The soccer field.

"'Go to a soccer game,' she says," Luke grumbled as he trudged across the slightly damp grass. "'Maybe you'll make some friends' she says."

Luke sighed as he walked over to the schools soccer field under his mother's orders. She somehow found out there was a game today and was tired of Luke sitting around at home trying on the new clothes he'd bought and strutting around his room like he was on Project Runway, so she shoved him into the car and made him attend.

Out of protest, he was currently wearing one of his new outfits, a light pastel sweater with one green and one yellow sleeve with a pink body and a blue hood, paired with a white pleated skirt and knee high white boots. He'd briefly thought about how much white he was wearing, but decided he wouldn't get too messy sitting on the bleachers.

He'd go to the game for an hour, and then call his mom and have her pick him up whether the game had ended or not.

Luke had his license, but Liz knew her son well and figured he wouldn't go to the game if she let him drive himself. Instead, she dropped him in front of the school and insisted he take a picture of the field so she knew he went.

Luke headed towards the large group of people gathered around the rectangle of grass marked off with white chalk lines. He snapped a quick picture of the players on the grass and sent it to her, receiving a "have fun sweetie" with a bunch of sports emojis in reply. Putting his phone away, he looked around and wondered how they got the lines to be so straight on the field. Luke knew he could never get anything to be straight. He chuckled at the joke when it popped into his head.

"What are you laughing at, Nancy?" Someone called. Luke knew they meant him, that was another derogatory term they liked to call him. He gave them credit, they used a wide variety of names for him to keep it interesting.

Instead of responding, he just shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket and continued on his way. He was hoping to find a space to sit at the top of the bleachers that didn't have a lot of people.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case and the bleachers were practically full. He saw two girls get up from the front row and he reluctantly made his way there. He wasn't about to stand on the sidelines for an hour. It would kill his feet, since his boots had a slight heel.

He hated sitting in the front of anything, because he couldn't see who was behind him and what they were planning to do to him. Since that was the only space left, he knew he'd have to suffer through it.

    Looking around at all the people in the stands, Luke couldn't help but feel an ache in his chest. Friends sat huddled together with matching face paint of their favorite players number, couples stood near each other, hands casually intertwined, an arm over a shoulder, the occasional peck. Why couldn't he have something like that?

    Instead, he was stuck sitting by himself, in between a couple girls he knew from his Spanish class, and someone he didn't know but who obviously knew him because they shuffled as far away as possible and gave him a dirty look.

    He was used to it, but he still felt hurt at the way people hated him just for being who he was. It didn't affect any of them by letting him live his life. He wasn't doing anything to hurt anyone, he wasn't going to force anyone else to be gay, all he wanted was someone, just one person to look at him the way they looked at anyone else. Even just one friend would be great.

    Turning his mind from these thoughts--because thinking that way for too long would cause him to go to A Bad Place--he looked to the soccer field.

    There were two different teams with different colored jerseys running around the green. The "away" team from the other school were wearing yellow/gold jerseys with black pants and Luke's school's team had bright red jerseys with grey pants and a red pin stripe down the side. He rather liked the colors that were out on the field, and found himself watching the colors instead of the actual game. It didn't matter to him much, as he didn't particularly care about sports, but he knew the basics at least. He wasn't that stereotypical gay kid who loved fashion and Lady Gaga and didn't know anything about sports or tools. His brothers made sure he'd be able to fit in. They worked so hard to help him make friends, which is another reason why he couldn't let them know he was being bullied so bad.

    While he was zoning out and thinking about random things, he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. He turned around hesitantly, wondering what the prank was already.

    "Can you grab that for me?" Some girl he didn't know asked, pointing to a pair of sunglasses that had fallen on the floor of the bleacher by his feet. He nodded, shifting forward and pinching the sides of the frame between two fingers. He sat back up and handed them to the girl, who had a small pout on her face.

    "Thanks," she dismissed him, turning to a group of people behind her.

    He knew that situation could have been much worse, so he brushed off the weirdness of the interaction and looked back to the field.

    The other team kicked the ball out of bounds near the stands and a couple people around him started cheering loudly.

    "ASHTON!" a couple girls screamed as he ran over to take the penalty throw in, blowing a kiss to the stands and causing an uproar within the crowd. He threw the ball down the sideline, tossing it to Calum who faked out the only member of defense nearby and sprinted down the field. The crowd went wild as Calum was the only person up against the goalie. He took a second to line up his shot before kicking the ball right into the upper left corner of the goal.

    Everyone in the stands stood, cheering and screaming at the players in congratulations. Luke didn't want to get up, but he felt out of place with everyone else standing. Reluctantly he also got up, but kept his arms folded over his chest, hands inside the sleeves of his sweater to keep warm. It wasn't super cold, but he always felt better when he could curl up inside a sweater.

    The crowd simmered down, and people started to sit as the players stopped jumping on Calum and Ashton in celebration and started to line up for the kick off. Luke kept his eyes on the field as he sat back down, but instantly got back up, gasping as he felt something warm and sticky on his butt.

    He whimpered as he turned around and saw a basket of chili fries where he had been sitting. He glanced at the back of his skirt and saw a giant brown and red stain on the once pristine white.

    He looked up and saw the group of kids with the sunglasses from before howling in laughter, looking at his distraught face in amusement. Of course he saw the couple flashes of a camera, because someone had to post the photos of his embarrassment online. They actually had a snapchat group dedicated to embarrassing photos of him (they'd told him about it and discussed adding him to the group before he ended it by saying he didn't have snapchat. That wasn't true, but he did go home that day and deleted his account).

    Trying to keep his pride intact, he swiftly left the seat, not quite running down the steps and underneath the bleachers where he could take stock of the state of his outfit.

    He knew it would be pointless to try and wash it, but he still went inside the school to the bathroom in hopes of removing the actual chili from his skirt. He knew he wouldn't be able to get in his moms car if he had food all over over him. Maybe he could flip the skirt around so the stain was in the front and it wouldn't ruin the fabric seats.

    Shaking his head and deciding to cross that bridge when he came to it, he set about finding the sinks. There were porta-potties set up in the corner of the field, but they usually didn't have running water, so he made his way to the bathroom near the art hallway.

    Luke found the soap dispenser and used a damp paper towel to try and remove the stain. After he'd scrubbed the worst of it away, he patted it with a dry towel. It was most definitely unwearable, the stain made it look like he shit his pants, but at least now he wouldn't make a mess. As he was almost finished, he sent a text to his mom asking her to pick him up. He pocketed his phone (the skirt had pockets) and left the bathroom, walking down the hallway.

    He passed the locker rooms, hearing the whoops and cheers of everyone inside. The game must have ended. The door burst open, trapping Luke between it and the wall as he waited for everyone to exit the room so he could get out from behind the door.

    When he did, he peeked around the edge hoping no one would catch him. He sighed in relief and continued walking down the hall when he felt something under his arms and realized his feet weren't touching the ground anymore.

    "Hey, Fairy, what's up?" Ashton's sinister voice whispered in his ear.

    "Get him in here, Ash." Calum's voice urged. Luke whipped his head around, trying to figure out what they were doing, when he found himself back in the bathroom again.

    "Well well well. What do we have here?" Ashton taunted, letting Luke go and pushing him onto the floor.

    "P-please let me go," he whispered.

    "And why would we do that?" Ashton asked. Luke noticed Calum standing nearby, waiting to see what Ashton was planning. "I expect an answer, Lucas." he snapped when Luke didn't reply.

    "Please,"

    Ashton smirked. He loved the power he felt when he had the small, trembling boy in his grasp. He could do just about anything he wanted, and Luke did nothing about it. He just took it. Sometimes Ashton wished he would react, it would certainly make it better, but this was also good. It made him feel like he had some control, which he needed even now.

    Ashton saw Luke glance over at Calum and he took the second of distraction to punch the short boy in the stomach. Luke doubled over and groaned in pain, and Ashton continued to beat him up. Since it was the weekend and Luke would be around family, Ashton decided to keep the hits to a place he could cover up. They rarely did anything to him on his face or an area where someone could see. If they did, their game would be over and that would make him sad.

    The locker room was silent except for the occasional grunt as Luke got the wind knocked out of him until his phone rang, a One Direction song blasting from the device.

    Calum snickered, recognizing the song since his younger siblings and all the girls in the school were obsessed.

    "How positively original," he drawled at the ringtone. Luke rolled his eyes and looked up at Ashton, begging the bigger boy to let him go so he could answer his phone. He knew that was his mom wondering where he was.

    "Whatever, Daisy. This was getting lame, anyway. Let's go, Cal."

Luke took a couple seconds to dry his tears and compose himself so he could talk to his mom. He redialed her number and pressed the phone to his ear.

    He got up slowly from the floor, wincing as the sore muscles in his stomach were stretched and pulled as he moved around. He walked over to the mirror and lifted his hoodie, seeing the beginning of a couple bruises littering his pale belly.

    "Lukey, where are you, honey? I don't see you." Liz said from the other end of the phone.

    "Sorry, mum, I needed to go to the bathroom." Should he tell her what happened now, or wait until she saw? "I sat in someone's chili fries and it stained my skirt," he pouted as he walked to the door. He groaned silently, remembering how heavy the locker room doors were. The locker room was also a safe room in case of tornado or school shooter or something, so they were made to be unbreakable. It also meant they weighed a ton, and he was already pretty shrimpy, but add his injuries to it, he wasn't sure how he was going to get the door open.

    Instead of thinking about it, he put his phone on mute and gasped as he pulled it open, blinking the tears back and slipping through the small crack.

    "Luke?"

    "What? Sorry, my phone slipped." he was used to making up random excuses off the top of his head like that. When you kept so many secrets from the people you loved, you learned to lie pretty quickly.

    "I said how did you do that, clumsy kid? And also, you're not getting in my car with--"

    "I already washed it, mum, don't worry. I don't want to ruin your seats," Luke chuckled when his mom huffed.

    "All right. Well, I'm waiting by the flag pole," she told him.

    "I'm on my way, should be two minutes." He shuffled as quickly as he could through the hallways. He knew he'd need to stand up straight and stop cradling his ribs once he opened the doors and went outside, but for now, he could let himself be injured. "Hey, mum?"

    "Yeah honey?"

    "Do you think it's possible..."

    "I'll help you clean it at home, baby. Don't worry."

    "Thanks," he breathed a sigh in relief. He wasn't sure what the outcome would be, chili stains on pure white was tough, but he was glad his mom was there for him.

    "No problem. Are you almost outside? I've got food in the oven, we need to get home ASAP."

    "Yeah, I'll be there in a second."

    "Okay, see you then."

    She hung up the phone, and Luke took a deep breath, standing up straight and pushing the door open.

This weekend was going to be so much fun.

***

My poor babyyyyy why are they so mean 😩

(Stay tuned later today, they'll be another update 😀 this is not all you'll hear from me)

~ashtonfortherwin