Chapter 3

2017 - 5 years ago.

Jamie slung his bag over his shoulder and slipped out of the door before his sister left for school. Instead of heading toward that hellhole, he turned left and skipped over the fence at the end of the Avenue. The bench old Mr Peterson had placed beside his allotment made the perfect place to hide, camouflaged behind a veil of runner beans, canes, and overgrown tomato plants.

He would wait for his sister to leave then take a slow walk, timing his arrival perfectly so he wouldn't have to linger in the courtyard before lesson one. Adam and the others were getting wise to his tricks, so he had to leave it later and later every day. Luckily, none of the teachers had noticed. They never paid attention to Jamie. Nobody did anymore. 

He wore the blandest clothing possible. Scuffed, off-brand shoes and plain clothes. Anything to make him invisible.

Instead of going to the front gate, he slipped through the bars at the back of the AstroTurf field. He kept to the shadows, circling the back of the recycling bins before sneaking in through the back door of the classroom. Mrs Kendall didn't look up or acknowledge his arrival in any way—a fact he was grateful for. It gave him a few minutes of peace before the torment began.

He tried not to stare at Adam, though it was hard. Adam leaned back so far in his chair that the legs were almost breaking. His blonde hair fell away from his face—the gorgeous face that screwed up in disgust when he noticed Jamie's gaze.

The boy picked up a protractor and threw it at his face like a throwing star. Thankfully, it missed, hitting him on the collar bone instead. 

"Haha, you missed," Alfie Stevens said with a snorting laugh. A laugh he knew he was a mistake as soon as Adam's attention shifted. 

"Yeah?" Adam said, getting up from his seat. He picked up the box of protractors from the front desk and proceeded to lob them one after another at Alfie's head. 

"Adam!" Mrs Kendall squawked. "Get back in your seat."

With a sigh, Adam sat back down, scraping the legs of his chair noisily as he did.

'Safe for now,' Jamie thought. He told himself to stop looking in Adam's direction, even when his back was turned. It was a ridiculous crush. Adam wasn't just a boy; he was the hardest boy in school and the biggest bully.

Just as he began to feel safe, water splashed the side of his face. He turned slightly to glimpse Ste taking sips of his water bottle and squirting them in his direction like some evil bath duck. Both Rhys and Zoe giggled as they noticed what he was doing.

Jamie did nothing. He knew better than to react. 

"He just sits there and takes it," Zoe whispered, pursing her top lip. "What a freak."

He tried his hardest to keep his eyes fixed on the table, but as Zoe spoke to Adam, he found his eyes wandering yet again.

"He's staring at you again," Ste announced. 

Adam spun in his chair and gave Jamie the death glare. "We got a problem, you weird little fagg—"

"Adam!" Mrs Kendal barked. "We don't use language like that in this classroom."

Eyes wide, face stern, she slapped the anti-bullying poster on the wall with her palm. Mrs Kendall was the only teacher who bothered to lecture Adam on his bullying. The rest had either given up or ignored it from the start.

"I disagree with that poster," Felix Grafton piped up. Felix was one of those guys who had to voice an opinion on everything. He was a creepy gothic-looking kid who was friends with just about everyone and never seemed particularly depressed despite his all-black attire.

"You do?" Mrs Kendall looked confused. 

"Hmm. It says under the 'Don'ts' not to hit the bully. If someone bullied me, I wouldn't just hit them. I'd pin 'em down by their ears so they could look me in the eyes while I bit their nose off," he explained.

"Okay, Felix." Mrs Kendall nodded and rolled her eyes.

Nobody would dare bully Felix. 

'I wish I were more like him,' Jamie thought. 'Why can't I be confident like him? Why can't I say those things?'

Deep down, he knew he didn't have the strength to pull it off, even if had the willpower. He wasn't big enough or strong enough. Trying to pin Adam to the floor would be like a mouse trying to wrestle a rhino. All he could do was accept his fate.

'One day I will get revenge,' he seethed in silence. 'One day.'

After the lesson ended, Mrs Kendall muttered something about covering another class, grabbed her bag and hurried off. 

A wave of understanding passed through the bullies. It was almost a physical thing. Strings he could touch or ping. In silent unison, they cornered him with matching smug grins.

"I have an idea," Ste said. He nipped into the prep room and returned with a bottle marked HCL 2 Molar. The sticker on the side had the hazard warning 'corrosive.' 

"If he won't stop staring at you like a freak all the time, maybe we should pour some of this into his eyes," Ste went on.

Adam shrugged, and before Jamie could even think of running, he was pushed to the floor. The much larger and heavier boy sat on his chest, pinning his arms beneath his knees so hard it was already cutting off his circulation. 

"I need one of you to hold his eyes open," Ste said. Both Gary and Rhys stepped back. 

"Oh, don't look at me," Zoe cried. "I can't get acid on my new gel nails. Do you know how much these things cost me?"

"Gary," Adam ordered. With an annoyed grunt, the oversized teen obliged, poking his giant thumbs into Jamie's eyelids.

Unable to move or even blink, Jamie felt tears welling in his eyes. "Please, please, don't."

"You're going to blind me. Please. Please, don't. Oh, please, I'll do anything. Please..." he begged to nobody in particular. To all of them. One of them had to have a shred of mercy.

He looked up into Ste's eyes as the boy stared down at him. His eyes sparkled with such excitement he was almost attractive.

'What a weird thing to think at a time like this,' Jamie scolded himself. He assumed the terror of being blinded had sent him insane.

Ste's grin stretched, showing his teeth and gums as he pulled the orange bung from the acid.

"Ste... I know you don't really want to blind me. Please. Whatever I did that is so wrong... I'm sorry," Jamie babbled. He saw how Ste's eyes briefly narrowed in anger and wondered what he'd ever done to offend him. To the best of his knowledge, he'd never spoken to the boy before the day he decided to pick on him.

"I beg you... please don't do it," Jamie whimpered as he watched the glass bottle tilting. He watched in horror as the liquid sloshed about the body of the container, nearing the neck. As it hit his eyes he screamed in horror, convulsing so hard he almost knocked Adam his chest.

He heard them all laughing before he realised his eyes were fine. He blinked the liquid from his eyes and tasted the droplets on his lips. 

'Water.'

"Yuk!" Adam cried. He jumped up from Jamie, wiping at his trousers with his hands. "You disgusting little prick. You did that on purpose."

For a second Jamie had no idea what he was referring to. Not until he felt the warmth between his legs.

'Oh shit,' he thought, looking down at the wet patch over his crotch.

The pain when Adam kicked him in the balls was the worst thing he'd ever felt. Physically and mentally, this was the worst moment of his life. Worse than the time his only remaining friend had decided he wasn't worth the effort. Worse than the day they'd repeatedly held his head under at the pool while the lifeguard was chatting up a cute girl in a bikini. It was even worse than the day his parents had split up.

Adam continued to kick and stomp him until sounds from the hallway prompted the others to run off, pulling Adam away with them.

Knowing it would be worse if someone found him, Jamie rolled over and stared blankly in the under-sink cupboard until his eyes focused on the pile of cloths. With a shaking hand, he wiped up the water and urine from the tiles before hiding the dirty cloth in his bag and rushing into the disabled bathroom. 

'I can just hide here for a bit,' he thought. 

He ended up staying there until the final bell rang, fantasising about murdering the lot of them.