The Heart Of Friendship

Part 22

Daniel

My mom was not pleased with me. Not even in the slightest. She had practically dragged me out of school so fast after talking to the principal without even letting me say goodbye to Alec first. My mom arrived first, so I left him still sitting outside the office. The inside of the car was dead silent as we drove home, and the tension was high.

I could just tell from one stare at my mom's face that she was ready to explode, but she didn't want to be yelling on top of her lungs driving. I sat in the back seat as I stared out the window, not bothering to say anything either. I walked up the stairs to the front door following mom when we got home. I shut the door behind me.

"What were you thinking Daniel?" Mom asked. "What were you thinking bullying other kids?"

That's what the principal told her? That I was bullying other kids? More like fighting back against the people that were bullying me.

"I wasn't bullying anyone mom." I said on the verge of tears. I'm not going to cry, I kept chanting in my head. "I was fighting back against the bullies because they wouldn't stop bullying us even after the expulsion rule thing."

"Why didn't you tell me they were still bullying you?" She asked

"I knew you'd just bring back the bodyguards. I didn't know what else to do than to fight back like you told me remember? " my voice was wavering as I took deep breathes.

There's a lot of reasons why I wanted to just cry. One being that I got punished for being bullied and having to fight back, and another being that the bullies were just going to get away with bullying us. My mom paused remembering that night when she told be to fight back.

"Not by becoming a bully yourself." She said. She didn't seem that angry anymore. More like trying hard to make me understand, as if realising she was partly to blame. "There's so many ways of fighting back Daniel, but not like this."

"But how?" I desperately wanted to know "How else was I supposed to fight back mom?"

"Stand up for yourself." She said. "Let them know what their doing to you is terrible."

"Like they don't already know that." I said. So much for fighting back.

"Speak loud." She walked closer to me and put her hand on my shoulder. She was speaking in a calmer tone now, trying very hard to get her message across. "Show them that what they are doing is really causing harm."

"Mom that isn't going to work." I shrugged my shoulders to get out of her grasp.

"How will you know if you've never tried?" She asked before giving me a hug. That just made the tears to fall down my cheek. "I'm going to fix this okay?" She stopped hugging me and looked me in the eyes. "They aren't going to get away with this." She assured me.

Alec

My parents were mad that I got expelled, that was no surprise, but what surprised me was them prohibiting my friendship with Daniel. That's right, my parents thought Daniel was the bad influence. With my previous friends I had gotten in trouble a lot of times, but with Daniel, I had gotten expelled. But if anyone was to be the bad influence between Daniel and I, it would be me.

"You can't be serious mom." I told her as I sat on my bed, which was probably where I was going to be for the whole of my life. She had grounded me for a whole week, which meant I was pretty much locked up in my room. "Daniel isn't a bad influence. He pretty much has never gotten in trouble in his life."

"If you had never befriended that kid we wouldn't be in this situation Alec." She said "The principal told me how he had been getting bullied pretty much since he got to the school, and then the bullying started to rub on to you. And to the point that you started to become a bully yourself, and I won't allow this friendship to continue."