Aren, a boy who talks to few people and cares for no one, meets a girl named Mia and becomes captivated by her. He finds himself suddenly attached to her in a way he doesn't fully understand. She is sweet, cute, and small, and she opens up a part...
Mia arrived at her one-room apartment and dropped her bag near the door. As soon as she closed the door behind her, her phone rang. Looking at it, she was surprised to see Jack calling. He hadn't done that in a while.
"Hello?" Mia said into the phone.
"What the hell were you doing earlier?" Jack blurted.
Mia scoffed. "I could ask you the same thing. I knew you and your friends were bullies, that much has been clear after so many years of picking on people, but I didn't know y'all would stoop to assault too."
"It's none of your business Mia, do you understand what kind of situation you put yourself in?"
"What? Are you and your friends going to beat me up too?" She jeered.
"Just because I won't hurt you doesn't mean my friends won't. You need to mind your own business before you regret it. You got lucky. If I hadn't been there it would've gone a lot worse for you."
"Half the reason I stepped in was because you were there."
"What?" Jack questioned.
"Look," Mia said firmly. "we may not still be friends, but we used to be. And as big a jerk as you are, I still love your family. Your mom and dad raised me for eight years. The least I can do is try my best to keep their son from getting into serious trouble."
"Is that why you defended Aren?" He asked.
"Partially. If you had gone any further, if you had injured him any more than you already had, you do realize you could go to jail, right? I was saving your butt just as much as his."
"You said partially," Jack questioned flatly. "What's the other part?"
"You mean the other reason I defended Aren?"
"Yeah."
Mia sighed. "The other part is about him. Whatever he did to piss you off, it doesn't deserve a beating. You don't know what he has going on."
"He's a douche." Jack stated.
"I don't see it." Mia said.
"You don't see the bad in anyone. That's what makes you so stupid."
"I'm hanging up." Mia said dryly.
"Wait-" Jack started to say.
Mia hung up.
It had been a long walk home for Aren. His injuries had slowed him down significantly. He stood now in his bathroom, looking in the mirror. He pulled his shirt up to see what damage had been done to his body. His stomach, as well as the left side of his torso, was bruised and turning purple. He went to apply ointment, and took a sharp inhale of air, wincing from the pain of touching his injuries.
(Picture Aren looking in the mirror below)
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He thought back to the kick in his side and the blow to his stomach. Hopefully it was a pain worth the reward. He thought of the reward. The security camera. Tomorrow he would go report what the guys had done, and one look at the recorded footage would mean trouble for all three of those guys.
It was a simple plan, Aren thought. He re-counted the steps in his head. Write notes filled with incorrect information. Offer his notes to Greg, who would obviously share them with his two best friends, Jack and Chris. They would study the notes to prepare for the test. They would fail. They would come looking for him, and he would leave his real notes out on his desk for them to find. They would see the real notes, and realize he had tricked them. They would then probably want to beat him up. Behind the dumpster was their usual spot for messing with people, but that wouldn't work for his plan. No cameras there. He would have to walk out of the building at the end of the day right after they did to make sure they spotted him, meaning they would then chase him. He would lead them behind the school, and let them catch him there. Right in view of the security camera. He would take a beating, which was not ideal, but necessary. The camera would capture it, and by the end of the next day, one of the three guys would be expelled, while the other two would be suspended. So far the plan had gone exactly as he had hoped. The only thing left to do now was report them. Aren smirked, and a flash of someone flickered in his head.
He thought back again. The girl. Her name was Mia. She had defended him. Why? Aren struggled to comprehend her interference. She was an anomaly in his plan. A factor he didn't account for. She didn't throw his plan off track, but still. There she was. He tried to bring his thoughts back to something else, but he couldn't. Now that he had thought of her, she wouldn't leave his mind. It began to bother him. He seemed unable to push her image from his head. But why? She did not matter to him or his plan. She was just another face. So why, why couldn't he stop thinking of her? Suddenly, like a virus in a computer system, she was corrupting his mind palace. The image of her face popped up without him telling it to. The thought of her shoved its way in front of whatever else he was trying to focus on. She was like a pop-up ad in his head that wouldn't go away. She intrigued him. Confused him. Made him paranoid.
Lying in bed, Aren stared up at his ceiling. Surely there was something off about this girl. There was something about her that had penetrated the firewalls of his brain. He needed to figure out what it was. It was tugging at him. Had she done it on purpose? Had she silently done something to him without him realizing it? With what ability? He made a decision to figure it out. What did she do to him, and how?
