MidReal Story
Courage Amid Shadows
Scenario: 14 yrs old Teenager black boy name Devon gets bullied by older senior at Adam west high school he was afraid and scared.
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Devon Carter
victim of bullying, no direct relationships mentioned, black, short and wiry, fearful but resilient.
Lisa Thompson
Devon's classmate and occasional ally, friend to Devon, Hispanic descent, petite with curly hair, supportive and brave.
Marcus Jennings
senior bully at school, antagonist to Devon, white, tall and muscular, aggressive and intimidating.
I’m not a fighter.
My mom says I have a good heart, but I’m too scared to use it.
I wish I could be brave like my dad, but he died in Afghanistan when I was a baby, so I never knew him.
I don’t even have a picture of him, just the flag that was draped over his coffin.
It’s folded up in a triangle and sits on the mantle in our living room.
My mom says he was a hero and that he loved me very much.
She says I look just like him with my dark skin and big brown eyes.
I hope she’s right, because sometimes when I look in the mirror, all I see is a scared little boy who’s too afraid to stand up for himself.
Like right now.
I’m standing at my locker at Adam West High School, trying to get my books for next period, but my hands are shaking so bad that I can’t get the lock to open.
I peek over my shoulder to see if Marcus Jennings is coming.
He’s the biggest bully at this school, and I’m pretty sure he’d kill me if he had a chance.
Well, maybe not kill me, but he’d definitely beat me up.
He and his crew have been giving me a hard time for weeks now, and I don’t know what to do about it.
I try to blend in with the crowd and avoid drawing any attention to myself, but that’s hard to do when you’re the only freshman in a school filled with upperclassmen.
I’m not sure how Marcus even knows who I am, but as long as he doesn’t think I’m someone important, I should be safe.
For now, at least.
The lock on my locker clicks open, and I swing the door wide so I can get my books.
I wish I could just get out of here, but the hallway is so crowded that it would take forever to get through the crowd.
I grab my books and shove them in my backpack, and that’s when I feel it—a presence behind me.
It’s like a cold chill that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I know without a doubt that Marcus is standing behind me.
I want to run, but I don’t want to make a scene.
I close my locker door and turn around to face him, not surprised when I see that everyone has cleared out of the hallway except for him and his crew.
He looks down at me from his towering height, his cold blue eyes staring through me as if I’m nothing more than a bug that he’d like to squish with his shoe.
“What do you want?”
I try to sound tough, but my voice shakes a little as I ask the question.
Marcus laughs, and the sound echoes off the walls so loudly that it hurts my ears.
“I want you,” he says, his eyes raking over me in a way that makes me feel like crawling out of my skin.
He reaches out and grabs the strap of my backpack, pulling me closer to him until our faces are only inches apart.
I can smell his breath, which reeks of cigarettes and alcohol, but I force myself not to look away from him because I don’t want him to think I’m scared.
“If you know what’s good for you,” he says, “you’ll do as I say.” He leans in even closer until his lips are almost touching mine.
“You understand?”
I nod, but my voice is barely more than a whisper when I say, “Yes.”
I watch him walk away, feeling dirty and ashamed inside.
Not just because of what he said to me or what he made me do, but because there was nothing I could do about it.
Marcus Jennings can get away with anything he wants at this school because he’s a senior, which means that everyone is afraid of him—even the teachers.
I close my locker door, but I don’t want to look at him, so I stare down at the floor as I ask the question.
“Yeah, just give me a second.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing I wasn’t so scared all the time.
I know I have to face my fears or they’ll never go away, but it’s not easy when you’re afraid of everything—especially of someone like Marcus Jennings.
I can hear him laughing behind me, but I try to ignore him while I fumble with the lock on my locker.
My hands are shaking so bad that it’s hard to keep the numbers in focus, but I don’t want to let him see how much he scares me, so I keep my composure as best I can.
Finally, the lock clicks open, and I swing the door wide so I can get my books.
The hallway is crowded with kids who are rushing to their classes, but I still manage to grab the ones I need before stuffing them in my backpack.
I close the locker door and turn around, determined not to look at Marcus or say anything that might provoke him.
I start to walk away, but that’s when I hear someone call my name.
“Hey, Devon!”
I look over my shoulder and see Lisa Thompson jogging toward me.
She’s one of the few kids in my class who’s been nice to me since I started here, even if we’re not exactly friends.
She’s a petite Hispanic girl with curly hair, and she’s very pretty, but I try not to look at her too much because I don’t want Marcus to think I like her.
I don’t know what he’d do if he ever found out, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like it.
She catches up to me, breathing hard from running, and I can see the worry in her big brown eyes as she looks up at me.
“Is everything okay?”
she asks, concern etched on her pretty face.
I force myself to smile, even though I’m not sure my voice will sound convincing when I say, “Yeah, everything is fine.”
“Are you sure?”
she asks, looking over her shoulder as if she’s expecting Marcus to jump out at us from around the corner.
I nod, but before I can say anything else, Marcus walks up behind me and shoves me hard with his hand.
I stumble forward a few steps but manage to catch myself before I fall.
I turn around to face him, but he doesn’t meet my gaze.
Instead, he leans closer to Lisa and smiles down at her in a way that makes my skin crawl.
“I’m good,” he says, practically purring the words as he takes another step toward her.
“What are you doing later?”
Lisa steps back to put some distance between them, but she keeps her gaze locked on him as if she can’t look away.
“Nothing,” she says.
“I was thinking maybe we could go out for dinner or a movie or something.”
Marcus laughs as if she’s told him a joke, but then his eyes turn cold as he says, “I don’t think so.”
“But you said…”
“I say a lot of things,” he interrupts.
“Doesn’t mean they’re true.”
He shoves me again as he walks away, but this time I’m ready for it.
I take a couple of steps forward to keep from falling before turning back to Lisa to see if she’s okay.
She shrugs as if nothing happened before turning to walk away without saying another word.
I watch her go for a second before Marcus grabs my arm and pulls me closer so he can whisper in my ear.
“Don’t think this means you’re off the hook, Carter,” he says before walking away.
He had warned me not to talk about what had happened in the bathroom, and even though I hadn’t told anyone, he was still convinced that I had.
But what would I have told her anyway?
I have no idea who that guy was or why he tried to attack me, which means there was nothing to tell.
So why does Marcus insist on coming after me?
I have a feeling it has more to do with him trying to establish his dominance than anything else, but what if it was something more?
What if Lisa gets hurt because of me?
I don’t know what I would do if that happened, but the thought scares me more than Marcus ever could, so I push it out of my mind as we walk toward the cafeteria.
Even though we’re still a few feet away from the door, I can already see him sitting at one of the tables with his crew, his dark eyes boring into me as if he can see right through me.
And in a way, maybe he can.
Lisa and I are still in line waiting for our food when Marcus gets up and walks over to us with a cocky smile on his handsome face, and I just know he’s going to ruin everything.
Even though I’m trying not to, my hands start shaking as I clutch my tray so tight that my knuckles turn white.
I try not to meet Lisa’s gaze as she tries to talk to me about her English assignment, but it’s hard not to look at him when he’s standing this close.
“Who’s your friend?”
he asks, leaning closer to her so she can get a better look at him.
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“Leave her alone, Marcus,” I say before she has a chance to reply, and his smile disappears as he turns his dark eyes on me.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” he says with a sneer before turning back to Lisa and saying, “So what do you say, beautiful?Are you busy later tonight?”
“No, she’s not,” I say before she has a chance to reply, and the look of annoyance I see in her eyes is almost as bad as the look of anger I see in Marcus’s.
I grab her hand before she can say anything else and drag her away, hoping she’ll follow me because I really need some backup right now.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says as she jerks her hand away, but I ignore her as I look for a table where we can sit and talk.
As we sit down, Lisa sighs as she pushes her food around her plate, and I can tell she’s thinking about what happened earlier.
“I’m sorry,” I say when I realize how upset she is, and I mean it.
“It’s not your fault,” she says with a shrug.
“I just wish you hadn’t done that, you know?”
“I know,” I say with a sigh because I hadn’t wanted to draw any more attention to her than I already had.
But it was too late now, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“I just didn’t want him to hurt you.”