Stabs At The Heart || ONGOING || Dnf

{Chapter 21} Frozen

(Some of clays friends will probably be introduced in this chapter so I'm sorry if it feels like random names are being spouted)

~~~~~Clays POV~~~~~

I was done hurting George. It no longer brought me any pleasure and I felt completely bad for him now that i was taking under consideration what he was going through. I truly felt guilty.

It had been around a week since that one weekend, where George stayed at my house. Minus the constant annoyance I was receiving from my friends, things were going pretty well. George started giving me these special smiles whenever we saw each other. Little things like this gave me some courage to ask for his number so that we could get closer.

During lunch I sat down at my usual table with my friends. Since it's wintertime, the snow has been falling like crazy. Personally I really enjoyed it, I just didn't know what my friends thought of it. We never share little interests like that with each other.

Something I noticed about my friends is that they'll point something out to someone else on the spot, and then that person will forget what they said. Like, "No thanks man I'm lactose intolerant," and then they'll forget they ever said that. Nobody cares to remember these things about each other. I was getting pretty sick of everyone. As well as them giving me shit for avoiding George.

Then my friend Liam said, "Guys why don't we eat lunch outside?" Everyone agreed to it so I wasn't going to complain. I thought it was a good idea anyway. Before we left the cafeteria, I noticed Liam went over to grab something from the condiments table. I didn't think much of it though.

We all put our jackets on to go outside. Nobody discussed where to sit so we were all kinda just wandering around the courtyard. Then we made our way to the back of the school, on the path towards the rose garden. For some reason I was getting weird vibes from this, like I missed out on a discussion. It felt as if everyone was keeping a secret from me.

As we got closer to the garden, I saw three figures sitting on a bench eating lunch. I then recognized one of them to be George. He noticed us walking towards him so he stood up, said something to his friends, and started walking in our direction. Now the weird vibes that I was getting were making sense, this must have been a plan between the others.

"What do you want?" George asked everyone.

"That's not a nice way to greet us, especially after we haven't had fun in over a week," said my friend Adam.

All of a sudden, my heart stopped as Adam punched George in the face. Everything started happening so quickly. He started receiving blows as the group formed a circle around him. Then, George was pushed in my direction.

I didn't want to hit him. But I could feel the peer pressure from everyone around me.

"C'mon Clay, punch him," Turner yelled.

"Why don't we just do this another day?" I said, trying to persuade everyone.

"No, we're fucking tired of you purposely avoiding George. We need to blow some fucking steam and there's only one way to do that," said Will.

I was hesitant at first, but eventually struck George, while trying my best to avoid his injured ribcage. As he held his stomach, it pained me to see him in such a terrible state.

Adam and Will rushed over to hold George up by his arms. His feet were practically dangling off the ground. Then Liam walked up to George, and pulled something out of his pocket. He moved around, showing everyone the components in his hand with a grin on his face. Two salt packets? I was extremely confused.

Will rolled up the sleeve on one of George's arms, which was followed by Liam placing the salt onto his skin. Everyone else started to scoop up snow from the ground. I didn't want to seem suspicious so I went along with everyone else, still confused.

Someone then placed the snow on top of the salt on George's arm. This caused him to scream in pain which terrified me. George was squirming around, trying to escape Adam and Wills grip but it was pointless. He continued sobbing in agony. I couldn't bear to watch.

Eventually, they tossed George onto the ground. He brushed off his arm, exposing a terrible, red burn. My emotions were all over the place. I was infuriated but devastated at the same time.

You can't let them do this. You can't let George get hurt ever again. I kept telling myself. But I couldn't move.

All of a sudden, Liam walked over and grabbed George in his wounded area, while digging his nails directly on it. This had to be the loudest I have ever heard him scream, even louder than the first time we decided to beat him up.

"PLEASE STOP IT," George yelled, but his words fell on deaf ears. He tried to fight but Turner held him back. Laughs were tossed around from the group, everyone was enjoying themselves seeing him struggle, but it was all just torture to me.

Everyone was wailing on him and at this point he was on his knees, but he then received a strong blow to the back of his head. That was my last straw. I held my breath as George lost consciousness and his entire body collapsed on the snow.

"Fuck. Let's get out of here," someone said.

I didn't move. Everyone started rushing away but I just stood there, staring at a motionless body.

Is he breathing? This is all my fault. I should've done something.

"Clay what're you doing!?" somebody screamed at me. I didn't respond. Instead, I slowly walked over to the body and got down on my knees right next to it. Everyone left by now, probably not caring whether I get caught or not.

I gently put my hand around his wrist, checking for his pulse. Luckily it was still there. My hands slowly flipped George onto his back. Then they made their way under him, one hand around the middle of his back, while the other lifted his legs underneath the knees. He was now in my arms in a sort of bridal style lift.

I didn't know where to take him at first, my house was too far and George's injuries might be too severe for the nurse, so I took my phone out and dialed 911. After hanging up, I carried him to the front of the school. The bell had already wrang so nobody was out there.

Only five minutes later and the ambulance showed up. They rushed to get him inside the vehicle while i described all that happened to him.

"Sir, it might be best you come with us to the hospital for questioning about his injuries," said the paramedic.

What? Is that even allowed? I guess it doesn't matter, I don't want to be difficult anyway. I got in a seat before they drove away. The ride was stressful. While the paramedics checked George's injuries, I couldn't help but tear up at all my mistakes. So my decision was to comply with any questions they needed to ask me at the hospital, then leave immediately as soon as I get the chance.