The bells rang, signaling the end of the fifth period. At our school, we do 8 periods. I put my folder and notebook into my backpack and walked out of the classroom; I was headed for lunch. The halls were filled with other students. The walls were layered with bricks colored white, with lots of fancy paintings on the walls. But, most of them had stains on them. People loved to vandalize, steal, and bully others at my school. Last year, someone took a desk home, and no one noticed until the kid posted it on his social media account flexing about it. And then there’s the people who always pick on me. Including the staff, for some reason. Factor that in with the difficult classes, and yeah, it’s easy to see that I hate school. The only thing that makes it bearable at all is Grace being in all my classes and lunch period. She requested that her schedule be that way. The school originally said no, but after Grace offered $500, they took it and allowed her schedule to change. Greedy pieces of crap. Grace was able to help me do alright in school, but obviously she couldn’t help when tests were handed out.

I got into the lunchline as the fifth person, which surprised me for a moment. And then 20 other students skipped me. That was typical. After waiting until I had my turn, they’d given me my lunch option I’d chosen earlier. To assist the lunch ladies, they had people select what they’d have for lunch when they got to school. So I got what I’d always been given; Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. That’s it. Yeah, my parents wouldn’t let me get any substantial food at school, so I had sandwiches every day. I grabbed the sandwich, which was wrapped in foil, and walked out into the lunch room. It was chaos as usual, with people either loudly talking, being on their phones, or throwing food across the table. I walked over to a table in the far corner, and sat down in the furthest seat away from everyone. I unwrapped my sandwich and started to eat it. It tasted very bland, and it just stuck to the roof of my mouth more often than not. After I finished my sandwich, I leaned my head to the left and rested it on my hand. Grace walked over and sat down next to me, with a bright red lunchbox in her hand. “Did you eat?” Grace asked me.

I nodded, still resting my head.

“Did you have something other than a PB & J?” She inquired.

I shook my head.

Grace sighed. “Why do your parents make you eat so little every day? It doesn’t feel like that’s allowed.”

Grace was really the only one who knew what my parents were doing to me. And even then, she didn’t know half of it. She knew that my parents weren’t good people, but she didn’t know much more. I shrugged. “It probably isn’t.”

Grace opened her lunchbox, reached in, and pulled out a slice of cheese pizza. It looked cold at first, but Grace breathed some fire onto it to warm it up. She grabbed a paper plate from her lunchbox using her free hand and set the pizza on it, then slid it over to me. “Here. You can have my lunch. I’m not that hungry anyways.” she said with a light smile.

I reached over for the pizza, but then the plate moved slightly moved. I stopped in confusion, and then the plate of pizza was slammed against my face. I couldn’t see anything, but I could most certainly feel the warm cheese and sauce now all over my face, and I heard a bunch of laughing from nearby. After attempting to scrape as much cheese from the pizza off my face, I saw it was some tall dude wearing a backwards hat, with long hair on each side. He wore a football uniform, and judging by the fact he was standing 4 feet away from me, it was easy to put together that he was the one who shoved the pizza into my face.

“George!” Grace shouted. “The heck is wrong with you?!?”

“Oh, hey dearie.” George said in a snobby voice. “Just thought Matthew was having some trouble eating, so I wanted to help him out.”

Grace stood up, slamming her hand on the table. The dude was a whole head taller than Grace, but she didn’t care. “I’ve had it with you guys just being a piece of s*** to Matthew just because you can!”

(hey it's me editor man again. so uh, I don't swear. ever. Never swore in my life. Don't plan on starting soon. So the most profanity you'll get is something like that. Just a letter with some asterisks after. Okay I'm out)

“Why are you friends with this loser?”

“Because unlike you he has a decent moral compass.”

They continued to argue, with everyone in the room watching, except for me. I was lost in thought. I was shocked Grace was full on arguing with someone. I’d never seen her this angry before. Sure, she got upset when this happened before, but I’ve never seen it to such a degree. She cared about me that much? She’d argue with one of the worst bullies in the school for my sake? I didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t know what I was feeling. But it was different. My thoughts were interrupted when I heard George huff, puff, and walk off, through the crowd, shouting some profanity. Everyone went back to lunch as usual after that. That’s what would happen. The staff wouldn’t do anything about it. Unless people started getting violent, the staff wouldn’t get involved. And by “violent” I mean a complete assault to kill someone. It’s too much work apparently.

Grace sat back down, and she breathed really heavily. I could see the anger boiling inside her, and her hair was even partially glowing from it. As she calmed down, so did the glow. She looked at me. “Sorry about that.” Grace said.

“It’s fine,” I replied. “I wasn’t really hungry anyways.”

Grace smiled, but it was a weak one. I could tell she was stressed. She just had an argument with one of the worst people in the school, after all. It was pretty easy to tell.

The lunch bell rang, meaning our lunch period was over, and it was time to go to the next class. Everyone got up and walked out of the room except for me and Grace. We liked to wait for the room to file out before we left. Too many people. After about 20 seconds of waiting, most of the people had left, so we left the room, headed to our next class.