A few days after Marcus distanced himself from Ronnie, the two end up finding themselves walking on opposite ends of the hallway at the middle school. Ronnie goes to wave at Marcus but Marcus just ignores him. However as he passes by, a book falls out of Marcus’ backpack.

Ronnie goes to pick it up but once he does, he lost sight of Marcus.

"Guess I'll go ask a teacher," Ronnie laments as he walks over to the main office.

Inside a classroom, Marcus is sitting at his desk waiting for the class to start. However as he is waiting, he feels a pair of hands grab onto him and toss him to the ground.

"That day started out with the same shit that happened every day…”

Marcus looks up to see Hunter standing over him, wielding a metal baseball bat. Marcus flinches as he sees the bat. However, he drops the bat in favor of just punching Marcus repeatedly.

"Hunter would come and attack me. All the while, everyone else in the room..."

As Marcus is getting beaten, he glances around the room to see other students either laughing or just ignoring what was happening.

"Would still treat me as a part of the background."

After several seconds of slamming his fist down onto Marcus, Hunter gets up to catch his breath, as he does so he looks down at Marcus. Marcus struggles to try and get up but Hunter pushes him down with his foot.

"Buddy I don't get it, why are you trying to get up? You know I'm just going to hit you some more if you do," Hunter teases.

"I just...I just want to get this over with," Marcus says.

Hearing those words, Hunter grabs a hold of the metal baseball bat and lifts it up.

“Well then if you’re so insistent,” Hunter remarks.

As Marcus closes his eyes and Hunter begins to swing the bat down, the door to the classroom opens and Hunter stops.

"However, that day it was different. Something I never thought would happen did.”

Marcus, confused, opens his eyes to see that the person who just entered the classroom was Ronnie Everst.

“R-Ronnie?” Marcus questions, “Why are you here?”

Ronnie’s eyes are wide as he sets the book he came to deliver down on a desk. Hunter makes his way over to Ronnie.

“Oi, what’s got you up in a twist?” Hunter mockingly asks.

"My two best friends..."

The once motionless Ronnie doesn’t respond verbally to Hunter for a bit, though once he finally finishes soaking in everything that’s been going on, his hands begin to curl up into fists.

“I’m only telling you this once,” Ronnie utters trying to contain his furious rage, “Back. Off.”

"Were about to fight."

“Oh sure sure,” Hunter says as he begins to walk away.

However, with a sudden twist of his foot, Hunter spins around and slams the metal baseball bat into the side of Ronnie’s head.

“You fucking dumbass,” Hunter cackles, “You think playing hero is gonna do you any good when you can’t fight?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“I gave you your chance.”

Hunter’s smug grin quickly vanishes as he realizes Ronnie managed to lift his hand and catch the baseball bat just in time before it made full contact with his head. However, the part that did manage to crack open his skin a bit as a bit of blood begins to slowly drip down his face

“Since you got the first hit in,” Ronnie begins to say, “I’ll make sure to deliver the last one!”

Ronnie tugs the bat closer to him, pulling Hunter in closer to him. He then lets go of the metal bat as both of his hands then go to grasp onto Hunter’s back. Now that he’s holding him in place Ronnie begins to slam his knee into Hunter’s stomach repeatedly.

Though just as Ronnie is about to send one final knee slam into Hunter…

CRACK.

Ronnie grimaces in pain as he stumbles back.

“You caught me off guard I’ll give you that,” Hunter gasps, “But you should’ve held onto that bat of mine.”

Marcus looks to see that Hunter managed to grab his metal baseball bat and position it in front of him so when Ronnie went to go for that final knee slam, he instead slammed his knee right into the hard metal bat.

Gaining the upper hand, Hunter grasps his metal bat and swings it into Ronnie’s right side, then switches and slams it into his left side. However, just as Hunter lifts his bat up to swing it down onto Ronnie, Ronnie lunges at Hunter and slams his head into Hunter’s.

Hunter falls to the ground with Ronnie atop him. Now with the advantage once more, Ronnie swings his fists down onto Hunter’s face again and again. Eventually, Hunter manages to kick Ronnie off of him.

The two slowly rise back up, since there’s now some distance between the two of them, both use the opportunity to catch their breath for a moment.

"What do you think a miracle is?"

Hunter pushes a desk over causing several other desks and chairs to topple over as well. He uses the distraction to get closer to Ronnie and continues to beat him.

“For me at least, it’s an outcome I could have only dreamed about. Something that I always wanted to happen, but never in my wildest dreams did I think would ever come true.”

Ronnie manages to shove Hunter away and the two stop to catch their breath once more. Both completely exhausted.

As they do so, Marcus still lies on the ground of the classroom floor. His face completely bloodied and littered with bruises. Hopelessness and despair consuming his heart.

"You probably would think that would mean something like becoming famous, getting a ton of money, or maybe even finding love...but for me, it was something much different."

As Marcus lies there, he looks towards Ronnie, someone who's getting beaten and injured all because of him.

Defeated, Marcus begs "Why? Why didn't you just leave? You have no reason to help me, so why are you still here, Ronnie?!"

"And the person who made my miracle a reality, the person who helped drag me out of that pit of despair...."

Marcus could see that Ronnie's legs were shaking, that his blood was dripping down from his head, and yet he was still standing. He was still there for Marcus when nobody else was.

"Was Ronnie."

As Ronnie hears Marcus's words, he can't help but let out a small chuckle before saying, "You’re my friend."

"At that moment, I didn't just see him as my friend. I saw him as..."

Ronnie continued by saying, "What other reason do I need besides that?"

"A living miracle."

As Ronnie says that, Hunter runs towards Ronnie ready to exchange blows. However, right before their attacks could land, the door to the classroom opened once more. Everyone stopped to see a teacher walking into the classroom.

"Sorry I'm late, the copy machine took forever to-" The teacher said before he noticed the situation and shouted, "NOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"

All of the other students in the room quickly pointed at Ronnie, Marcus, & Hunter.

"PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE, NOW!" The teacher beckons.

____________________________________

In the principal’s office, The principal glares at Hunter, Ronnie, & Marcus.

"Now can you please care to explain what happened?" The principal asks the three of them.

As Marcus & Ronnie try to come up with words to say, Hunter clears his throat before admitting, "I was beating him up when Ronnie showed up and started to attack me in retaliation."

The principal glares at them all before asking, "Now is this true?"

Marcus is a bit hesitant before nodding.

"I see then," the principal states before he begins writing down something. As he's writing, he clarifies, "All three of you will have a one-month suspension! Your parents should already be on their way here. After you return to school, Everst & Huntingson will be placed on supervision by teachers and not allowed to interact."

"What?" Ronnie says as he stands up, "Why is Marcus getting a suspension!? He didn't even do anything-"

However, the principal cuts him off by shouting, "DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!?"

Ronnie sits back down and murmurs, "Yes, sir."

"Good," the principal states, "You're free to leave now."

Hunter, Ronnie, & Marcus all stand up. The three of them walk out of the room and towards the school's exit. During that time, not a single one of them said a word to each other. As they exit the school, Hunter stops and takes one look back at Marcus. As he tries to find words to say to him, he stops and just walks away towards the parking lot where a car comes to pick him up.

Ronnie and Marcus sit down outside the steps of the school as they wait for their parents.

"Man, my mom's gonna kill me when she gets here," Ronnie says jokingly.

"Y-yeah," Marcus states, "I wonder just how upset mine will get."

As he says that, Marcus gets a text from his phone. He looks at it and it is from his mom. The text reads 'Your dad and I are busy right now, you can get home by yourself'. As Marcus reads the text, Ronnie glances over at the phone.

"They didn't even ask if I was okay," Marcus murmurs.

"I thought I could just have kept it all to myself and everything would be fine..."

Tears and snot begin to stream down Marcus' face as he cries, "They didn't even ask if I was okay."

"But that wasn't true at all."

As Marcus cries, Ronnie brings him into a hug and says, "It's okay Marcus, let it all out. I'm here for you. It's going to be okay."

"The truth was that I could only really become fine again..."

Marcus nods as he cries even harder than before. He cries tears over the torment he received, he cries tears over the neglect he's dealing with, and he cries tears of happiness over the fact that someone is there for him. As Marcus is in a mix of emotions, Ronnie just continues to hug and comfort him.

"If I took the first step and opened up a little."

See You Next Chapter!~