NOAH

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say because I had no idea any of this was going on. I saw Harrison as nasty before, I supposed, but never to this extreme, never to the point of physically hurting someone so badly. And Via as well – Via who we all thought was a freak because she never spoke to anyone. Via the one we all had inside joked about because she couldn't stand up for herself. Via who was all alone every school day through no fault of her own.
I felt sick looking into her wide eyes and immediately brought my arms around her. I don't know why I did, I just... did.

"I can't believe it" I muttered to myself. How could I have ever called Harrison a friend when he did things like this. How could I deal with him now? "Are you ok now?" It was a stupid question – how could she be alright after two years of that?

I'm fine, She replied but I knew it wasn't true It was good to get it down on [ ] anyway

"What was the second to last word?" I asked confused – Via tended to be rapid with her signing and added to the fact I'd only been learning for about a month or so, I was finding it hard to keep up at times. I loved it though; the whole learning to sign thing. I'd never thought about how amazing speaking with your hands could be, but it fascinating. I was glad I had someone to practice with though – it turned out that it was a pretty difficult thing to get your head round.

PAPER She finger-spelled and I made a mental note of it along with every other new sign I'd learnt with her. It was good to finally tell someone after so long

"Why don't you tell someone? The school has a zero tolerance on bullying and whatever – I'm sure Mrs Porter could sor-"

It's not a good idea, she stopped me.

"Why?" I didn't get it – what was happening to her was horrible – why couldn't she just tell someone to get it sorted out? Despite Harrison being a star player on the football and basketball teams, they couldn't not expel him for that right?

It would just cause more trouble for her, she replied. That didn't make any sense at all.
"How? Via this is really serious – you can't just not tell anybody and let him get away with it!" I raised my voice slightly and she winced.

It won't do anything except make everything worse. What would people think about me if they knew I got Harrison Taylor expelled? Unfortunately, I couldn't argue with that one; despite him being nasty, Harrison was popular and for some reason people liked him. Hell, I liked him before I found out about this. Just do me a favour? I nodded my head pensively, don't tell anyone about this, please.

And then the bell went, and I had class to go to.

XXX

"Noah! NOAH!" Mackenzie's high-pitched calling finally made me turn around and I tried not to make a sour face; what did she want now? I really couldn't deal with her on top of everything right now. The only problem was that she didn't really know that yet.

"Hey babe!" She caught up with me, her breathing stilted and I stopped at the gates for her "I just, wanted to, you know, check that we're still on for tonight?" Tonight. Shit, I'd completely forgotten that we were meant to be going to the cinema or whatever she'd planned to do. I know that I was supposed to plan all of that sort of thing, but to be honest, I didn't care much at all and I think Mackenzie knew that as well, even if she didn't want to admit it.

She used to be so much nicer though, that was the thing. When we first started going out a year ago, I actually enjoyed spending time with her; we would go on dates and talk for hours about everything and nothing. I liked how much she cared about everybody in her life, how her life-long ambition was to become a vet, how she never used to care about what anyone thought about her. Until she did.

"Pick me up at seven, Ok?" She asked, waking me up from my daze

"Sure." I said monotonously and she walked off to her massive posse of girl-friends that would no doubt want all the details about our date afterwards. I had no idea what changed so dramatically in the space of the six week holiday but seriously, she just wasn't the same person.

XXX

"Just one more," She said, straining her arms over the plate. Who cared what people thought about her food? Mackenzie acted like her Instagram followers would presume she'd not eaten anything if she hadn't posted a perfectly candid photo on her page. I really didn't get it but instead of complaining for the millionth time, I sighed and slumped back in my seat. "Ok there we go – perfect!" She licked her red lips, though I doubted her food would be edible by now; it was surely cold after leaving it for so long for her picture.

She didn't seem to mind it as she delicately placed a fork-full into her mouth.

"So how are you doing?" I asked politely, thankful that I could finally eat at least "I feel like I haven't seen you for ages!"

"Oh, well, you know, I've been busy" She rolled her eyes, not matching my polite smile. Who was this person? "GCSEs and all that I guess."

"Mack you'll be fine – you've definitely got biology nailed anyway" I remembered all the times she helped me with it, and how hard she worked at it because she wanted to study it at college.

"Yeah, I guess, I don't really care about Biology, to be honest." She flipped her hair off her shoulder, inspecting her manicured nails before going back to her food

"What?" I couldn't help myself "But I thought..."

"Yeah, I know, but being a vet's really lame." She rolled her eyes and sighed again, "I was such a try-hard before, honestly, it's so embarrassing."

I didn't know what to say. This was the opposite of Mackenzie in every single way possible – she never used to be like this at all. I admired the fact that she cared about her grades, why was that embarrassing? There was an awkward silence before she spoke again

"Katie's being a bitch at the moment."

"Oh yeah?" I knew Katie, probably too well – not that Mackenzie knew that – and she was usually pretty sweet. I couldn't imagine her being a bitch anyway

"Yeah! She's REFUSING to break it off with Dan, even though she knows that he cheated. She's honestly being so stupid but won't listen to me at all!" She put on a whiny voice that made me wince.

"Well, I'm sure she can do what she wants" It was spiteful, but I couldn't deal with the fact that this was all a mirage for her own agenda. I looked down at my spaghetti again.

"You don't get it! Staying with Dan would be the biggest mistake of her life!"

"Yeah, but you can't make people do things – if she really wants to stay with Dan she can, can't she?" I tilt my head at her and stare her in the eyes. Why was she being so dramatic – we were in High school for goodness sake, not some trashy teen drama. It's not even like their relationship affected her in any way. She was doing this all for effect, too scared to confront me outright. I knew this would come eventually, I just didn't think that it would be this soon, or in this setting. Though I guessed I didn't really know anything about her anymore.

"Yeah." She sighed and slumped back in her chair like a toddler "She's still a bitch though."

I didn't reply to that one – I didn't need to. She would just make some sarcastic comment back and make me eat my words. I sighed and went back to my food, discovering I'd nearly eaten it all in the space of five minutes. Mackenzie, on the other hand, decided to pick at it the entire time, stewing angrily about somebody else's relationship.

"I heard you're going for football captain?" She asked apathetically

"Yep, but I won't necessarily get it; Harrison's going for it too" I gulped. Even the mention of his name made me want to throw up everywhere. How could I have been so blind to what he was doing? I felt immense guilt whenever it popped in my mind – I contributed to his jokes about Via and I did nothing to stop them. I was truly useless.

"Oh well," She said folding her arms "At least you can say you tried."

It's lovely when people have so much confidence in you, don't you think?