Beneath The Moon

The next Monday, we went to school as usual [even though I was legally aloud to drop out] and got our coffee in the morning. But everything came crashing down during lunch.

Neither Holly nor I usually ate anything at lunch, but I decided that I needed something to fill my stomach until we could go scarf down the rest of my birthday cake. Holly waited in the quad under the big tree outside, and I went to the vending machines. Inserting the change into the machine, I chose a bag of chips that Holly would like, too, if she chose to be hungry suddenly. While I was waiting for my chips to fall, a couple of guys came up to the machine next to me. They were held in conversation, not bothering to notice that I was right next to them.

“Lisa Straal,” the taller one said. His friend grimaced.
“Gross. You’re kidding, right?” he mused, “What about Hayley Smith?” His taller friend pondered for a minute.

“She’s hot, yea, but she’s such a prude. There’s no way I’d be able to get her into bed,” he said. I rolled my eyes. This was disgusting; I didn’t need to listen to this crap. I grabbed my chips and started to walk away, until I heard the taller one talk again.

“Holly Loralei,” he ventured. His shorter friend laughed.
“She’s such a freak, man. But she’s pretty damn hot. I’d fuck her in a heartbeat.” I turned around and strode towards them, fury and rage suddenly pulsing through my veins.

“You wanna say that again?” I asked menacingly. I stared both of them down, thinking I might just be able to see right through them. They both smiled at each other, and then looked back at me.

“Why, you friends with Holly?” the shorter one asked. Was this kid seriously going to stand up to me? I was way taller than him, and probably a couple inches taller than his friend. I’m no shortie; I’m a little taller than six foot.

“Yea, actually, I am,” I responded, “and I have a big problem with you talking about her like that.” My eyes never left his.

“What, saying that she’s probably great in bed? Or that she’s a fuck-up freak?” The taller one taunted. That did it; I had snapped. Without even thinking twice, I punched the taller one in the jaw, making him stagger backwards. While his friend was regaining balance, the smaller one took a step towards me.

“Are you seriously gonna screw with us?” he asked fiercely, winding up to punch me. I laughed quietly.

“What are you, a fucking oompa-loompa?” I teased, and punched him in the jaw as well. His other friend had regained balance, and came at me full-speed. He hit me in the cheek, but it hardly even phased me. I grabbed his neck and spun him into a head lock. The little one was coming back, so I pushed his friend right into him. They both fell to the ground with a hard ‘oomph’. I kicked one of their shoes.

“Don’t make me really try to kick your asses,” I threatened, and turned to walk away. I had just stepped my foot outside of the food court hallway and into the quad when the two guys tackled me to the ground, popping my bag of chips under my weight. I skid across the grass, my back hitting a rock. Shit, I thought, as I felt a searing pain where my stitches were.

“Elliott!” Holly screamed, having seen me be tackled to the ground. The taller one pinned me to the ground and punched me in the jaw. I threw him off of me and scrambled to my feet. The smaller kid came towards me, his friend following him, and they both tried tackling me to the ground again. This time aware of what they were trying to do, I shoved the little one off, forcing him to roll to a stop on the grass, and punched the taller one in the mouth, possibly knocking out a tooth or two. I backed away, running into Holly, who was coming to get me.

“Elliott, what’s happening?” she asked frantically.
“They were-ragging on-you,” I said, trying to catch my breath. She smiled.
“People do that all the time, Elliott. I’m used to it. You shouldn’t have done anything.”

“They were saying they wanted to fuck you for the fun of it,” I said, wanting to go hit them again just remembering it. Her eyes grew wide and she immediately marched past me. She went up to the taller one, who was heading back towards me anyway.

“Son of a bitch!” she yelled, and punched him in the mouth as I had done. As if his mouth wasn’t already bleeding enough, she had punched out another tooth.
“Bitch, don’t-” he started, but I cut him off, pulling Holly away from him.

“Holly, don’t-I’ve already done enough damage to these bastards,” I sneered. The smaller guy didn’t seem to get the point though, and came towards me again. I was about to hold him off, but I forgot about Holly and she ripped her way out of my grip. She met the small kid face-to-face, putting her hands on his shoulders.

“What do you want?” he scoffed. She smiled innocently.
“Oh, Liam, I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to go see a movie, maybe come back to my house after…” she lead. He smiled deviously.

“Well I’m-” he started to say, but that’s all he got in. She brought her leg up and kneed him right in the balls.

“I would never sleep with either of you, ya jackass!” she screamed, and walked back towards me. And, maybe a little slow on the uptake, several teachers had finally realized what was going on. They flocked around us fast, holding everyone separate from each other. The gym teacher had his arm locked onto me as if he thought I would disintegrate into nothing.

“Yea, yea,” I said tiredly to the teachers, “we’re done.” At first they didn’t know if they should trust me, but after a couple seconds they let all of us go, and Holly and I walked back to our tree.

“Shit, Elliott, you’re bleeding!” Holly exclaimed. She lifted up my shirt to examine my stitches. Being tackled to the ground had ripped them open again.