Through The Eyes Of His Bully

I stared down at his brown eyes. Fear flitted through them, but underneath, I saw courage. A courage that seemed far too familiar.

I pick him up by his collar and push him towards a locker making him wince in pain. Even though daggers are being thrown at him from underneath my glasses, it seems to have no effect on him. In fact, his eyes remained determined to fight back and it irritated me even more.

“What did you say?” I spit at him, daring him to repeat his sentence.

“You’re a bully.” He repeats. I snarl at him. I am taller than most girls my age, actually taller than some boys as well. This boy is tall as well and well-built, but, because of the way I had pushed him against the locker, I towered him and it made me feel better.

“Leave him alone, Jade,” My best friend, Jack, came up behind me and placed his hand on my shoulder, shaking his head at me, “He’s not worth it.”

I click my tongue and squint my eyes at the kid through my glasses.

His name is Aaron.

Jack’s teammate from the school’s football club. He’s in a couple of my classes, but, other than that, I don’t remember ever talking to him. My eyes didn’t leave his and I couldn’t help but notice a small, rigid, purple bag under his eye that seemed to be covered by a powder that had one job of covering it, but, failed. He showed no sign of fear, even though the menacing aura of a killer was roaring out from me.

“Come on, Green,” Jack calls me again, using his nickname for me. The fingers from my hand slowly tipped upwards, releasing Aaron from my threatening grip. Jack tapped me again causing my feet to take two steps backwards and then begin to walk me away from the scene with Jack. I could hear the cave whispers of the students around me, gossiping already about my sudden outburst.

“You OK?” Jack asks me as soon as we sat down in our classroom, he ruffles my hair and gives me his best toothy grin.

“I don’t know,” I grumble as I brush my hand through my knotted, brown hair that Jack had just messed up even more. A frustrated sigh escapes from my lips followed by my head automatically placing itself on the table.

“You’re not a bully, he just happened to catch you in a mood.”

“Stupid boy. Thinks he’s better than everyone just because he’s the captain of the football team.”

“I know right, ever since he’s become the captain, he thinks he can boss everyone around in the football pitch.”

“People like him piss me off.”

“I heard what happened in the hall,” I heard a silvery voice. My head automatically looks up towards my left to see my twin sister smiling down at me. She is exactly identical to me, only she doesn’t need glasses and she had dyed her hair blonde. Her green eyes reflected with mine except hers twinkled with curiosity, obviously wanting to find out more about what had just happened in the hall as rumours are rarely accurate.

“What caused you to get annoyed with Aaron?” she questioned me as she sat down on my left and got her books out from inside her bag.

“The dumb boy had the guts to call me a bully when all I did was walk by and accidentally knock a year 7 kid down,” I mumble tiredly.

“That kid’s his little brother,” Jack informs me.

“So? It was an accident, he didn’t have to come to my face and call me a fucking bully,” I hiss at the memory.

“Calm down Jade,” My sister, Ivy rubs my back, in hopes that it would calm me down.

“I have him next in Economics,” I groan, “God has not been on my side at all lately.”

“Yeah, after what happened with your mum recently...” Jack trailed off when he saw the looks on both mine and Ivy’s faces.

“Sorry guys,” He apologised straight away.

“It’s not your fault,” I mumble and Ivy nods after me.

“But, I think you should leave the incident with Aaron alone, he’s probably just a boy that doesn’t want any drama,” Ivy tells me logically.

“No way, I think Jade should get revenge!” Jack shakes his head furiously, his brown hair shaking along with him. Ivy rolled her eyes at Jack because of how childish he sounded.

“I thought you said he wasn’t worth it,” I raise my eyebrow at Jack who shrugs.

“That was so that you didn’t create a big scene in front of, nearly, the entire school body,” Jack admitted. This time, I rolled my eyes at him.

After my lesson with Jack and Ivy finished, I began to make my way through the hall to my next class.

With Aaron.

Every time I thought of him, anger bubbled through me like a geezer. How dare he call me a bully? He doesn’t even know the full story. Just who does he think he is? I hate people that think they’re all that because they achieved something the others didn’t. He reminded me of him so much. That person I wanted to forget so much.

As I make my way through the ocean of students, a girl that is a lot shorter than me, comes up behind me and surprises me from behind, by jumping on my back and hitting my shoulders.

“Hey, Jada!” She shouts in her cheery voice. I force a smile at her as I rub my shoulders. This girl is probably one of the loudest in the entire school. For a girl so small, she sure has a massive personality.

“I told you, Emily, my name is not Jada,” I sigh making her laugh. She only calls me Jada because it also meant Jade, but in a different language.

“I know, I just like calling you that because it pisses you off all the time,” She admits. I rolled my eyes at her. I can not believe I am friends with a girl like her.

“You’re going to get in trouble for having your hair out, we have Miss.Lewis for Economics,” I told her. She let out a frustrated groan as she pulled back her shoulder length ginger hair and tied it into a high ponytail. When she finished, she turned to me and grinned.

“Let’s go economics! Whoo!” She grabs my arm and shouts at the top of her lungs making everyone turn to stare. I mentally facepalm myself and awkwardly make my way to my classroom with a rather loud friend of mine.

We arrive at our classroom and I sat down in my seat with Emily next to me, chatting away like usual. Then, after awhile, he came in.

Aaron.

He wore the school’s blazer and his white shirt was half tucked into his trousers and half sticking out. He saw me and tensed, obviously remembering our last encounter. My eyes stay glued on him, curiousity falling upon me with his actions. He feels my stare and uncomfortably makes his way to sit somewhere far away from me. The guy next to him threw a playful punch towards his arm and Aaron relaxed.

It annoyed me.

He looks fine now, when, just a few minutes ago, he looked like he was going to piss his pants. I clenched my fist. He easily called me a bully and even treated me like I am one, now, he is casually having a conversation with someone, laughing and joking around. Like nothing had happened.

It annoyed me.

Emily, obviously realising the sudden change in my attitude, follows my gaze to Aaron and raises her eyebrow. She knew that Aaron and I had never spoken, so, she became confused.

“What’s up?” She asks. When I didn’t say anything, she sighs and turns around so her body is facing Aaron.

“Oi, you, Aaron! What the hell did you do to anger Jade?!” She shouts at him. The people in the classroom jump by her sudden outburst and they all switch their gaze between Aaron to Emily to me. They begin whispering, obviously curious to find out the answer to that question as well. Aaron was looking down at his fist which was clenched so tightly, I swear I saw most of his veins popping out.

I didn’t say anything.

Aaron didn’t say anything.

“What the hell? Is he scared of us or something?” Emily asks out loud – Due to her loud voice – causing some people to snicker.

“Probably is,” I grin.

“I’m not scared of you.” Aaron finally musters the courage to say. The crowd of people gasp and realise that something is going to happen. I find a smirk draw upon my face as I make myself comfortable in my seat and watch him get out of his seat to make his way towards me.

“Really now, Aaron?” I give a look of disbelief, my smirk still hanging on. I see his clenched fist and raise my eyebrow. Is he going to punch me?

“Look here, Jade Smith,” He hisses, “You say you’re not a bully, but, you pushed my brother out of the way and didn’t even apologise, if that’s not called bullying, then, I don’t know what is.”

“Please Aaron, if you were patient enough, you would’ve known that I didn’t push your brother, on purpose, ” I hiss back, standing up so our faces leveled each other, “He fell back because he was weak, I was going to apologise and help him, until, you came along and thought you were some kind of knight in shining armour, ‘I’ll save you brother by calling this girl a bully,’ ” I make fun of him, causing his brown eyes to fill with rage. I could hear the elephant voices of the classroom, chanting, it were like they were performing some ritual.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

I cross my arms and narrow my eyes at him. Daring him to do something.

“My brother is not weak,” He confirms, taking a gulp, “You pushed my brother and made him fall to the ground.”

“I didn’t push your brother, you annoying bastard!” I shout at him, pushing him back, “Your brother can fucking look after himself, he doesn’t need you to mess things up for him!”

Just before he could say anything, the teacher rushed in with a stack of papers. Her face was red and the wrinkles on her face showed even through the 10 layers of makeup she wore. She saw the crowd around both Aaron and me. Her sudden entrance caused the students that had been yelling to quieten down, they were awkwardly waiting for her to say something, anything. For like, 5 seconds, the students and she were having a silent staring contest until she broke it by yelling at us.

“Get to your seats or I will call the headteacher!” She threatens us. Students mumble under their breath and they all pushed chairs out of their way and picked some up so they could get back to their seats.

Before Aaron could leave, I grab his arm then push him back towards me so my lips were near his ears.

“You don’t mess with me and get away with it.”