“Hi! I’m Terrin and apparently a klepto what are you in for?” I decided to be upfront and hope for the best. I was trying to not let the accusations get to me too much. Dealing with trauma through humor has become my thing. 

“My names Tyler” he said not turning to look at me. He had long brown hair with wicked highlights throughout it. I was determined to get him open. It’s truly a bad habit of mine, the more people don’t wanna talk the more I wanna talk to them. Its like I’m trying to crack a puzzle for some treasure inside. Most people just say I’m nosy. 

“I like your hair! It reminds me of hot cocoa” I stated hoping he’d at least look at me. With his dark hands and cool hair, I wanted to see his eyes. They could be so blue its piercing or brown, warm, and comforting. 

With shock the turned to look at me “You do? You don’t think it’s weird?” he stared at me wide eyes. 

“Well duh it’s like you’ve never got a complement before” I tried to be nonchalant, but man was he beautiful. He had those delightful honey eyes they had streaks of green shining from the deep contrast of the rest of his deep brown iris’. His skin was even better then dark and smooth, it had patches of light toned shapes adorning every part of him. He looked like a piece of abstract art that could’ve been at the louvre. “You have gotten compliments before, right?” The longer he looked at me the more I felt like I was melting under his gaze.  

“Um… no, not really.” He said in a quiet voice finally dropping his gaze from me. “Most people think I look weird. They call me lots of names or um…or they laugh at me when I get excited about someone being nice to me since they were just pranking me.”

“That just means I’ll give you extra compliments whenever I see you” I paused “That is if you tell me why you’re in here?” Showing off my best smile.

After a few seconds of silence, he spoke “…… I tried I really did. I don’t want to give in and get angry, but it gets so hard. I tried talking to the teacher and they said I should toughen up.

Everyone thinks I’m just too vain in thinking about my looks, but it hurts so bad. All I can think about every night is their taunts. Today I just… snapped I attacked a guy after he tripped me and called me an ugly dog” he stared into his hands with tears dropping down. I tried to pretend I didn’t see them.

 “The comment wasn’t even the worst one they had said but it-it was just a tipping point. I launched myself at him and ju-just punched as hard as I could” he continued freely sobbing

now and getting hard to understand.

I couldn’t help it I just jumped to hug him. He gripped onto my shirt and just cried. We didn’t know each other at all but in that moment, he trusted me enough to break down in front of me. I said soothing words like my mom does to me and eventually he calmed down. There was an awkward silence when he let go and sat back down.

“I’m sorry” he said trying to retreat from me and hide inside his hair again.

“What could you possibly be sorry for? That was way less vicious than I would be if I was in your place. Plus, on the Brightside you now have a friend to beat them up with” we giggled as his name was called by Beth with a sad smile he walked into the room. 

I took out some paper from my bag wrote my phone number and full name on it and when he left the office for me to go into it, I made sure to slip him the note. 

 After that Tyler and I would walk with each other every day after school. We had sleepover all the time. My mom loved having another kid around the house to feed and give way too many presents too. He became my brother in a way. 

He didn’t expect me to be anything but myself when we were together. 

It was the two of us against the world until we met Dave.