"Hey (Y/N)! Long time, no see! How've you been?"
You stood up and let go of Mark before walking over to the group. As you looked at all of them, you realized that you had forgotten their names. You didn't care that you had forgotten all of their names though because you realized that the fact that they had randomly decided to stop being your friend no longer affected you. The same could not be said for last month. Last month, all you wanted was for them to accept you again and you spent about two weeks trying to get them to let you back into their little group before you came to the horrible (Well, at the time at least) realization that your friendship with all of those girls was truly over. It was only after Mark had stopped coming to school during that month long period he was gone that you realized that all of those girls cared about was popularity and getting everything that they wanted whenever they wanted it.
"Like you care." You scoffed, crossing your arms and deciding that you didn't want to play nice with these girls because that's the last thing they deserved for shutting you out for no good reason.
"Of course you care." One of the girls snapped. You think her name started with a "M' or something. You decided to call her Blondie due to the fact that she had blonde hair and the fact that you didn't care enough to dig into your memory to find out what her name actually was. "Need I remind you of the day you last sat with us? That day ended with you locked in a bathroom stall crying your eyes out. Your makeup was all over your face. You should've seen your mascara that day. It was obviously lying to you when you said it was waterproof."
Hey! Leave her alone, why don't you?
Another girl with blonde hair stepped forward. The difference between her and Blondie was that Blondie's hair was natural while this girl's hair was obviously a bleached blonde color. While this hair color had the potential to look very nice, it looked anything but that on this girl. Whoever had done her hair had done a terrible job at recreating the color and it was a wonder that no one made fun of this girl for how her hair looked. You decided that you would call this girl Bleached Blondie.
"Wow, you think that we're going to be in any way, shape, or form threatened by anything you write on that stupid little board of yours?" Bleached Blondie mocked Mark, who had an angry look on his face. She laughed and her laugh sounded as annoying as nails on a chalkboard. "You're as threatening as a Chihuahua."
The angry look on Mark's face faded and it turned to one of defeat. You looked back at him and tried to silently communicate to him that he shouldn't take Bleached Blondie's words seriously. He seemed to get what you were trying to tell him a moment later and the look on his face changed back to one of anger.
"Aw, would you look at that? The little Chihuahua won't give up." The last girl in the group, who stood out like a sore thumb next to both Blondie and Bleached Blondie because this girl had natural brunette hair. She was also the self-proclaimed leader of the little group that contained her, Blondie, and Bleached Blondie. You decided to call her "Ringleader" just for the hell of it. She also happened to be the one to kick you out of the little circle of friends to begin with so you loathed her the most out of the three of them. "What he doesn't seem to realize is that his bark is nowhere near as bad as his bite."
Bleached Blondie's annoying nails on a chalkboard laugh rang out when she heard Ringleader say this. "Bark? There's no bark whatsoever. That kid's probably never spoke a single word in his entire life."
Mark's anger seemed to increase when she said this and it showed on his face.  So what? What does me not speaking at all over the course of my entire life have to do with any of this?
"It has to do with the fact that you're defending (Y/N)!" Blondie snapped. "You should just leave right now because this situation isn't even any of your business to begin with."
(Y/N) is my friend and if someone is bullying her, then it is most definitely my business.
Blondie rolled her eyes and before you could even react, she went over to Mark and shoved him hard into the sand.
"Don't fucking shove him you bitch!" You allowed your anger to consume you as you dove straight for Blondie, tackling her to the ground and not holding back as you punched her in the face several times as hard you possibly could. She begged for you to stop but you didn't respond to her plea and yanked on her hair almost hard enough to rip strands of it out. "Listen to me right now you little shit. If you ever do anything like that ever again, I won't hesitate to do more damage than I did last time. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, I understand." Blondie's voice was small and weak as you got off of her and as she slowly got up a moment later. She stumbled a bit and nearly fell back down to the ground, only managing to save herself from doing so at the very last second.
"Seriously? You're going to give up that easily?" Ringleader scoffed and shot Blondie a look of disappointment. "I've seen ten year olds fight better than that. Then again, that's probably what both of your strengths are equal to."
"What did you say? I didn't quite hear you." You balled your right hand into a fist and showed it to her.
"You know what I said (Y/N). I'm pretty sure that your hearing aid's in check."
"Wow, I'm honestly surprised that you even know what that is because it has nothing to do with cute boys and shopping, the two things that take up all of the space in your peanut sized brain."
"You better watch what you're saying to me." Ringleader crossed her arms and had a look on her face that clearly showed that she was pissed off. "I can make your life a living hell at school. All I have to do is get Julian to send me one simple picture so I can post it online and your social life is over in a blink of an eye."
You tried to remain calm and act like you were in no way terrified of what she was saying.
But it didn't work because you were actually terrified.
"And what "one simple picture" are you referring to?" You tried to make your question come out as threatening and fearless, but it instead came out as small and weak.
A small smirk formed on Ringleader's face and you knew that she knew that she would have you begging on your knees pretty soon. "Oh, come on. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. You can't pretend like you don't remember all the fun that you and Julian had in eighth grade." She put heavy emphasis on the word "fun."
"H-how do you know about that? Julian wasn't supposed to tell anyone and I haven't told anyone either."
Ringleader laughed and you were glad that, unlike Bleached Blondie's, her laugh was actually tolerable to listen to. "(Y/N), I know everything about everyone because I have my sources. You may not have guessed this about me, but I'm not someone who likes drama and gossip if anything's not true. I like the stuff that's actually got some truth to it." She laughed again, only this time it was only a little bit. "And I know that everything that happened between you and Julian in eighth grade has some truth to it. His phone confirms everything and there's no doubt in my mind that the girl in this picture that you know I'm talking about is you."
"Why are you even doing this? What did I ever do to you? I was nothing but nice to you from first grade on. As far as I know, I did nothing wrong."
Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Mark writing something and Ringleader must have noticed you glancing over at him because she glanced over at him as well. When she saw that he was writing something, she snatched the dry erase board from him and threw it into the water. She had thrown it pretty far due to the fact that being in sports her entire life made her extremely skilled at throwing.
"Okay, now you've crossed the line!" You could anger rising up in you again. "It's one thing to threaten to ruin the little social status that I hold in our school but it's another thing to be completely and utterly rude and throw my friend's dry erase board into the water when he has done nothing wrong and should deserve a chance to say something if he wants to."
"Friend?" Ringleader asked in a way that made it sound like you had said a word she didn't like at all. "That loser is your friend?"
"First of all, he's not a loser and second of all, can we not get distracted from the conversation that we were just having?"
"Fine. Whatever, boyfriend stealer." Ringleader scoffed.
"What the hell are you even talking about? I haven't had a boyfriend since eighth grade."
"Yeah, exactly."
"That still doesn't explain what the hell you're talking about."
Ringleader sighed in annoyance. "And you say that I'm stupid." She sighed again. "You weren't the only one who dated Julian in eighth grade."
"Well, of course I wasn't. Julian and I broke up about a month before eighth grade ended."
"Yeah, Julian and I also broke up about a month before eighth grade ended."
"You mean-"
"I mean that he cheated on you with me you stupid bitch! God! Do I have to spell it out letter by letter for you to finally fucking understand?"
"But he never made it seem like he was cheating on you."
"That's because he's really good with people. He can get someone to do whatever he wants and whenever he wants it."
"Wait, why didn't you bring this up before if you were so upset about it to the point that you didn't even want to be my friend anymore?"
"I've spent the last three years acting like I didn't care. That day when I told you to stop being in the group was the day that I realized that I did care that Julian cheated on me."
"Why exactly are you mad at me? I had no idea that Julian was even a cheater until you told me this."
"I'm mad at you because you got to have all the fun while I got the shitty end of it." Ringleader was back to being her normal, bitchy self. There was no trace of sadness left in her voice or her face. "I still have bruises and scars from him."
"No, he didn't-"
"Yes. He did." Ringleader's tone was now bitter and hatred filled her eyes and you didn't whether the hatred was targeted towards you or Julian. "While he did "the deed" with you, he would turn his back and treat me like his punching bag."
"Look, I'm sorry that he hurt you both physically and emotionally. I truly am. But if any of this conversation was supposed to be a segway into you apologizing for kicking me out of the group and saying that you want me back, I'm not accepting your apology. I was really hurt when that happened and I can't forgive you for doing that to me enough to actually be your friend or any of your friends again." You looked over at Bleached Blondie and Blondie so that they knew that you didn't forgive them either.
Ringleader scoffed, her emotions changing yet again. You swore that she changed emotions faster than the weather changed. "You're sadly mistaken. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a picture to steal from Julian to post online."
"Go ahead and post it." You shrugged, signaling that you didn't care. "See if anyone cares. That picture is three years old and I doubt that anyone is going to give a fuck about a picture that's three years old, especially since Julian and I are no longer together. Besides, it's not even like either of us are naked in the picture so there's nothing shocking that'll give people something to talk about."
Ringleader scoffed again. "You clearly don't know how high school works (Y/N). People are going to be all over this picture Monday morning. You and Julian will be the center of attention and people will be all over you with questions. If not, then they'll just make fun of you."
"We'll see about that." You smiled a bit. "Run along now. I bet that you have a hair appointment that you don't want to miss."
"Yeah, whatever." The way Ringleader rolled her eyes and scoffed made it seem like she really did have a hair appointment that she didn't want to miss. "Come on girls, let's go. We've wasted our time here."
"See you two losers on Monday." Bleached Blondie taunted before catching up with Ringleader while dragging Blondie behind her.

Wow, those girls used to be your friends? You glanced back at Mark and saw that he was soaking wet from having to go into the water in order to retrieve his dry erase board.
"Yeah..."
How? They're nothing like you.
"They changed, something that seems to happen to a lot of the people that I become friends with. Julian changed, Derek changed, and I'm sure that you're going to end up changing at some point."
Well, of course I'll change. I'll get older and grow wiser. But I can promise you that I won't change like those assholes did.
You suddenly found yourself thinking about everything that has happened within the last two months. Your "friends" dumping you, Mark disappearing for an entire month, Derek only wanting to be your friend to gain a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with you, your father abusing you, and your mother saying all those nasty things she said to you this morning that you'd rather not recall. It all hit you like someone had punched you in the stomach with all the strength they could muster.
"Mark, I can't go to school Monday morning. That picture... I lied about the content of the picture because I didn't want her to post the picture that I was thinking of and the picture that Julian promised to hide extremely well. I'm hoping she was talking about the one where both of us were only half naked and posing in front of the mirror in his room."
Wait, what picture do you not want her to post?
"I can't say because you'll be ashamed of me."
I'll only be ashamed if you haven't learned from your mistake.
"Oh, trust me. I have. I had a really close call where one of my teachers at the time almost saw it because Julian was being a dumbass and looking at the picture while he was in class." You sighed and lowered your voice, even though you were almost one-hundred percent sure that there wasn't anyone around. "Julian and I were, well, doing "the deed," for lack of a better way of phrasing it without saying it directly. Anyway, we got really into it and he decided to take a picture of us laying next to each other in his bed. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if we weren't totally naked in the picture."
(Y/N)...
"I learned my lesson, don't worry!" You stopped him before he could write anything else. "I actually learned a lot of lesson from being in a relationship with Julian. We made a lot of mistakes while we were together because we were just a couple of dumbasses back then."
Well, at least you've learned from your mistakes. There are people out there who just never learn.
"Yeah..."
What's wrong?
"I'm just thinking about everything's that happened. It's just been so much in so little time. I was already dreading going home after you inevitably had to go home and now I'm dreading going to school."
You don't have to dread either one of those things.
"What do you mean?"
Well, my mom could use an extra hand with housework and the like. She's also always wanted to have a daughter.
"Are you saying that I should come and live with you?"
Mark simply nodded in response.
"I feel like I would be a burden."
You wouldn't. If you tell my mom everything that's going on, she'll let you live with us in a heartbeat. She absolutely despises people who mistreat their children in any way. As long as you help her with anything she asks you to, you can consider that as payment for her letting you live with us.
"Mark..." You didn't know what to say so you just pulled him into a tight hug and whispered, "Thank you so much."
You have no need to thank me. It's the least I can do for everything that you've ever done to me, especially for defending me from Julian the day we met and that day at the park.
"Well, I couldn't just stand by and let you get mistreated like that."
Mark smiled for a few moments before he started writing, Go home and get your stuff packed. While you're heading home, text me your address and I'll come and pick you up when you're ready. You don't have to explain everything your parents ever did to my mom if you don't feel comfortable with doing so. All I have to say is that they abused you and my mom will let you stay with us. She's just that kind of person.
"Now I see where you get your kindness from." You smiled a bit and shoved him lightly.
Yeah, my mom always taught me to treat others with kindness. Mark blushed a bit and tried to hide it with his dry erase board. But anyway, you get your stuff packed and let me know when you're ready. There's somewhere I want to take you. I want you to forget about everything for just a little while and have some fun.
Before you could ask Mark what he was talking about, he hurried off in the opposite direction that you were going to have to head in in order to get back to your house. You sighed, feeling nothing but dread knowing that you would have to confront both of your parents when you got back to your house.