It’s almost the end of a tiring week and everyone’s excited for some downtime. It was harrowing as every lesson is vital because there are only two weeks left before midterms. Everyone was already dead tired when Wednesday hit. Now that it’s Friday, everyone just wanted to get some sleep.
The last class for the week is Intro to Economics. The class is taught by one of the more popular professors in the college, Mr. Luis Francesco. He’s one of the student body’s favorites, simply because he’s a little more forgiving to students than other professors. There’s a rumor going around that his student passing rate is about 75% and with that, everyone respected him just to get on his good side. He gets a lot of gifts from students, mostly from the female populace of the college. Apart from his forgiving nature, he’s also good-looking and very charming.
Everyone settled in on their seats and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. Mr. Francesco always starts the class with an ice breaker, though the students don’t think of it that way. His ice breakers are more like mini quizzes because the students are required to solve an equation to get extra credit. The equations are based on the lesson they’ll be having that day or the lessons they had the previous days, so students are required to read ahead or have a refresher with their previous lessons before going to class.
The clock slowly ticked as it reached 11 a.m. The door opens and the students see Mr. Francesco in his white formal shirt and black slacks. The tapping sound of his brown dress shoes echoes across the room as he walks towards his desk.
“Well, everyone seems to be on edge. Take it easy, kids, this isn’t some sort of competition. Its just extra credit is all,” Mr. Francesco smugly said, placing his things on his desk.
He turns his back as he starts writing the equation on the whiteboard. Mr. Francesco takes his seat, and the students start answering. You can feel the tense atmosphere as the sounds of pens furiously tapping on echoes throughout the room. The students were given only five minutes to answer so everyone was on edge. Extra credit is a big deal when you’re struggling, or you just want to have a backup plan whenever you fall short at some point.
“Alright, pens down—” Mr. Francesco said as the door slammed open.
By the door stood a brightly dressed woman. She’s wearing a green dress with a thin white belt around her waist with a knit gray cardigan to top it all off. She’s carrying a laptop and some notebooks in her left hand while holding the strap of her cream-colored shoulder bag on the right. She’s tall with long legs to boast. She looks like a model from the way she stands and looks very sophisticated.
“Ms. Reyes, so glad for you to join us. To whom do I owe the pleasure?” Mr. Francesco sarcastically said to the girl.
“Sorry for being late again, Mr. Luis, I was caught in a bit of a jam,” the brightly clothed woman replied, grabbing the whiteboard marker from Mr. Francesco’s desk.
She starts writing on the board and before we realized it, she had already finished answering the equation. Mr. Francesco kept nodding while looking at her solution.
“Well now, you saved me time from writing the answer and the solution,” Mr. Francesco said as he laughed.
Everyone was stunned and people started to murmur. The two girls beside Skylar also start to gossip. One girl said that the girl’s name is “Rainbow” and they heard that she’s very popular among the professors in the university. They speculated that she was sleeping with some of them just to get her grades up too. Overhearing this, Skylar raises her eyebrows and starts to ponder if what she heard was true.
To Skylar, the girl, Rainbow, didn’t need to do so. Rainbow looks too well-off, Skylar thought. From her designer bag and heels, she looked like she could be an heiress to a family business. If she had problems with grades, she could have easily switched courses. With her physique alone, she could have easily been a model.
“I presume you’ll be using your extra credit points for your tardiness again?” Mr. Francesco said.
“Of course. I thought changing schedules to a later class would help me with the tardiness, but I guess not,” Rainbow said as she shrugs.
Rainbow sat on the empty seat in the middle of the front row right in front of the professor’s table. The class started as usual, with Mr. Francesco teaching bite-sized information for us to easily digest. Everyone was paying close attention, most of them were taking notes. But when Skylar looked at Rainbow, from her side profile, she was just looking at the board, looking as if she was bored. When class ended, Mr. Francesco let everyone go and had Rainbow stay behind.
Before going home, Skylar thought about eating lunch to save herself from the trouble of washing dishes back at home. She was looking for a table but couldn’t find a free one. Upon looking out the window, she saw the sun shining brightly. “That’s going to be a hassle,” she thought as she shakes her head. But she has no other options.
Skylar makes her way to the tennis court where she usually hangs out to read during free period, but it’s searing hot today. She looks around and finds a large tree beside the court. While preparing her lunch, she heard something from across the distance.
Curious, she went towards the noise. The sound came from the side of the tennis court lockers, behind the changing rooms. She approaches the changing rooms and starts hearing faint murmurs. She slowly walks to the side to peek at the corner and sees two males and a female. One guy with a buzz cut walking from side to side as the other one, wearing a very tacky shirt, holds a girl while covering her mouth. Seeing this, Skylar pulls out her phone and starts recording what was happening.
“You know, I didn’t like what you did last time,” the guy with the buzz cut said as he plays with the girl’s hair. The girl being held was trying to struggle the best that she could, kicking and squirming all over.
The guy with the buzz cut gestures to the guy holding the girl to take his hand off her mouth. Skylar suddenly realizes that she knew who the girl was. Having to get a better look, she realizes that it was Rainbow, the girl from her class earlier.
“What do you want to say to me?” The guy with the buzz cut said, crossing his arms.
Rainbow spits at the guy and curses. “You’re trash. Your face looks like it’s begging to be slapped!” Rainbow exclaimed as she squirms and grunts, trying to break her way out of the grip of the guy holding her.
The guy with the buzz cut slaps Rainbow across the face. The impact was so hard that Rainbow was knocked out in the process.
“I think you gave her too much sauce, dude,” the guy with the tacky shirt said as he laughed.
“Put her down,” the other guy said while he chuckled.
The guy in the tacky shirt lays Rainbow down on the ground while the other guy starts to unbuckle his belt. Seeing this, Skylar starts panicking, thinking about what she should do. She wanted to call for help, but then feared that it would be too late if she were to leave this very moment.
The guy in the tacky shirt starts to unbutton Rainbow’s dress. Skylar looks around looking for something that could help. The only thing she can find is a bucket filled with dirty water and the mop beside it. She picks up the mop, raises the volume of her phone to max, and starts playing a song to distract the two.
“What the--?” The guy with the buzz cut said as he turns towards the distance.
“I’ll check it out,” the other guy said sneaking towards where the sound was coming from.
As the guy turns to the corner. Skylar swings the mop hard, hitting the guy on the head with the wooden mop handle, breaking it in half. The guy plummets to the ground, knocked out.
“Hey! What the hell just happened?” The guy with the buzz cut screamed as he ran towards his friend.
The guy with the buzz cut looked around the corner and was surprised by a shower of dirty water. Skylar hits him on the head with the water bucket, making him bleed and knocks him down. She rushes towards Rainbow and tries to wake her up.
“Hey, hey, wake up. Are you all right?” Skylar said, trying to shake Rainbow awake.
Suddenly, Skylar’s hair gets pulled. “So, the little wench has a friend, huh?” The guy with the buzz cut said while he starts dragging Skylar by the hair, pulling her away from Rainbow.
He punches Skylar behind the head, making her hit the ground. He proceeds to sit atop Skylar and starts choking her.
“No one makes me bleed, bitch,” the guy with the buzz cut said, continuing to choke the life out of Skylar.
Skylar’s vision starts to dim. She tried to struggle but she couldn’t find the strength to knock him off of her. Things started to go dark when she faintly heard someone scream and then completely fainted.
When she came to, she woke up to find herself in the sickroom. Beside her was Rainbow, sleeping on the chair. Skylar looks at Rainbow and sees that the left side of her face was badly swollen.
Skylar tries to stand up. She was on the edge of the bed when she felt the pain behind her head. She caresses the back of her head and lets out a small grunt from the pain she felt as Rainbow wakes up.
“Hi,” Rainbow said softly.
“Hi,” Skylar replied.
“I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Rainbow, and you are?” Rainbow says, reaching out her hand.
“Skylar, Skylar Reinigen,” she replies with a smile and reaches to shake Rainbow’s hand.
“You saved me back there. I never thought anyone would be able to find me,” Rainbow said, shaking her head.
“It was just by sheer coincidence actually,” Skylar replied with a smile.
“Well, coincidence or not, you have my utmost gratitude. I owe you my life. Good thing there were some gym students passing by, they helped me save you as well,” Rainbow insisted while reaching in to hug Skylar.
“Really? We’re both just lucky then, I suppose. But who were those two, anyway?” Skylar asks.
“Those two were just a bunch of jerks that I met at a party. They tried to offer me money to sleep with them. I slapped Matt across the face in return which he didn’t like. That’s why they were after me,” Rainbow explained while hugging Skylar.
“But you aren’t that kind of person, are you?” Skylar replied, not sure if Rainbow will take offense.
“No, it just seems that way. I don’t understand why people take me that way,” Rainbow said as she shakes her head pulling herself away from Skylar.
“So you know what they were saying about you?” Skylar said.
“What everyone says? Yeah, but I don’t take anything from it. It’s because I’m friendly that they take it the wrong way,” Rainbow said proudly, sitting back on the chair.
Having a closer look, Skylar notices dark circles under Rainbow’s eyes. She didn't notices it before because of Rainbow’s makeup, but now, it really shows Rainbow’s lack of sleep.
She wanted to ask Rainbow about her sleeping habits but before they could continue their conversation, the school nurse interrupted them and instructed both of them to go to the director’s office whenever they could. They both look at each other as they nod and stand up.
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