Rebecca
I have always lived in the background. Constantly there but never seen. Adults, teachers, and peers all pass by me, and their eyes never meet mine. They never greet me, they never acknowledge me. Perhaps this is my fault. I never speak in class. I never gather up the courage to walk up to someone and strike up a conversation with them. The only time I get noticed is when I get bullied and teased, then I am the center of attention.
I don’t mind it, though. I have all the time I want to read, be by myself, and no one can betray me or hurt me the way a friend can. Yes, there are times it gets lonely, there are times I long for a friend to come along and talk to me, but that is why I have my books. They can’t betray you, and they are always there when you open a book. You never have to make plans with them, have you cancel at the last minute, and you don’t need to buy them presents on their birthdays. Fictional friends are the most reliable ones.
I walk around the school hallways alone, clutching my books tight to my chest. Because of my bright red hair and severely introverted personality, I stand out among the crowd. It is easy to spot me, huddled in a corner cramming in a chapter of whatever book I am on before the next class starts. These qualities make me an incredibly effective bully magnet.
“Hey! Cherrytop! Where do you think you’re going?”
I groan. I know that voice. I know it like the back of my hand. Tyler Mackam, Senior douchebag, linebacker for the football team, and gang-leader-wanna-be. Tyler doesn’t have much of a following, so he’s decided that picking on me was the best chance he has of gaining some disciples. I put my head down and pick up my pace to avoid him. I try to blend in, absorb into the crowd, but my cherry red hair stands out like blood on snow.
The next thing I know I get slammed into the wall of lockers, face squished against the cool metal. I grip the books in my arms tightly and shut my eyes. Tyler shoves a forearm against my throat, pinning me to the lockers. My breath shutters in my throat.
A hand forces my arms to release my books and I hear them fall to the ground. My eyes flutter open and Tyler is inches away from me, grinning in a way that gives me goosebumps.
“Off to play with your friends, eh?” he taunts, motioning one of his lackeys to pick up the books I have dropped. Fear spikes through me. Those books are all I have. All I have in a world full of image and popularity. They are what makes me feel normal, even if it is in a fictional world.
Tyler starts flipping through my books, refusing to be gentle with the pages. “Hmm, The Fault in Our Stars, I guess the fault here is you walking by!” he laughs, getting none in response as the joke falls flat. He glares at those standing around silently, promising the same treatment if they don’t laugh. Abruptly, fake laughter fills the space. It picks me up a little bit, despite the arm at my throat.
This is why he is not popular, no matter how hard he tries to be. Even the jerks don’t want to hang out with Tyler.
He drops TFIOS on the ground, the book landing on its pages. A whimper escapes me as I see the paper crease. Tyler turns his attention to the other book in his hands. “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Spoiler alert: Lion dies.” A cruel grin is on his face as he throws that one aside and steps up to me. “You do realize that there is a real-world your friends can’t save you from, right?”
All this time I have hung limp between Tyler’s arm and the lockers. I knew there’s not a chance of escaping, not with how strong Tyler is and how weak I am. So I continue to hang there, praying for Tyler to get bored of me and move on. But by the looks of it, my prayer is not going to be answered soon.
Tyler turns to me and opens his mouth to say yet another snide comment when a voice booms from across the hall.
“Mr. Mackam!” I turned as much as I could towards the voice, which wasn’t that far. I breathe a sigh of relief. It was Mr. Randolph, the only person whom I trust in this school, and he was angry. The arm against my throat disappears, and I take a deep breath for the first time. I sit, panting, as relief floods through me. I bend down to pick up my disrespected books, smoothing the pages.
Mr. Randolph reaches us before Tyler could run, though his so-called “buddies” abandon him. I chuckle under my breath. “What do you think you are doing, Tyler?” Randolph asks. Even though Tyler is a whole two heads taller than the small English teacher, the way Mr. Randolph stares down his nose makes the bully shrink. He crosses his arms and waits for an answer.
“I- I- I was just- Rebecca was…” Tyler stammers. The intensity of Mr. Randolph’s stare increases.
“Don’t try to make up an excuse. I saw what you were doing. Go up to the principal’s office and wait for me there. I will be up in a minute.” Tyler doesn’t move, standing still in shock. “Go!” Randolph shouts. Tyler turns on his heel and sprints away from the scene, hopefully to the principal’s office.
I am making sure my books are alright when Mr. Randolph’s boots appear in my line of sight. I look up to see him offer a hand up to me. All of Tyler’s cronies have disappeared and others in the hall were walking on the opposite side of the hall, timid at the way Mr. Randolph yelled at Tyler. “You alright?” he asks me.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say as I accept his hand and he pulls me up. The lines on his face are the only thing that betrays his age, and his eyes were full of concern for me. I give a little smile that disappears when I look at my damaged book. “But I don’t think Hazel and Gus are, though.”
“I am pretty sure those two have more problems than being dropped to work about,” he winks. He does a quick scan over me to make sure I have not sustained any damage and smiles. “I have to go deal with Tyler now, make sure he doesn’t harm you or anyone else again. Hopefully.” He sighs, knowing that Tyler will most likely bully someone else as soon as he is out of the principal’s office. “See you in English!” he says in farewell.
“See you in English!” I shout back as he walks down the hall.
---
In a world where no living person sees you, you sometimes have to turn to something else to make you feel seen. Some create an imaginary friend, some write and create their own people to play with. For me, I find my friends in the fictional worlds that exist in books.
I know they are not real, I know that they will never actually exist or talk back to me or help me with my algebra homework. But that doesn’t mean that they cannot keep me company or give me advice. They still make me laugh, they still make me cry, why is it crazy that I consider them my friends?
I love to imagine that they are walking beside me, whether it be Hazel or Tris or Day. I hold conversations with them in my mind, and they make me feel seen, feel loved by people who are not obligated to love me. I know they would never abandon me, even if the author decides to kill them off.
Does it make me crazy? Probably. But what else am I to do? Spiral into a frenzy of depression and anxiety due to loneliness? I don’t think so.
I go through the motions of the day. Chemistry. Algebra. Photography. Study Hour. Lunch. By the time English comes around, I have shaken off the encounter with Tyler, although Mr. Randolph pulls me over after class to discuss this morning.
“Tyler got a two-week suspension for harassing you. The principal went harsh on him. This was the third time this month he has violated school rules,” Mr. Randolph tells me as he shifts papers around his desk. “It is time that kid learned his lesson, otherwise he is going to be expelled.”
“You know that Tyler is never going to learn,” I counter. “He is so bent on being popular he will do anything to achieve that. Even if it is being known for getting expelled.”
Mr. Randolph sighs. “I know, I know. But we still have to enforce the rules, even if students don’t listen to the consequences.” He stops shuffling papers and looks me directly in the eye. “You just have to stand up for yourself, Rebecca. You can’t just sit and take beatings left and right. All it does is encourage those who enjoy hurting others to hurt you. You are a Junior now. Upperclassmen. Your position should already demand some respect.”
I shake my head. Drawing that kind of attention to myself is the last thing I want to do. “I don’t care what others think of me. I don’t care how they show it, the words don’t hurt me. The blows fade after a day. I just don’t care. And hopefully, they will realize that their abuse is doing nothing and go away. Plus, upperclassmen don’t receive any special kind of respect. None that I know of.”
“Not caring what others think and apathy are two very different things. The former still demands respect, or at least the act of standing up for yourself. The latter is simply not caring at all, and that can go down a dark road.”
I huff at the words. I have heard this spiel many times from many different people. “I am not apathetic. I just have other things to worry about,” I argue. But I see where Randolph is coming from. I know that I should do something. The words I can get by with. But the physical abuse, the fact that Tyler had me pinned at the throat this morning, is unacceptable. But every time I think about standing up for myself, saying something that could get another in trouble, and actually give them a reason to hurt me, I get anxious. My chest tightens, I can’t breathe, and I start thinking of all the possibilities that can happen, each worse than the last. I end up backing down and running away.
“Just think about it, Rebecca.” Randolph stands and gestures to the door. There was worry in his eyes. “Think about it. I am here if you need me.” He understands my predicament. He understands what it is like to be bullied about how you look, what you like. The short man who loves books more than anything was in my place before. I think that is why it is so easy to talk to him. And why he is my only friend at this school and why I am willing to tell him a whole lot more about myself than even my parents.
I nod. “Thank you. I will see you tomorrow.” I turn and walk out the door, my mind racing over everything Mr. Randolph said.
---
Later that day, I am heading back to Randolph’s room to grab a forgotten notebook. I had waited in a dark alcove to avoid the crowds and the potential sneers. So as I walk down the hall, it was empty.
When I reach the door, I see the lights inside were empty, meaning that Randolph already left. That’s fine, he always leaves his door unlocked, unafraid of pranks and thieves. Or people walking in his room to grab something they left behind earlier in the day.
I open the door, eyes cast down to avoid eye contact like I normally do when I walk into a room, even when nobody is in the room. Light from the hallway floods into the dim room, and I freeze when I hear sobbing from the opposite side of the room. I go ramrod straight, fumbling for the door that I had already let go of. My heart stops as the door closes, the soft click an avalanche in my ear.
The sobbing stops and all I hear is my heartbeat pounding in my chest. The automatic lights flicker on and I blink at the sudden brightness. The kid who was crying in here must have avoided the light sensors, it wasn’t that hard. But I was awestruck by who met my gaze when he turned around.
Fear runs through my body, my flight response trying to get my legs to move, to run as far from here as I could to avoid yet another beating, but my shock was overwhelming. Because I didn’t just walk in on some random kids crying. I walked in on Nathan Sarmon, the most popular boy in the entire school, crying in an abandoned classroom.
His sapphire blue eyes are tinged with red, making the blue stand out even from ten feet away. His black hair tousled, and there is no sign of that “special smile” the girls always swoon over. He looks at me in horror and confusion, but his face lightens when he realizes who I am.
Because nobody would believe poor, timid Rebecca if she says that she found the most popular and put-together boy in the entire school breaking down in a classroom after school. And not that I would tell people, mainly for that reason. It would just track more attention and bullies. But also because Nathan never directly bullied or insulted me, even though he was always nearby when someone else decided to take up that task. I’ve never known why he refrained from antagonizing me, it was the most popular game in school. Maybe he just believed that he was too good for it.
I scramble for something to say, but too many questions are racing around in my mind. I take a deep breath and manage to squeak out a sentence: “I- I- I am- I am so, so sorry, Nathan. I- I never m-meant to w-walk in on you. My notebook- I just came in to get my notebook.” I hope that it is enough of a response so he would ignore me and let me go on with my day. I move towards the back counter, spotting my purple notebook.
I turn my back briefly on him, and when I spin back around to head to the door, his gaze is still on me. I recognized the emotion on his face. Pain, sorrow, and utter helplessness. It was a look I have had on my face many times before. It was the look on his face that made me ask the question that had been badgering me ever since I walked in the room. I take a shuddering breath, sure that this question would get me targeted tomorrow. “Pardon me asking, but why are you crying?”
Nathan doesn’t say a word, but instead pulls out a pencil and paper, scribbles something on it, and gets up. He walks to me, grabs my arm, pushes something into my palm. He stares into my eyes for a second, his eyes even redder up close, then leaves the room, never saying a word.
I look down at the crumpled piece of paper, confused. This Nathan was not the Nathan known to the school. There is no arrogance, no swagger. Popular boys with everything at their fingertips do not cry in dark classrooms.
On the paper one thing is written: his phone number. I stare at the door where he disappeared, pocketing the scrap. I shake my head at the odd encounter, grabbing my books and walking out the door, and head home.
---
I walk in the front door of my apartment building, still a bit shaken about what had happened at school only an hour before. I shrug off my backpack and set it on the small table we keep by the doorway and clutch the note in my pocket, still unsure about what I am supposed to do about it.
“Afternoon, Rebecca! How was your day at school?” my mother shouts from our small kitchen in our equally small apartment. I walk out of the front entryway to find her stirring a large pot on the stove. I take a deep breath, taking in the accompanying smell. “It was alright. Nothing special happened. Is that chili?” I try to keep my tone of voice as even as possible. What would my mom say about what happened today? What would my dad think? They are both very overprotective of me, and if they find out that a popular boy didn’t beat me up but instead gave me his number… It’s so bizarre that I don’t even know what to think.
“Indeed it is! Sam’s favorite! He’s been bugging me nonstop to have this for weeks, and I’m making it just to shut him up.” She grins at me from her station, the smile large on her face. I have a little smile of my own and shake my head. My brother’s method of getting what he wants isn’t just to simply ask for it but to be so annoying the person will have to comply. Mom turns back to the chili, dipping a finger in to make sure it is hot enough. From the look on her face, I can tell it is going to be a while. “Do you have any homework?” she asks.
“Yeah, a lot of it, actually,” I lie. Yes, I do have an assignment for AP Literature and a project for chemistry, although I am almost done with that. I just say I’ve got a lot of homework so I have time to figure out what I am going to do about Nathan, and whether or not I tell my parents. “It’ll take a while.”
“Then go do it!” she exclaims, shooing me away, waving the chili-soaked spoon in the air. My mom has always been dramatic, and that’s what I love about her. I shake my head at her silliness and walk into the entry hall to grab my backpack and head to my room, a true smile on my face.
But that disappears as soon as I enter my room and shut the door. I throw my bag to the floor, forgotten, and pull out the piece of paper from my pocket. I lean against the door, staring at the ten numbers scribbled on the crumpled paper, unable to do anything besides memorize it. Nathan gave me his phone number. Why? I have no idea. I am just… me. Bookworm Rebecca, a girl who spends more time in fictional worlds than the real one. A girl who gets bullied because her best friends aren’t real.
I don’t doubt for a second that the number is real. With the state he was in, why in the world would he give a fake number. It couldn’t have been a setup, he had no idea I was going to be there.
And those tears weren’t fake. I know that because I have been there before.
I push off of the door and take the three steps to reach my bed. My room is little more than a closet, but I prefer a small room to call mine rather than share one with Sam. That would have driven me nuts.
I flop on my bed and open my message app. I input the number on the paper and start typing.
