"Oh my god! Listen to this!" Loralie Rosinger announces, shouting for everyone to hear. "I love Sonia Novak so much, she's a total goddess. But, she doesn't know I exist."

The crowd lapses into shrieking laughter - like witches cackling over their sacrificial altar. From her place in the very back of the throng, Cerise Miller watches on with growing panic as the bullying of the unfortunate boy continues. Sonia - tall, graceful, devastatingly beautiful Sonia Novak steps towards Loralie and snatches the diary from her. "Stop it!"

"Aw, why?" Loralie snickers. "Honey, he thinks you're a goddess. Give him a chance."

"You freak!" Sonia screams at the boy - one Toby Evans. Savagely, she tears his diary apart - just like his heart must be tearing in his chest. "If you fucking write about me in your stupid diary one more time, I'll have my boyfriend beat your creepy face up!" With that, she stomps off, walking all over the pages of Toby's heart.

"D'aww sugarcube..." Loralie coos at Toby, crossing her arms and cocking her hip to the side as she eyes him with false sympathy. "She's a bit catty today, eh? But don't lose hope just yet, Romeo. I'm sure someday she'll finally agree to being your Juliet."

"Yeah, sure." Tristan Blake scoffs, wrapping an arm around Loralie's curvy waist. "Maybe when all the men in the world are dead."

Everyone laughs again, and all poor Toby can do is stand to the side with his head bowed in embarrassment. Meanwhile, Cerise has seen enough to know that she may very well be the next target for those bullies. Quietly, she steals away, keeping her head low and her shoulders hunched as she hugs the edges of the hallway to hurry out to the school grounds. Once outside, she breaks into a full sprint towards the line of hickories that border the football field.

In the temporary safety of the trees, Cerise looks down at her arms - amongst the notes and textbooks is her newest journal, the one she bought a week ago with her first pay as the salesgirl at the local mart. This journal is special to her; it marks an achievement in her life - she cannot imagine it being torn up and trodden all over by Loralie and her despicable group of friends. More importantly, she cannot have them read her entries...

"Cerise Miller, is that you?"

Jerking at the sound of her name, Cerise lifts her head to see three boys coming her way. Steven Root, James Smith, and Roger Joseph are not boys that respect girls in the least - they're the ones that make girls want to hurry homewards if it's too late at night, they're the ones that get girls drunk at parties and clubs, and then carry them off somewhere else for fun.

Palms clammy, knees trembling, Cerise feels fear blowing its chilly breath down her spine. She has to do it; there's no other choice left. Stepping back deeper into the treeline, she opens her journal and begins tearing the first entries out, dropping the other contents of her arms in the process - they hold little concern at the moment. Crushing the pages into a ball, she desperately looks around and is rewarded with the sight of a hollow in one of the hickories nearby. Without a second thought, Cerise stuffs the papers into the hole, quickly stepping away from the tree just as the boys cross into the forest. They advance on her with stances like predators, smiles like psychopaths, and eyes glinting like the edges of sharp, serrated knives.

"Hey, Cerise," says one of them, Steven. He takes a step closer to her. "Watcha doing out here all alone?"

Cerise has no answer for him, only fear. Fast as lightning, another of them, Roger has her pinned against a tree. He's so close, too close - she can smell his rancid exhalation, with the pungently sweet underlay of his bubblegum. "She's not really alone, though," he says, his words washing over her in a wave of terror, "now that we're here..."

Eyes wide, breaths short and erratic, mind addled, Cerise's gut churns agonizingly, and all she can do in such a state is wish to be anywhere but here - anywhere. Just then a voice calls, loud and annoyed, "Root, Smith, Joseph! You better not be taking a whizz in there. Get back to practice, you mutts!"

"Coming Coach!" James yells back.

Roger releases Cerise, who stumbles unsteadily, and backs away a little. Jabbing a finger at her, he says, "you got lucky today." As if her luck is his curse.

As the three males retreat, Roger still watching her like a vulture over an injured gazelle, Cerise gathers her belongings from amidst the grasses, and then makes a mad, adrenaline-fueled dash back to the school building. On her way, she looks back at least thrice, trying to pinpoint her secret-keeping hickory from the other trees - a needle in a haystack. She will return later for her journal's pages, for she cannot leave them there, supposing one of the boys gets suspicious of her being in there and decides to snoop around. Leaving her pages in the hollow is to leave them susceptible to a number of potential risks.

It's just this one year, after that Cerise will be free - free as a bird in the sky. She cannot mess this up, cannot let a few sheets of paper be the complete ruination of her already worse situation. She will not let the clique of bullies, or any of their other sub-branching messengers, get another reason to pick on her.

***

All this drama, this victimization, this torture of one for the fun of another - Devin Jameston loathes it. His hatred comes from the memories they bring back. Before the crowd has even fully gathered, Devin takes to the corridor that leads outdoors. In an indolent stroll, he crosses the football field, marking a path to the hickories stippling the edge of the grounds. It is here that he finds the two things he prefers more than anything else life has to offer, solitude and quiet; a break from people - noisy, dubious, irritating people.

Devin picks a spot behind a bush left to bramble wildly; its tiny, pink blossoms all but making up for its prickly thorns. He has only just pulled out his miniature beer canteen, when he hears someone come running into the forest. All he wants is a moment of peace and quiet to enjoy some beer and maybe a cigarette; that's all he asks for, but no! Luck doesn't favor him today, and he isn't surprised. Luck had forgotten him ages ago.

Standing up straighter, Devin relaxes when he sees it's only a girl; someone he recognizes from a few of his classes, but cannot put a name to her face. She has her back to him now, as unaware of being watched as one can be. He can see her waist-length, black hair made into her signature thin braid that overlays her spine. Minutes later, there's the sound of someone calling the girl, and Devin gets her name - Cerise Miller. The call elicits a strange reaction from her in return - not a beat passes before she starts ripping pages from one of her notebooks. The other books and papers slip from her grasp and take to the floor, however, she pays them no mind, still tearing the pages off their margins with a queer urgency.

As she takes two long strides to reach a hickory and shoves her balled pages into a hollow in its trunk, Devin unwittingly notices that she's taller than the average female, with a lean, almost anorexic frame. By then, three males have crossed into the treeline - linebackers of the Jefferson High football team; known more for their womanizing, chauvinistic, eve-teasing ways than for their team game. What transpires subsequently holds little interest and more disgust for him. Quietly, Devin leans back into the tree behind him and resumes indulging his light alcoholism.

The weak, yet palpable verve of beer buzzing through his system drowns out the background sounds of Jefferson High's commonality - bullying. Devin knows what being bullied feels like, but he does nothing to help Cerise. It's not his problem, not his lookout, and even if he tries to help, he's sure to get himself in greater trouble. His lack of control over his anger already has him a hair's breadth away from getting expelled. Risking expulsion is not something he wants to do, especially not now that he's only a year away from graduation, with his fingers touching the school degree - the minimum requirement for a steady job to start off with.

The sound of Coach Renner's exasperated vociferation has Devin jerked out of his buzz and scrambling to hide his beer canteen. Thankfully, the shrubbery provides enough cover to shield his presence from everyone. Silent and crouching, Devin watches as the Coach simply peers into the forest, shakes his head, then walks off towards the center of the field, followed shortly after by the three linebackers. Cerise then hustles to collect her fallen things, then hightails out of the forest, too.

Curious about her fearfulness regarding her notebook's pages, Devin waits until it's safe and then cuts a swath through the tall grasses to the particular hickory tree. Reaching into the hole, he brings out her crushed paper secrets and straightens them. On closer inspection, he sees they're diary entries, and is hit with the realization of why she was so afraid whilst hiding these.

This is rather amusing for him. As he reads on, the cogs in his dark, twisted mind turn slowly, formulating an idea so sick, yet so fucking entertaining. Should he execute this plan, he knows he will be no better than the multitudes of bullies in Jefferson High School - the fellow individuals he despises with a passion. But the appeal of this is much too great to consider morality. Besides, morality is overrated; what good will it do to pass up on this anyway; it will in no way improve his shambling life. Nevertheless, if he proceeds with this plan, he'll have some entertainment in at least some period of his insipid existence, and that's life-improving enough for him.

With a devious grin etching across his lips, Devin reaches into the pocket of his hoodie, fingers curling around the lone pen betwixt the tangles of his earphone wire. Considering how Cerise kept looking back at the forest and the happenstances in the hallway concerning diaries earlier, he is convinced that she will return for her journal pages. So, he decides to leave a little surprise for her.

***