your body is a weapon → brad simpson | ✓

two

I walk into social studies, a sigh escaping my lips as I see my teacher, Miss Collins, sat in her desk, typing out an email. She smiles at me as I take a seat at the back of the classroom and slowly the seats are taken up.

She passes everyone a book to write in, and as I scribble my name onto my book, another student walks in. I glance up to see who it is and my face grows pale as I see that it's Brad Simpson, and that the only seat left was next to me, at the back.

He takes a book from her hands and walks over to the seat next to me, not looking me in the eye and I sigh, turning back to my book.

"So," Miss Collins begins after she's introduced herself. "I think it's important that since it's the start of a new year, with a whole new class, that we start to know each other."

I glance around the classroom. I knew most people here, though they most likely didn't know me. I was quiet and kept to myself while they were mostly loud and loved to gossip all the time.

"We live in the twenty first century," she continues. "And I realise that if you wanted to get to know each other, all you would do is search up their name on Facebook and Instagram and you can figure out what they like, what they don't, their birthday. But they only put out there want they want you to know."

She pauses, grabbing the attention of two girls that were whispering on the other side of the room before continuing.

"For you first assignment, I want you to create a social media page for your partner," she announces. "I don't care how you do it, be entirely creative. The only rule is that you can't lie about what's on there, so ask the deep questions."

Someone juts their hand up, "why does this have anything to do with social studies?"

"Because social studies is about looking at how society works, how individuals work," she answers. "By doing this, you're learning something new about someone new—you learn how they live their life or why they like and don't like different things."

She pauses again, waiting for any more questions but people were turning to look for partners to get with.

"I want you to work with the person sat next to you," she says, causing everyone to groan. "You already know things about your friends—it wouldn't be a challenge. You have seven weeks to complete this assignment and I expect it to be flawless. You'll have today's lesson to begin but after that, it goes into your own time. We have theory work to begin."

I glance to my side, my heart beating wildly as I realise I'm going to have to work with Brad. He was someone new, someone I had never spoken to before and he intimidated me entirely.

He turns to me, raising an eyebrow and I quickly clear my throat, not sure what I'm meant to say. We end up looking at each other for a while, waiting for the other to start a conversation before he speaks.

"My name's Brad," he says and I frown slightly. "I thought you'd like to know since we have to work together on the assignment."

"Yeah," I manage to splutter out in attempt not to embarrass myself by I fail miserably. "Jamie."

"Jamie?" He asks and I nod quickly. "That's your name? Isn't that a boy's name?" I open my mouth to argue before I shut it and look down at my book. "Whatever, where are we working on it?"

"On what?" I stupidly ask.

"The assignment, dumbass," he rolls his eyes. "Where are we working on it? We're not going to my place."

Even though we could go to my house to work on it since my dad is barely ever home, I didn't want to bring home a stranger.

"The library?" I suggest and he nods. "I was thinking we could—erm—do like a video and put it on a YouTube template."

"Why would we do that?" He frowns.

"Everyone will do Facebook and twitter templates," I answer, rubbing my arms nervously. "It's okay if you don't want to—"

"It's fine," he shrugs carelessly. "I can't do it on the weekends, though." I nod quickly, letting out a sigh of relief as the bell rings and I walk out of lesson quickly.

+

I sling my bag onto the floor, sliding off my shoes as I sigh, walking into the kitchen to find something to eat. I'm not surprised when I see a note stuck to the fridge from my dad, saying he's on a business trip.

I open up the cupboards to find something to make dinner with and end up settling on some mac and cheese. I turn on the job and set a metal pan over it before pouring in the necessary ingredients to make my dinner.

As I sit and slowly eat at my food, I glance around the empty kitchen. I felt so lonely and small at the overly large space and the lights hung low over the kitchen island. It was dark outside, but that was because it was winter and it got dark very early.

I didn't mind having a huge house, it was nice if I needed to get away from my dad if we had an argument—that was rare since he's barely ever home—but I felt like if I ever brought friends round, I'd look like I'm bragging and showing off this money that they don't have.

My dad grew up in a council house, not having a lot of money to himself since all his parents' money went towards the bills and food. He was such a workaholic because he knew how lucky he was to have a well-paid job. He'd always remind me that I had it easier than he did, and that I needed to work just as hard to make him proud.

I'm drawn out of my thoughts as my phone pings, letting me know that an app had sent me a notification. Probably headspace telling me to meditate, I think as I stir around my pasta.

I dig my phone out of my pocket, glancing at the notification. It was from Facebook and at first I thought it was telling me that it was someone's birthday, but then I frown.

Brad Simpson sent you a friend request.

I slowly slide the notification across to see if it was actually my new social studies partner, and of course it is. His profile picture was a photo of him next to two friends, both that I recognised from his year at school.

I didn't know much about Brad, except that he was popular and had a bad temper. He was the type of person you'd move out of the way for if they were walking down the corridor in an obnoxiously big group. I had never really been face to face with him until today.

I lock my phone, not accepting the request, before sliding the device back into my pocket and continuing to eat my dinner. When I'm done, I put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher before walking out of the kitchen and into the lounge to watch some television.

I turn on the TV with the remote, the first channel coming on was the news. My dad was usually the only person to use the television and all he ever watched was the news channel and Flog it!

"This is stunning reporting, Mike," the news lady says to the man on the screen. He was located in Birmingham while she sat at her studio in London.

"Well, Shannon," the guy, Mike, replies. "To understand there's a violence that's different to the life that we see from the gang-infested neighbourhoods, you need to understand that to the gangs, ruthlessness is the collateral. A young man with a reputation of racking up a lot of kills means that he'll have a lot of power and respect."

I read the words sliding on the screen, explaining the story. There had been reports of gang violence around the area and it had been growing worse over the past few weeks.

It was so weird to think that I was so oblivious to the violence going on around me whilst I was small and innocent but now it felt like the entire world was consumed by a tornado of pain and torture.

I sigh, turning off the news channel before going upstairs.

unedited.