During the whole weekend I can’t get out of my head that scene. So briefly but so baffling. It just doesn’t make sense to me because Zeke has all the characteristics of a bully. I mean, I saw him getting in a fight. I saw him brutally hitting another guy, even if he deserved it or not. There was such rage and hatred in his eyes and I just can’t understand how that same guy was helping homeless people and looking so… different. It was like actually seeing a different person but he looked like the same guy from college yet at the same time different.

I know that every problem has a solution, we don’t find the answer because a: we are looking at it from the wrong perspective or b: we don’t have all the data we need. Zeke is just like a physic problem and I’m getting overwhelmed because I can’t solve it with the information I have so I need more. I need more data to solve this problem and carry on.

It’s the same with any problem I face. I can’t rest until I find the solution and maybe this is the first time I actually have to use my logic to solve a real-life problem but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to proceed in the same way.

The problem here is that Zeke doesn’t make sense. If he is a bully at college, why does he help homeless people? If he is a good person who would help people in need, why does he get in fights in college? Those things are mutually exclusive and I know I don’t have experience in the real world, but you don’t need to be a genius to know you are not a bully regarding the setting. But there must be a reason why he is like this, it’s just a reason I don’t understand. Yet.

This is why when it’s Monday I’m determined to collect all the data I need and the best way to do so is by observing my object of study. And I’m so focused on achieving this by today that I’m even in a different mood this morning but funny thing is that my parents don’t react to this. They actually seem relieved when I walk down stairs and greet them with a polite yet cold “good morning.”

“Good morning, Allison. Did you go over all the contents you’ll see this week?” Father asks smiling brightly but I’m not paying much attention.

“I covered two weeks,” I reply offhandedly, drinking my cup of tea and thinking of how I’ll watch Zeke without being caught. That’s something that scares me.

“That’s wonderful and we see you’re your normal self again. That’s wonderful. You had us worried,” Mother adds to the conversation and only then I react to what is actually happening.

“Oh,” I mutter. “No, that’s not, Mum. I’m just focused on solving a problem. I’m still in the same place as last week. I’m not going to change that.”

She looks at me confused but I just shake my head. I can’t expect them to just understand and accept this change in my behaviour. It’s hard for me to understand and I’m the one doing it. I’m the one who’s trying to change. It’ll take time for them to adjust so I need to be understanding.

This is a problem that needs time to be solved, and right now I’m dealing with another one, more intriguing.

Once I read that the popular structure of wolf pack is wrong. There’s no alpha or omega and there are not such fights for leadership. The real structure of a wolf pack is more like a human family and this was found out when a real pack of wolfs was watched. The previous theory came out of a pack that was put in captivity and under very stressful situations, so there is no way those behaviours are natural. Yet popular culture buys that like hot chips.

I cannot disturb Zeke or let him know I’m watching him because that would modify his behaviours. I need to be cautious to obtain accurate information about his ways so I can finally understand how these two versions of the same guy live together. And the fact that every time I stare at Zeke he notices me and meets my eyes is going to be an inconvenient. I don’t know how he does that but every single time my eyes have lied upon him, he’s caught me.

How am I going to observe him without him noticing me? I don’t want to make something big out of this, and by big I mean hacking into the security footage or something like that. I could do that, I just don’t want to. That’s going too far and it’s not a life or death situation, I don’t exactly need to solve this problem. I just want to understand because I’m intrigued.

When I arrive to college I’m still going around this issue in my head, completely distracted so I don’t really notice where I’m going until I bump into someone. Quickly, I push all thought at the back of my mind.

“I’m so sorry, I was distracted,” I tell to the person I bumped into. She’s a girl, as short as I am with a long side plait in plain jeans and oversized black jumper. She lowers her head immediately and hugs her books tightly. At least I didn’t make her drop her textbooks.

“It’s… it’s okay,” she whispers. I actually have to lean closer to hear her.

She doesn’t let me say anything else before she walks past me as fast as she can, almost as if she were afraid which is weird. Why would she react like that?

I turn around to look at her walking away with a frown on my brow when I notice Butch’s friends. He’s not there but they are the same lot I saw at the cafeteria last week. They snicker at the girl and she tries to get smaller, I notice that, but the group doesn’t or they don’t care because they start to yell things at her. One of them, a tall one that’s easily two heads taller than the girl, blocks her way. By that moment she’s put quite a distance between us but I still can hear, mostly because they guy blocking her way is loud.

“What? Couldn’t you just go one day without bumping into someone? How stupid do you have to be to do that?” the guy laughs and looks at all his mates with a wide grin. “I’m surprised you haven’t killed yourself accidentally.”

She tries to back off and escape, but he moves and corners her. I can see she’s terrified and shaking, but the guy doesn’t mind.

“Or maybe you’ve tried that already but failed. That would be so you, wouldn’t it? Failing even at that,” the guy says and my guts twist. What he just said is so sick and humiliating I feel offended myself and I’m not the one to whom the words are directed at.

I take a step forward, not really thinking of what I’m doing, it’s just an impulse; but someone beats me at that. Before I can take another step forward someone grabs the collar of the guy cornering the girl and pushes him away. Caught off guard the tall guy falls to the ground and everyone stops.

I look up and find Zeke, looking at the guy on the floor with repulsion in his eyes.

“Her life is not your fucking business so leave her alone,” Zeke growls and my eyes widen.

“It’s not your business either,” the guy spats standing up, ready to fight.

“No, it’s not, but idiots like you just get on my nerves and you better leave her alone,” Zeke threats and his voice is so low that gives me chills, the bad kind. It actually scares me.

“Or what?” the guy snarls, stepping closer, threateningly. Zeke doesn’t even blink. He’s a few centimetres shorter than the guy but he doesn’t look small next to him.

“I’ll break your nose,” Zeke says calmly and the guy laughs, the guy actually laughs and turns to look at his friends with the same amused expression from before when he was cornering the girl.

“Yeah, I wanna see you doing that,” he laughs and Zeke shrugs. He takes one second to look at the girl motioning her to leave. She understands perfectly because she sprints off and four seconds later Zeke’s fist is on the tall guy’s nose and I can hear the crack from where I’m standing.

I scream but I muffle that sound with my hands. The violence of his acts and the surprise made me even jump in the air, but that blow took more by surprise at the tall guy who is now on the floor, grabbing his nose that it’s bleeding. He sees the blood in his hands and groans. His friends don’t even try to get involved.

“Told ya,” is all what Zeke says like this was nothing. “And feel free to tell the headmaster that I broke your nose because I’ll tell him it was because you were bulling Tara again. You know this school’s policy against bullying, do you?”

Tall Guy only growls at Zeke but doesn’t say anything. They only stare at each other and they understand that taking this to the headmaster will harm them both, the difference is that Zeke is not afraid of the consequences of his acts whereas Tall Guy seems like he is.

Zeke tilts his head to one side then to the other and it seems like he’ll walk way when he stops, frozen on his spot before he looks over his shoulder and his eyes find me as if he knew exactly where to look at.

I take in a sharp breath and I’m still covering my mouth. I know I should run but I can’t move, I can only stare at him back and I see how his expression darkens and my heart starts beating faster, scared. But he doesn’t move towards me, he doesn’t growl or anything, he just stares at me with a frown until I hear the bell and I can break free from this trance.

I turn around and run to my first class, my heart still beating frantically in my chest as I play the previous scene over and over in my head.

Zeke got in a fight today, he broke someone’s nose… because he was standing up for another girl, a girl that was being bullied, a girl that was scared. He was helping her. He used violence and verbal threats to do so, but he did it for a good cause.

It’s not just black, it’s not just like he’s a bad person who enjoys getting into fights. It’s not just that he hits someone. He had a motive to do it, and the motive is actually… well, noble. Yet what he did was still wrong.

I remember the fight I saw him getting in last week and I remember I heard a scream, a scream that was too high to belong to Zeke or Butch. Could it have been that that day Butch was bullying a girl and Zeke stepped in, just like he did today? Could it be that he didn’t just start a fight but that he was defending someone else who couldn’t do it on her own?

How can I confirm that theory? I would have to ask him, that’s for sure the most direct way but Zeke scares me, even if I saw him standing up for that girl today. I really feel his rejection towards me when he looks at me and I don’t dare to approach him under any circumstance. But it’s clear he isn’t just a bully or a bad person. He actually helps people in need, whether it’s homeless people or a bullied kid.

Zeke isn’t just a bad boy but I still don’t understand him. Not fully. Why does he have to be so violent? Surely there must be another way to stand up and help other people, there’s no need to solve it with fists.

By the time the teacher walks in my breathing is still heavy and my heart is still beating fast, but my mind is going even faster, trying to come up with a hypothesis that will make sense in my head. I come up with nothing by when the class ends and it’s a good thing I already revised the contents at home this weekend because I didn’t pay much attention in class. I just have thing clear by he time the bell rings and that is that Zeke is more complex than what I thought and more intriguing and my desire to understand is growing and growing.

I have to understand.

-:-:-

So... did you like it? Allie is more and more curious about Zeke and he's not just regular bully, right? Anyhow, thank you for all your comments and votes! 200 for an extra update?

Bel, xx

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