Chapter 3

A dream...a dream I have been dreaming for days now. My friends are laughing then suddenly everyone is crying. I look around everyone is a little hazy, is that Alyssa and her tears running down her face? Hey next to her is that Jessica crying as well. I reach out towards both desperately trying to catch them and hold them, anything to stop their tears from falling. But I am always too far away; no matter how hard I try I can't reach them.

" Michael! Michael! Wake up sleepy head!" I start awaking and like every day since school started her blue eyes are the first thing I see. "Ah let me sleep just a little longer it’s Friday!" "Yeah, don't wanna be late for the end of our first week of school; now do ya?" I roll my eyes and cover my face with the blanket. "Urgh!" Michael! Don’t make me tickle you out of these covers and bed!" I start to panic with the thought, damn me for being so ticklish! "Uh I'm up I'm up!" I remove the cover and see disappointment on her face. "Don't tell me you’re disappointed that I'm now up. You did want to tickle me didn't you, you evil girl!" She smiles "well you're lucky you got up!" "Well, I gotta take a shower and get ready so you can leave now pain in my neck!" She turns around and walks out the door. I listen as she walks down the stairs. I open the door to my bathroom and turn on the light. The weekend is almost here finally. I can faintly hear laughter from downstairs. So, Dan, Jessica and Mandy are here already too. I smile as I remember when Dan and Alyssa saw Mandy for the first time in years. Alyssa was on the verge of tears she was so happy to see her. Before we knew it; it was like nothing changed we became inseparable again but with one extra. I flush the thinking of Jessica. Yeah, she fits well with us. Mandy is also in our class thanks, I think, because her mother asking the school to put her with friends since she couldn't be with Mandy here.

After the shower I headed downstairs where my mom had made a big breakfast for everyone. "Morning mom, the food smells good." "Well, sit down and eat Michael before it gets cold." I sit next to Alyssa and Jessica and grab some sausage. After we ate, we headed out to school. The air still resembled summer with a hint of fall to come. The breeze was soft and warm. The sun was rising, and we were laughing.

That day went fast before we knew school was over for today and we had all decided to go to the park. Dan decided to go home quickly and grab a couple of baseballs and gloves so we could play catch. When we got to the park there were some kids from school still in their uniforms, a group of guys playing football; they were older than us, I recognized one of them as an eleventh grader. He was a bully from school. A big guy about six three, three hundred pounds of muscle. He caught me eyeing him then looked at me and saw me surrounded by three girls; all of course, they are good looking. I groan hoping that if I don’t look into his eyes, he won’t try anything. I start walking ahead of the girls towards the benches hoping that the group of guys doesn’t follow us. I turned my head towards them and saw the girls following me and talking to each other, then I noticed that the guys had stopped playing and started to walk towards us. I sighed and stopped walking, the girls caught up and noticed I stopped walking. Alyssa looks at me precariously, then turns her head and notices the boys coming toward us. She stops and so does the other girls and turns around towards the boys. We wait for them to get to us everyone silent the air tense with nervousness. I felt sweat dripping off my head and back. Dread was creeping up on me like a cold wind.

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“Hey there girls what you doing with fatty over there? Did ya think he was a girl or something?” The guy I recognized from school belted out when he was close enough to be heard easily. “Ha ha you’re so funny.” I mutter under my breath. I clench my fist together and lower my head. I didn’t want to get my ass kicked today but if he kept it up, I would have to fight. Alyssa steps up towards the boys “If he is mistaken for a woman then we would have to mistake you as an it; or neither boy nor girl!” the other two girl laugh, and the boys crack a smile but the big boy he started to grow really red. “I should slap you girl for saying something like that, but I don’t hit girls instead I will hit the fat boy.” He starts to move towards me. My adrenaline started to pump into my veins, and everything was starting to slow down. Fear was holding me still I couldn’t move so afraid I was, but before he got to me Mandy stood in front of me. The big guy stops hesitating with the situation he was in; he looks at her then me. “Your cute girl but I’m gonna hit him no matter what and I rather not hurt that pretty face too. So, move it! Got it!” Mandy shakes her head “No! You will have to get through me to get to him!” “Mandy please move out of his way; can’t you see that he isn’t gonna move and its ok I’m fine with him wanting to fight me.” Mandy looks over her shoulder at me frowning, concern on her face. Suddenly while she was looking back at me the large guy’s hand grabs her shoulder and pushes her down. She cries out in shock and pain as she lands on her face and stomach. I react suddenly to hearing her cry out. His stupid grin was still on his face as my fist collided with his nose. I heard it brake followed by him crying out. But I didn’t stop, I had to finish it fast and hard. He was bent over his hands covering his nose. I grabbed the back of his head and with all my strength slammed it into my knee. Blood flew all over the place and I watched as his eyes rolled over in his head and collapsed on the ground. It happened so fast, and the silence was deafened. My hands started to shake. I look up and notice that two other guys looked pretty pissed off and started to walk towards me. I knew I could take on two, hell I was lucky with the big guy I had caught him off guard. Dread filled me up again. Suddenly out of nowhere Dan shows up. He slams into the closest guy, and he falls then in the same motion he hangs a right hook into the face of the other guy. The one who he had hit went down and never got back up. He ends up next to me “so you had fun without me huh Michael.” I smile and shrug my shoulders, relief envelopes me and I sigh and start to relax. “Well, you know I wasn’t gonna wait for you to get here.” I smiled at him and then looked at the last five guys that were there. The guy who he had first pushed down got up onto his feet “Mother fuckers! I’ll kick your asses!” Dan glides to the guy and punches him twice in the face. He goes down like a bag of flour. “Don’t swear in front of the ladies, show some respect!” “Pick up your three friends and get the hell out of here.” I yell out at the other guys. I go over to Mandy and stick out my hand. She takes it and smiles as I help her up “are you ok Mandy?” “Of course I am how about you you’re shaking.” I’m fine just adrenaline.” She puts her arm around me and then Alyssa does the same on the other side. Mandy also grabs Dan and puts her other arm around him. Alyssa grabs Jessica as well. “Well, I didn’t know you guys could fight.” Jessica looks at me in awe. I blush, “well since Michael and I were five we had gone to Karate class till up to a year ago” “And thanks to me being chubby we happen to use what we have learned more times than we like.” Mandy turns her head towards me and kisses my cheek. “Thanks for taking that guy down for me.” I blush and move my hand over the check she had just kissed “um i-it was nothing.” “Owe!” pain courses through my right hand and I retract it from my chest and look at it. Blood was running down my knuckles. “I think I cracked my knuckle on that big guy’s nose.” Jessica tears her skirt and walks towards me. She grabs my hand and pulls me towards the water fountain. She takes the cloth and runs it under the water and takes my hand and starts to clean my hand off. I wince with the sting. “You big baby!” Alyssa chortles at me. I stuck out my tongue at her then focused on what Jessica was doing to my hand. She wraps up the cloth over my bloody knuckles and ties it up tight but not too tight. “How does that feel? Better?” I nod surprised that all there was, was a dull ache. I flex my hand and smile towards her. She blushes and turns her head. “I didn’t want you to bleed all over the place.” “Hey just cause my hand isn’t bleeding it still hurts who wants to baby me?” Dan pouts and looks at all the girls. They smile at him and roll their eyes. I smile “Guess I will baby you, Dan! Come to daddy let me see that poor booboo.” I reach out towards Dan; he mocks being petrified at the concept and coils and leans more into Mandy. “No keep him away I don’t want that kind of babying!” I laugh and turn towards the diamond, “Let’s play some ball!”