Give Into Me

Chapter Five

Two months had passed and Ashton still didn't know anything about Raelynn or Harley's parents. He was still curious, so he was determined to find out. "Ashton, I need you to come with me to get the cows." Michael sighed, coming in from outside. "We always seem to lose the calves, so I need someone else with me."

"Yeah, sure." Ashton stood up from the couch and walked over to Michael. The two of them walked down past the barn and out into the pasture where the cows were grazing.

"Can I ask you something?" Ashton asked as he helped Michael herd the cows toward the gate.

"What is it?" Michael asked, patting a cow on the butt to get her moving.

"What do you guys have against Raelynn?" Ashton asked, standing in front of a calf to keep it from going the wrong way.

"It's a pretty long story, I guess." Michael shrugged. "Raelynn was the popular girl at school. You know, the queen bee type?" Ashton nodded to encourage him to continue. "Well, she used to bully us all pretty badly. Harley got the worst of it, but she likes to pretend she didn't." Michael sighed. "Raelynn used to call her such awful names. In elementary school, Raelynn was just the typical child bully. She'd pull Harley's hair, make fun of the clothes she wore, call her dumb and stupid.

It got pretty bad in middle school. Raelynn started hanging out with the boys that Harley had crushes on and she'd always be 'dating' one of them. Typical middle school relationship. Lasts a week, you say 'I love you' after 2 hours of dating, you never actually go on dates. Harley was pretty hurt by it, because she wanted to have that kind of relationship. She just wanted a boyfriend. She thought that would make her more important at school, but obviously that's not true." Ashton could tell that Michael was having a hard time explaining this. "Raelynn is the spawn of satan. In 8th grade, she invited everyone to her house for her birthday party. Everyone except Harley. Even the boys and I got invitations, but Harley didn't. She was the only one in our grade that didn't get an invitation.

We decided to have our own party, so we invited everyone in our grade, except Raelynn. We had our party on the same night, and everyone came to ours instead of hers. Raelynn got so pissed off at us, she planted weed in Luke's locker and got him suspended for 2 weeks. She convinced her dad, who was the soccer coach, to kick Calum off the team. She told the principal about how I would skip art everyday to go play guitar in the music room and I got suspended for a week.

Harley, once again, got it the worst. Raelynn had convinced the boy that Harley had a crush on to ask her out. Of course, Harley said yes. That boy took her virginity and took pictures of her without her knowing. The next day at school, the lockers were plastered with pictures of her naked."

"What? Didn't Raelynn get in trouble for that?" Ashton was beyond furious now. Not only at Raelynn, but also at himself. He let himself believe that Raelynn was a nice person.

"Of course she didn't. We were the only ones that knew what she was capable of. Harley didn't come to school for a week. She had to go see a therapist for months afterwards." Michael sighed. "And, high school wasn't any better. The names got worse, the mental abuse got worse, and more people had joined in. Raelynn had built up a following. She was like some God. Everyone wanted to be friends with her, or go out with her, or get invited to her parties. Senior year, Raelynn managed to get Harley's test scores annulled, so she couldn't get into the colleges she applied to. Harley was stuck getting a basic community college degree just because Raelynn made sure that Harley couldn't get into a university.

"Harley was gonna get out of this town. She had the money and the brains to get out. She was gonna go to New York and become a lawyer. Her hopes and dreams were ruined by Raelynn, and there wasn't anything she could do about it. This is a small town, Ashton. Everyone knows everyone's business, yet no one had the decency to help." Michael shook his head and ushered the last calf through the gate.