The Boy Who Cried Help

Chapter 4

The rest of the week was pretty much the same. Except for an occasional conversation with Paul, my days were pretty much school and working out. It was the second week of school and I was putting some class work in my bag not looking where I was going and bumped into someone. I looked up to who I bumped into and saw that it was Scarlett.

We both just stared at each other before I broke eye contact. I finished getting my stuff that dropped and we were both standing in awkward silence. Scarlett broke it by saying "Look, I know we didn't exactly hit it off the first time we ran into each other but I hope we can put that behind us." "Sure," I said surprised. I guess this was good because not having an enemy would make it easier to stay invisible.

"So, where'd you move from?" she asked making conversation. "Nowhere special," I said vaguely hoping to walk away. Just because we were at each other's throats didn't mean I wanted to share my life story with a stranger. I guess she seemed to get my drift because she said "Class is about to start," before walking off.

Although I wanted to be indifferent, there was something inside of me that almost regretted being cold and harsh. No, I'm doing this for my own good. The more unnoticed I go, the less drama and, therefore, easier and livable high school career. I entered my History class and headed towards the back. I noticed a flash of orange and realized that Scarlett was also in this class.

I sat down in the back row preparing to be a non-interactive student. Class started and Mr. Gilligan said "This month, you will be working in pairs. I realize since your minds have probably been rotting away this summer, I need to break you in slowly. So your first project will be simple." There were groans at the word "project" and I rolled my eyes.

They shouldn't be surprised, we're in freaking high school, suck it up! I'm sure it was in the syllabus anyways. "You will be choosing a teen issue and presenting the history of it. For example, if you were to do, say bullying, you would share what exactly it is, find the statistics, find out where it occurs the most, who has the greatest potential to be a victim etc. You may choose your topic but if someone else has already chosen it, you need to pick a different one."

This should be fun. Note sarcasm.

"Being the wonderful teacher that I am, I will let you choose your partners. Now roam free my historians in training." The room buzzed around with everyone pairing up with their friends. Since I obviously didn't have any friends, I didn't bother to move. Hopefully there would be an odd number of people and I would get to work by myself.

 I looked around and saw that everyone has already had a partner. I sighed in relief until I Scarlett was standing in front of me saying "We're partners." I gave her blank looked and asked "Why would you want to be my partner? Don't have friends you want to be with."

She raised her eyebrow and answered "Oh yeah, I'm just dying to work with a walking Barbie doll whose head is too busy being filled up with air than actual information. Don't forget the oh so powerful jocks that will stare at you like you're a piece of food and make you do all the work. I'm just dying to work with these 'friends' you're talking about."

Well okay then. "I already have a topic and got it approved so we're good to go. We're going to have to work outside of class—" the bell cut her off as we gathered our things. I was walking towards the door when I remembered I didn't even know what our topic was. I called around behind and asked Scarlett "What is our topic?" "Oh, sorry I forgot to tell you, it's teen rape."

And yeah I know it's really short but this story isn't going to have really long chapters and it isn't going to be very long.