Breaking point

Thrill factor

The week dragged on at a torturously slow pace. Though I knew it was because of two things, dreading Saturday and school having become boring.

It'd felt like an eternity and it was only Thursday. But, even as the painfully slow week dragged on I felt a sense of pride since my usual tormentors had left me alone for a while. I guess bullying me must've been losing its thrill too. Everything was.

After waving goodbye to my dad, I trudged out to the bus stop, hoping Ryan hadn't come up with any new ways to force a reaction out of me.

Hopefully he'd still be bored with teasing me.

When I walked up, all it took was one glance to realize my luck had run out. Ryan wore his most devilish smirk and was staring right at me the second I walked up. So much for that.

"Hey princess," Ryan started as he limbered toward me, his evil grin growing wider, "you still ignoring me?"

He just wants a reaction, don't do it, I reminded myself quickly keeping my temper in check.

"You really think you can ignore me forever?" He asked in an edgy tone.

I'm definitely gonna try, I thought in a mocking inner voice.

"That's it! Your gonna say something wether you want to or not!" Ryan informed me as I saw that I was throughly pissing him off.

He stalked over, and began lightly kicking the side of my thigh. Luckily I'd worn my black jeans instead of a skirt.

Ryan continued to kick my leg, increasing the force slowly, I turned my head away, hiding my pained expression with my ash brown hair.

"Gonna say something yet?" Ryan pestered, kicking harder. Now it was actually beginning to hurt. I tried not to flinch as he kept on kicking my leg.

Biting my lip to keep my mouth shut, I said nothing, but scooted away out of his leg reach.

He followed me but instead of resuming his kicking, he shoved onto the sidewalk.

"Say something!" Ryan yelled, extremely unhappy that I wasn't catering to his grotesque bullying attention needs.

I stayed quiet as I pulled myself up to a sitting position again.

Ryan stalked off momentarily, conversing with his group of juvenile delinquents. They nodded at whatever he was saying as they all stalked toward me.

An uneasy feeling crept over me as they loomed toward me. There may have been only four of them but it was intimidating none the less.

I stood up, edging backward while keeping my eyes locked on the advancing group. Mischief and evil glinted in their eyes. I kept backing up till my back hit the mailbox. Crap.

I glanced behind me to see if there were more obstacles, but the moment my gaze wasn't on them, they charged at me, encircling me in seconds.

"You gonna say something?" Ryan stepped forward, coming to close for comfort as he stared me down.

I shoved my hands into the pocket of my grey hoodie, refusing to speak more out of fear then determination now.

Ryan shoved me back against the mailbox post, I grimaced in pain while clenching my jaw.

"How bout now?" Ryan tried again, pushing me harder and slamming my back against the mailbox. I winced, my hands clenching into fists in my pocket.

Rant glanced around at his group before addressing me, "you have ten seconds to say something!"

I took a deep breath, deciding I might say something in approximately 11 seconds.

There was silence for those ten seconds before Ryan's eyes ignited with anger, "times up!"

His group closed in around me, pushing me and shoving me, someone kicked me hard in the leg, one of them punched my shoulder.

I winced, holding back tears as they continued shoving, kicking, punching and name calling.

I couldn't believe the bus wasn't here yet, or was it? I couldn't see past the boys that were currently physically harassing me.

For a split second, there was an opening in the group, just long enough for me to see the bus driving away. I'd missed the bus. Oh no...

My head swirled with dizziness from pain and alarm from the fact that I'd missed the bus and was stuck here getting beaten up.

I shrunk down to the ground, curling my arms around my knees and hiding my face in my knees. It was gonna be a very long and painful day by the looks of it.

But a noise above the jeering and slamming caught my attention. It sounded like a sports car. Maybe someone would drive past and see and come help me.

The vehicle noise stopped abruptly, I lost hope, assuming that they'd sped off.

I closed my eyes tightly, hoping the pain would end soon.

Suddenly everything stopped, there weren't any words and they weren't touching me anymore. Slowly raising my eyes, I spotted the stopped vehicle and the driver.

He looked annoyed but at the same time helpful.

Ryan and his group just stared at him, not sure what he'd do about it if they continued beating me.

The driver stood for a moment staring at me through narrowed eyes of concentration before giving a simple instruction, "get on."

I followed the driver, Cole, to his parked motorcycle. Ryan and his group glared darkly at Cole but didn't attempt to mess with him.

Normally I would've demanded a helmet but at the time my best option was to shut up and be thankful.

Cole swung easily onto his motorcycle and glanced back at me, "you can stay if you want, but get on or I'm leaving you."

I quickly hurried over, climbing on behind him with my hands awkwardly in my pockets.

"For gods sake!" Cole ran his hand through his hair, "I'm not gonna murder you for holding onto me! You'll fall off in less than ten seconds if you don't."

I gritted my teeth feeling insanely awkward but doing as he said and wrapping my arms loosely around his torso.

Cole revved the engine as he zoomed off, my grip around him tightened on reflex as I tried my hardest not to fall off.

He was most likely speeding since I felt like we were being blown by 90 mile per hour wind when there was no wind today.

He sped up even more since there weren't many other cars, causing my arms to lock tighter, unintentionally realizing that he had amazing abs.

Wasn't my fault he was speeding and I had to hold on tighter, but through his loose v-neck with arms locked around his torso, I could feel how toned his abs were.

I got lost in thought while holding onto him but was jolted back to reality when we screeched to a halt.

Looking up I realized we were at school already. I released my hold and stepped down off his Harley.

"Thanks." I stated, as he stepped off the motorcycle.

He gave a quick nod as he walked off in silence.

What an odd guy, I thought dreamily since he was odd in a good way.

After my crazy morning of abuse and motorcycle riding, classes were even more boring then yesterday. Painfully boring, they no longer held a thrill of any kind. Except history of course where I could daydream about Cole while he sat 2 seats away.

Though as I really thought about it, I realized where it's started. Everything had become boring after I'd tried "living on the edge" and sneaking out to talk to Coke about the shattered bottle. The danger aspect had given it a unique kind of thrill factor. Just like the motorcycle.

Or maybe it was just Cole that had the thrill factor...