fucking fags deserved it" or "that's what you get for disobeying God". Those kids got immediate office referrals from my
dad. Others were nicer, asking what was wrong, but getting shooed off anyway.

I held Maya close to me, and she did same, and we sniffled into each other's shoulders.

Eventually, the ambulance came, loading the unconscious Farkle onto a stretcher and bringing him in. Lucas rode in back with him and the rest of us followed in Dad's car.

Everything seemed like a blur.

Arriving.

Hospital waiting room.

A worker telling us Farkle was in a coma.

Lucas demanding to see his boyfriend and getting denied.

People shouting insults at him.

Maya and I comforting him.

Then an older social worker came in, a grave look on her face. She walked to Lucas.

"We need you."

He nodded and followed her in.

"Wait!" I called. The worker paused. "What's going on?"

"We're losing him." She replied and turned, walking briskly away.

~
My god, this was painful for me to write.
A lot of shit went down. Yeesh.
I haven't written a chapter this packed of shit since chapter eight of Change of Identity on my old account. That story is still up, actually. It's Gravity Falls.
Almost 1k reads on this!
Wow!