By Your Side

- Raven’s POV –

Waking up was, once again, the same relief; before, I used to wish I’d never wake up from my dreams… Right now, though, I wished I didn’t have to go to sleep at night and dream about that nightmare; live that nightmare all over again.

“Good morning, honey” I heard that sweet voice of my best friend and, currently, sister, say, and I instantly turned away from the wall, looking at her; Megan and her mom were the ones who saved me; I couldn’t thank them enough for that.

“Good morning, Meg!” I said, sound enthusiastic; yes, I had my nightmares, but I was rather excited, today. It was first day of school; my new school.

“So, you’re ready for school, Dan-- Raven?” Megan asked, correcting herself before she called me by my old name.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like that name; it was kinda cute, looking back at it. The thing is, I wasn’t that girl anymore; I wasn’t the fragile useable girl I used to be. Besides, I was officially a Griffin, now; Raven Marie Griffin. Odd name, I know, but I love it, and I was the one who chose it; I chose Raven because I simply LOVE that name, and it can well define my soul right now, and Marie because of my mom… I can’t think of her right now; it still hurts.

Getting up from bed, I stretched my tattooed arms, before answering my best friend.

“Yep, a lot! What about you?” I replied, while going over to our closet, picking up my outfit for the day, and instantly dressing it; a MCR shirt, skinny red jeans and my black converse, along with my Echelon and Paramore red wristbands. Matching all of it, I had my Black Veil Brides’ necklace, half covered by my long red and black hair; with my thin layer of eyeliner covering my eyes, my piercings already placed on my lip and nose, and my tattoos showing off proudly, I was ready to go.

I looked over at Megan, smiling as I saw her ready as well; we quickly left the room, our backpacks already falling on our shoulders, and went to the kitchen, where Ms. Griffin mom had the breakfast already prepared for both of us, settled on the table.

“Good morning, girls” She said as we sat down, instantly eating what she had made for us; despite I had the excitement still bubbling in my tummy, I ate it silently, letting the nerves get the best of me.

After both of us were done, we got up and went to wash our teeth, leaving the house afterwards; on our way to the bus stop, we didn’t say a single thing; I guess Megan could see how much of a wreck I was becoming, due to the nerves.

“Honey, don’t be nervous; it’ll be just fine” she tried to reassure me, as soon as we stepped on the bus; I couldn’t believe her, though. I had never had an easy life on school, and I knew that, only because I now lived in London and all that, it was still quite improbable that any guy looked at me differently than the guys in Portugal did; yeah, sure, I had changed my looks, but the personality was what mattered, and that, my friends, hadn’t changed.

Sooner than I expected, sooner than I wanted, in fact, the bus came to a stop, and Megan dragged me out of it, making me face one of the biggest buildings I had ever seen; it was white, very long, and very high. So, this was the high school she attended for I don’t know how long, that was now be my own school… I sighed, and then starting heading towards it, as she followed me, even though she was the one who had already wandered the corridors of the building before. Anyway; we never really got the chance to go inside the building before someone called her.

“Megan!” We both heard a male’s voice [well, male to a certain level; he had quite an effeminate voice, to be honest]; instantly, we turned around and were met with three guys heading in our direction. One of them, I was able to recognize, which made me smile a bit, but the other two… they were strangers to me; looking at Megan’s face, I could tell she didn’t know them either.

“Hey, Matt!” She said, enthusiastically, going to hug him afterwards; me and the other two guys stood there awkwardly for a while, since they seemed to take an eternity to let go of each other.

Instead of trying to make any kind of conversation with the two other guys, I stood there, admiring them from my spot, very bluntly, shall I say.

They were both tall and slim, not too slim, however, but that was the only thing I could find similar about them; well, further inspection led me to believe they had the same eye color, even though the tones were different.

Starting with the one with the lighter blue eyes, which were almost grey, I mentally smiled at his beautiful red shoulder-length hair, that was straightened down perfectly, figuring he’d probably love the same kinds of music as I did; I checked out his outfit, and was proven right; he had a tight You Me At Six shirt, and grey skinny jeans, along with black sneakers, some wristbands adorning his wrists. I didn’t see any piercings or tattoos on him, but it didn’t really matter; he looked great anyway.

The other guy had a much darker outfit, and look in general, than the one I had ‘analyzed’ before; his hair was raven and long, the fringe and long hair covering the right side of his pale face, that was adorned with black make up around his bright blue eyes. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and I could see several tattoos on his arm due to his sleeveless shirt, which enchanted me, even though I didn’t show it; I looked down on him, checking the completely black outfit of his, with some chains hanging loose on his tight black jeans and a black rosary hanging from his neck, and then looked back at his face, noticing the black piercing on the right side of his plump rose lips. Before I had time to look up at his kinda messy hair again, though, Megan interrupted my stare.

“Mm, Matt, I’m pretty sure you remember Dannie…” She said, out of habit, and I instantly averted my eyes to her, unintentionally glaring, as my hazel eyes shone with flames of painful memories.

“It’s Raven, in fact; Raven Marie Griffin” I stated coldly, drifting my eyes away from them all, losing myself in the environment around me, while I put up my headphones, but not before hearing the boys’ names.

“Well, this are Aden” he started pointing to the darkest of the two, whom nodded, a little smile playing on his beautiful lips;” and this is Charles” Matt finished, when Charles smiled widely and waved shamelessly at me, and I nodded my head, showing that I had acknowledged both of them, but just wasn’t in the mood to reply as brightly as he did.

Just as I was about to put my music on, I heard a foreign voice, and, through the corners of my still pained eyes, I saw Aden speak, his voice sounding like a million angels had just given him a different piece of their voices, conveying in the most beautiful voice I had ever heard.

“What’s up with her?” He asked, with a slight grimace; great, he didn’t like me already. “She seems a bit… cold. Like, if she isn’t capable of feeling, or something.” Touché.

Well, it wasn’t true; I was able to feel things, I was just afraid of what could come if I let my guards down. I had been proven in the past that openly showing my feelings was just going to get me in trouble, and would end up hurting me, so, why should I show them right now? As long as nothing got into me, I’d be just fine.

It seemed that the world was still against me, though; as soon as I looked to a tree nearby, trying to let my surroundings sink in with their beauty, I saw something that instantly broke down all my walls, my emotional self taking the best of me.

“If anyone takes a single step closer to me, I’ll fucking shot right now!” The girl screamed, holding a shiny black gun pointed at her head with a shaky hand; the fact that her hand was shaking showed me that she wouldn’t probably shoot anyone who dared go to her, but the people around her didn’t seem to notice, shocked by the view.

Being the uncontrollable human being that I am, I instantly took off towards the girl, running, and stopped right in front of her as she looked at me with bright and wide green eyes, herself being shocked by my actions.

“It’s not worth it” I stated simply, hearing someone call for me, then shutting up; even though I was curious to see if Megan and the guys had followed me and were watching me on that moment, I didn’t dare look away from the tear-stained face of the girl that was, very probably, younger than me. “It’s not worth it, girl. Believe me.”

“You don’t even know what I’ve been through! You don’t know what they’ve put me through!” She replied, more tears jumping from her as I let my hands sneak their way to her face, coping on her cheeks.

“I know enough about life to know it’s not fucking worth it; if you do it, you’ll be giving in to them. If you pull that fucking trigger, you’ll give them what they want; you can’t let them win. Don’t do it, please” I begged, after my little rant; I would not let her do this to herself. “Besides, think of the people who love you with all their heart; your friends, your relatives… Have you thought about what your family would feel if they found out you committed suicide because of some brainless jocks?” I asked, as she stared at me surprised; the gun was still pointed to her head, but she had released the firm grip she previously had on it, which relieved me a bit.

“But I can’t take it…” She whispered, looking down, her voice broken as she said that simple sentence; I turned her head back up to me, giving her a tiny sour smile.

“I know you think you can’t take it, but I’m pretty sure you can; they should not have such an impact in your life, little one. Ignore them, and, if they keep trying to bug you, don’t resort to such option” I said, moving my hand to the one where she was holding the gun, and pointing it at the ground. “Talk with your friends, your family… You can even talk to me, if you want to. Just, please, don’t do it. You’re still so young; you have so much yet to live” I finished, as she threw the gun away and hugged me tightly; I locked my arms behind her, burying my face in her head as tears started to escape my eyes, the memories of the time I wanted to do what she was about to do flooding my mind.

Suddenly, the bell rang loudly, scaring most of us; the girl let go of me, tears still falling from her bloodshot green eyes, but, at the same time, she gave me a tiny grateful smile, which made me smile back.

“Whenever you need, come talk to me” I said, one last time, as we really let go of each other. “I’m Raven, by the way” I said, smiling and messing with her brown curly locks of hair.

“I’m Emily” she said, gathering her backpack from the floor and running off to the building; I should probably be doing the same, but I had one thing to do first, though.

Walking carefully to the place where the gun lied, unforgotten by me, I gently picked it up, contemplating it before quickly taking off its bullets [something I learned to do the previous summer, when I watched way too many crime shows] and throwing which one of them in different directions, trying to get them as far as possible from there; then, I dismantled the rest of the gun, throwing the pieces away as well.

When the gun was already placed all around the school field, I smiled again, turning around, only to be faced with four open-mouthed persons; I gave them a questioning look and, then, I unexpectedly received a big hug from my best friend, who silently sobbed onto my shoulders.

“Shh, Megan, it’s fine… Shh…” I tried to soothe her, but it wasn’t exactly working; she let go of me, though, but only to slap me across the face lightly.

“I thought you were gonna die there!” She said, the pain filling her voice as she said so; I looked wide-eyed at her, and then hugged her again.

“I knew she wouldn't shot anyone, honey; shh, I’m fine… Everything’s fine” I said, caressing her back in a soothing style, which finally calmed her down. “We’re gonna be late for class, now” I stated, as soon as she was enough controlled.

“Fuck, yes we are!” She said, alarmed; I let a small chuckle escape my lips as I rolled my eyes at her. Now that I had already broken my walls, I wouldn’t build them back so soon.