I am left to my own devices as I lie on the cold pavement in pain. I hurt like hell, my private parts being attacked like that. Oh it hurts, it hurts so, so much. I slowly get up, still hurting. I look around and see that there are people walking by me, as if I didn’t exist. To see them just walk by like nothing happened is more painful than being hit in the balls.

I fully get up and start walking to school like the people passing me. Sometimes, it’s easier to pretend that somebody in trouble doesn’t exist. Self-preservation we call it, protecting ourselves at the cost of someone else. We don’t try to help them as it might get us in trouble or hurt. It may have been useful when we were in the stone age but in the modern age, it does more damage than good.

I start to ponder ways to get Ben off my back. I can’t just give him a fake number because if I do, he will just find me and give me a beating I won’t forget for a while. If I have Heather and Ben meet, I will most likely not end well for Heather. At the moment, I don’t know what to do with the situation.

Arriving at school, I keep thinking of ways to try and resolve this situation. The first classes pass with no ideas to how to solve it. I am basically trapped in a lose-lose situation the way I see it. No way out of this unscathed for little ol’ me. As lunch comes, I wait to meet with Heather.

I am obviously nervous as there are implications if she finds out I’m basically being held hostage. Arriving at the lunch room, I receive a text from her. The message says that she can’t eat with me as she has some more teachers to help. Seeing this, I quickly find my seat at the corner of the classroom and start to eat.

Around halfway through my meal, a person who I can only assume is one of Ben’s lackeys comes up to me. He grabs a seat at the table and sits down.

“Ok Charlie or whatever your name is.”

It’s Cameron, why am I not surprised the kid doesn’t even bother to know my name.

“Give your phone, quickly. I’m going to put in a phone number and Ben is going to answer his phone. You are to listen to what he says and once you are finished, hand the phone back to me so I can delete the number I called. Don’t want you trying to hack Ben.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that weird rumor about me! For some reason, there is gossip that I can hack into people’s information just by knowing their phone number. I have no idea how that rumor came to be, since I’m not really that well known. But I can only assume Ben made it up to try and slander my name and meager reputation.

I give him the phone and he quickly types a phone number in. He holds the phone up to his ear and waits for someone to pick up. After a few rings, someone answers.

“Yeah, this is this Chris dude’s phone. I’ll hand it over to him.”

He hands me the phone and I take it.

“Hello?”

“Hey Cameron! How’s my little man doing? Good I hope! Look I need to know how it’s going with Heather. I don’t have the patience to wait for next week!”

“Uh, nothing yet, she bailed out on lunch because she had to help some more teachers out with the new system. I’ll try and talk to her about it after school alright? I’ll see what I can do.”

“To help, right? I don’t need someone who is going to backstab me. I need someone who can slide me into her DMs if you know what I’m saying.”

I hear him and a few of his lackeys chuckle through the phone. Disgusting, all he ever thinks about is sports, girls and parties.

“Yeah, of course to help you! Why would I try to backstab you?”

“Good to hear Cameron! Good. To. Hear. Make sure you make progress before the weekend alright? I’ll be keeping tabs on you.”

With that he hangs up and I start to look at the phone. The kid who sits in front of me sees what I’m doing and quickly jerks his arm out.

“Hey! Hand the phone over, now. I am not going to ask you again.”

Slowly, I hand the phone over and he deletes the number of the phone he called. After doing this, he hands me my phone and walks away. With how aggressive Ben is pushing for this, my situation has gone from bad to worse.