"You've honestly got some nerve, half assing everything and then expecting me to give up some of my own free time just because you feel like it?!" You had called him the moment you got the text, with narrowed eyes and shaking fingers as you went to the phone on the desk and shoved your finger against each button that made up his number.

"I'm usually busy after school-"

"So what? That excuses you for making it harder to learn this for me during the time you actually do show up? I don't care what you do after school, but while we're learning this? Whatever it is that you're doing that's so important that it's taking away at the time we have to learn this, you better figure it out quickly. I'm tired of being polite with you and just shoving it aside, but I'm not stupid." You cut him off, ranting long and harsh. You didn't care that he was the son of the man who gave you this scholarship, you're pretty well known to shut someone down when they step out of line.

As sweet as you're commonly known, and as Bambie and fragile-like as you come off, you can only handle so much. Mason's been known to push this a little too far.

"Tt. I never called you ignorant-"

"But you act like I can't see what's going on! How many times have I accidentally pushed too hard on a bruise. Go on, you can give me an answer. I'll accept being injured as an excuse you can use as to why you're not really trying in this, but if you're going to shove it on something else?" You retorted to him, not having any of what he's saying. You don't care who he is, or how everyone thinks of him. You're not from around here, so you don't understand how to talk to people like this quite yet.

And on the other end of the line? You could practically feel Damian fuming in anger of constantly being cut off, constantly being interrupted, and being shut down and everything he says.

"If you get expelled, you can probably get into any school you want. If I get expelled? I get this taken away from me and I have to go back to public school. My entire life is going to be different because I'm getting a better education, and having a scholarship means that I'm going to have such a better chance at getting into the college I want. Not everyone is as privileged as you are, so do you understand why this upsets me?" You added, and only in return you got silence. It came out harsher than you wanted it to sound, and by this point a customer who had made their way to the line to order a cup of coffee, noticed this and turned around and went back to go look at some books. Probably coming back later when you weren't in an annoyed tone.

"You aren't going to be expelled for something like this. It was just a prank that you didn't carry out." Damian chose to not retort on any of the harsh and blunt truth you had come close to shouting at him through the phone. Of course you didn't know things from his point of view, and it's not like he was going to tell you.

"The principle literally told me I'm going to have my scholarship revoked for something like this. I took you as intelligent-"

"And I took you as someone who-"

"Goodnight, Damian. Don't call this number." You cut him off, after being tired of just being cut off. Which is slightly unfair, because it's all you've been doing to him. But it's not like you care. You're tired, and annoyed.

"You are not calling from your personal phone?" Damian sounded annoyed by this, and it confused you. Why does it matter whose phone you call him from? It's not like you were calling from some random person's personal phone, where they would have Damian's number in their call log. It's the phone in the bookstore.

"I'm using the phone in the bookstore, I'm at work right now. I'm actually closing up in a couple minutes. I'm going home, and I'm going to sleep. Don't even bother calling my cell phone, either." You retorted, knitting your eyebrows together as you spoke. Leaning over and closer to the phone on the desk and clenching your fist with the chord between your fingers.

"Are you walking home? You've mentioned the bookstore is far from your home."

"Why are you so concerned all of a sudden?! I'm walking home, this is the end of the conversation. For the last time Damian, goodnight." Your voice went harsh on purpose, and by now it was just unfazing to him.

"If you wanted to end the conversation you would have hung up already. I didn't take you for foolish, but if you're seriously going to consider walking home at this hour? You truly are. I think-"

"I don't care what you think." And with that, you hung up and grabbed your coat, heading out of the door before waving off to your mom to let her know you were leaving.

***

Your mother would make a mental note to herself when she got home not to let you walk home alone again. Especially this late. IT's like she sometimes forgets that this is not Portland, and the biggest crimes in Portland were never anything along the lines of how crazy things are here. She only regretted letting you go out about five minutes after you left, knowing your walking pace would be fast enough to get you far out of sight and earshot.

But right now, as she stands behind the cash register while scanning a bar code over a book in the Hunger Game series, you're walking through an alley swiftly enough to get through it quickly. Stomping through a puddle and getting the black high top sneakers you wore soaked to the fabric of your socks beneath. Cringing to the feeling, living in Portland? Yeah, you were use to it. But the stench of coppery liquid in the air? No, that wasn't something you were use to.

The smell of dead rats? Some parts of Portland weren't the cleanest, and some of the hangout places Mason liked to drag you to where sometimes not exactly the sunniest, and fell in a more shady category. So yes, dead rat carcoses sending their god-awful decomposing scent through the air? Yes, you're slightly use to that.

Walking past an open dumpster and seeing a gun in there? Oh hell no, you weren't use to seeing that.

You stopped in the middle of the alley. Wide eyes and a dropped jaw when the glimmering weapon came into your sight. You were in mid step, a couple drops of water fell from a gutter above head and onto your slightly damp hair. Putting your left foot back down instead of taking that next step forwards.

It was dark, hardly even able for your eyes to register the sleek black handle, let alone the barrel facing you. And it just lays there, like this is normal. On a soaking wet and soggy brown cardboard box. You know how hard it is for someone to be able to obtain a gun, legally at least. All the waiting time, all the paperwork, all the stuff that goes into if someone is even allowed to able to hold one, basically. Of there's the second route. Buying it off someone illegally. For more money, because someone probably couldn't be able to legally own it.

But it's just sitting there, and you know that under the dim flickering streetlamp that's threatening to go out. you know where you stand, that you should just keep walking. Should forget you ever saw it here. You know not to get involved in this, shut your mouth and just keep walking home. As it starts to drizzle a rain, you know you just need to get home now. Need to get home to where you feel more safe, to where you feel like that barrel isn't pointing down directly at your face, at your head.

A steady, light rain now.

The burning feeling of eyes peering through the back of your head and into your skull, as if to see the thoughts in your head. And it's strange how the human brain will let you know that it feels like you're being watched. Sending some lot of currents through to your brain to let you know, to make you aware of the fact someone is watching you. Your brain making the levels of serotonin being paused through very differently. Instead of it being sent out in a straight stream from your brain to the rest of your body, parts of it are being stuck there and pulled back up. So it's not a consistent cycle, almost. giving you that anxious feeling, that feeling that makes goosebumps rise and appear on your skin from the follicles that contain little hairs. It's what makes your palms sweat, it's what makes your breathing ragged, and uneasy. As if suddenly it's impossible to breathe as easy as it was just a minute ago.

Turning around quickly on your feel, swiveling your foot into the same puddle as before but this time only not caring so much as your full and wide (e/c) eyes scan the area above the fire escape. Looking anywhere that you felt those non existent eyes could be staring at you from above. Only finding nothing, and then sighing. Becoming able to see your breath and the feeling of a sudden chill down your spine that made you give out a noticeable cold twitch.

You know you should have just kept walking, but your body seemed to move on its own as all the heat was drawn from your body the second you raised your arm and took a step closer to the dark blue dumpster, covered in graffiti.

Eyes becoming dull and only a dim shade of the (e/c) tones to your eyes before, jaw going loose so you have closed your mouth completely by now. After everything feeling like it had no more pressure on it. Standing on your tiptoes to lean over the edge of the dumpster, you couldn't even feel the tension in your ankles. Let alone the water shifting in your shoe from the open spaces that were left when you raised yourself an inch up, allowing water in your heel to glide down to the toe of your shoe.

And when your fingers touched the handle of the gun, that was when you noticed how strange it all felt to you. Holding the gun in your hands, with half lidded eyes that signify not all the focus is in your best suit right now. Unable to even comprehend what you're doing, until your index finger is being pressed lightly to the trigger.

This was all something that felt like an out of body experience, mentally telling yourself to put the damn gun down and just throw it back into the dumpster. Feeling as if you weren't even in control of the actions, watching your arms and fingers move around the gun like you weren't the one being able to tell your brain it was okay to make the nerves in your body do that. As if your brain wasn't even getting signals that came from your internal thought of command. Like it was all just something else entirely.

It's when your eyes spot a splatter of blood hidden by the edge of the dumpster on the ground that all sense of this false reality that's seeped into your brain has long now vanished, and you're coming back to the reality you were in to begin with.

It's like your breath stops in your throat, or you're just now able to breathe. Either way, it's painful and foreign. Something you weren't expecting.

And the blood? It's not brown, it's still a bright shade of red. And it's what makes you wonder if the rats are the only source of something that smells dead.

And out of fear alone, you're throwing your hands over the dumpster and digging through the garbage until it's deep enough for you to bury the gun under everything without you getting more than your jacket dirty. As if you're hiding the gun from your own mind, trying to convince yourself it doesn't exist.

And when you get home?

You wash your hands like you feel like there's been blood lathered all over them. Again.

And again.