Ah, yes, another day of bullying.

I’d been mindlessly seated on the park chair overlooking the basketball court, painting my nails a rosy red while taking in my fill of thirteen year old Carter. He looked good this day, wearing an oversized white muscle shirt that made his tanned skin all the more pronounced. He was in the middle of organizing the teams when this little bastard had to ruin it. I ignored him, though, and resumed painting my toenails.

Graeme always instigated fights. He picked on everyone so long as they were smaller and younger than his thirteen year old self. To put it blatantly, he was a pathetic bully if he could get away with it. And, unfortunately, he got away with it a lot.

“She says you’re going to turn into a whore too,” he continued. “Says your Uncle’s waitin’ for you to be just a little older. You’re going to be a whore like your aunt. You listening to me, Leah? A whore.”

“Okay, Graeme,” I simply replied, unbothered by his words.

It wasn’t the first time someone had said this to me, and now that I was twelve years old, I was a lot more mindful of what was really going on inside that trailer some days. I didn’t need this sadistic little prick to tell me about it.

“Oh, so you’re okay with that then,” he said. “I’ve got three dollars in my pocket. You wanna ride me like your auntie rides those men?”

“No.”

“No? I can round up some boys, chip in some more coin if you’re being a stingy little bitch.”

“No,” I repeated absently.

I didn’t have to look at him to see he was most likely turning purple from anger. He was seeking a reaction out of me, and he didn’t seem to realize I was numb by it all. Growing up around foul-mouthed people was the norm for me. Graeme was too small time to care about.

I heard his steps, and before I could look up, he grabbed my nail polish and threw it hard on the ground. It didn’t break like he wanted it to. It hit the soft soil with a thud, but the damage had been done. The liquid oozed out of the bottle, disrupting the bright green grass. I stared at the nail polish for a moment, and all I could think about was Aunt Cheryl giving me it for my twelfth birthday three weeks ago and how happy I was to have it. I’d only opened it up for the first time this morning, and now it was upside down, discharging every last drop of colour that should have been used to make me look pretty.

“Whores don’t wear nail polish!” Graeme screamed at me.

I felt my blood rush into my ears. My heart rate picked up, and my skin gleamed with sweat.

“Whores aren’t meant to look nice!”

My fingers twitched as my eyes focused on the red.

Rosy red everywhere.

Rosy red that should have been on me.

“Whores like you don’t deserve nice things –”

His words died off and a high pitched squeak erupted out of him the second I tackled him to the ground. In a blinding fit of rage, I balled my hands into fists and rained them down on him.

Little monster wanted a reaction?

I was going to give him one he would never forget!

He fought me back almost instantly, throwing me off of him and jumping over me. He smacked me against the face and pulled my hair. I thrashed my body beneath him, covering my face with one arm and scratching at his sweaty throat with my free hand. I didn’t care that he was hurting me because I was feeling a rush hurting him back with equal intensity.

It was a mess, really. Graeme was a weak little shit and he’d just met his match. Neither of us had the upper hand, and I was too disoriented to understand what was happening. I didn’t know if we’d been at it for minutes, or even seconds. My brain had shut off and my body did all the work, acting of its own volition, attacking Graeme with whatever strength I had left. I was silent, too. Not a word out of my mouth save for a few grunting sounds. I was all adrenaline and determination. Who knew a scrawny little thing like me had it in me? I certainly didn’t. I was waiting for my inner coward to beg him to stop, but all I had to think about was my poor nail polish’s demise and having ugly toenails all over again.

I didn’t want ugly toenails. I’d had too little in life to be okay with departing from the one beauty product I’d ever had.

I heard sounds around us, and then the pressure of him on me completely eased. As soon as I realized I was hitting air, I ceased immediately. When I moved my arm from my face, I saw a tall body bent down, grabbing at Graeme and swinging him off of me. I saw blonde shaggy hair, a white muscle shirt, and the tanned skin of a boy I’d just been drooling over minutes prior. I almost thought I was imagining the whole thing. Had Carter really come to the rescue? Or was I so bloody desperate for my saviour to be him that I was hallucinating the entire thing?

“The hell you doing hitting a girl?” growled out a voice.

I was right. It was Carter. Too surprised, I barely moved as I watched him kick Graeme in the stomach. Graeme fell to the side, groaning out, “She hit me first!”

“And why’d she hit you first, dickhead?”

Graeme didn’t respond. He turned his head and just looked at me. There was a storm in those little eyes as he regarded me like I’d caused all of this. I stared right back at him, perking up one side of my mouth, silently goading him to do something. I felt untouchable with Carter standing in between us, guarding me like I was some damsel in distress in need of saving.

Graeme kept his mouth shut, even when Carter hit him again. As soon as the kids that had gathered around us started to laugh at him, he hurried to his feet and took off running, but it wasn’t without a kick up the ass from Carter that had him tumbling to the ground. After his face plant, he wiped the blood that ran from his busted up nose and took off again, disappearing into the trailer park where he would most likely spend a few days hidden away recuperating.

“Yeah, fucking run, little weasel!” Carter hollered, and his friends laughed and mimicked the sounds of a wild weasel’s squeal.

When he turned around to face me, a small smirk at the corner of his mouth, I tensed and gaped at him in awe. My heart was pounding in my chest, but it wasn’t because of the fight anymore. For the first time in, well, ever, Carter Matheson was staring at me. He wasn’t staring through me, either. His eyes were focused on my face before they glanced down my body. His eyebrows shot up a tad at what I was wearing: small shorts and a spaghetti strap top that stopped at my belly button. I wasn’t entirely to blame for my lack of modesty when Uncle Russell encouraged it by not saying anything. Besides, girls my age dressed like I did around here in droves. I thought nothing of it at the time.