"Is your mom still not speaking to you?" Tricia enquired as her, McKenzie, and her friends Luke and Drew loitered around on the school's grass, relieving themselves of educational duty. The weekend just started off with the glorious ringing of the last hour's bell. Every one was running around, the only subjects on their narrow minds were boy-hunting and party-crashing. Yet, McKenzie still felt horrid for unloading such a heavy burden of guilt on her mother, her mom already fighting the seemingly neverending battle of getting back on her feet.

"We're moving up to 'Yes' and 'No' conversation," McKenzie sighed without hope, picking nonchalantly at some meek blades of grazz poking up from the earth's surface.

"It will get better," Luke told McKenzie, grazing his soft hand against her bare arm. McKenzie looked up and smile with a flicker of faith blinking in her face. Luke was such an understanding person, being a year older and openly gay for 2 years. His warm chocolate eyes softened the hardest stares and snickers. Small needles of black hair prickled out of his head, resembling small transmitters for radios, able to pick up anything being said.

Drew was controversal; he didn't know what he felt at his tender age of 15. He just wanted to belong somewhere, and with Tricia, McKenzie and Drew, he felt his calling. Drew's light brown hair wafted in the wispy wind, his well-shape lips curling into a smile at Luke's soothing comment.

"She can't hate you forever," Tricia studdered over the stentorian noise of freed juniors and seniors, realizing that wasn't the appropriate thing to say. Tricia knew first hand how long the guilt and resentment can painfully stretch out. Tricia's index finger lingered dantily by McKenzie's cheek, swooping down to her round chin. McKenzie glanced down at Tricia's finger, the tears stinging her eyes dissolved and she smiled.

Enviously, Zach watch by his friend Trey's car with such fury, his knuckles began morphing into a chalky white in his hard, clutched fists and just beneath the surface of his cheeks became flooded with blood. Blood didn't pump through his veins; it was liquid resentment turning all his organs to hard ice, unable to melt from McKenzie's lashing responses to his offers. He tossed his back pack through the open passanger's window, telling Trey sternly to wait for him as he stormed from the car toward the open.

"Hey McKenzie!" Zach yelled with complete sanfroid, weaving, cutting through the cliques and groups of diverse students congregations. McKenzie's body experienced a giant hiccup as she glared up at his colossal status, nervousness seeping from her pores. "I see you've become another pod."

"Fuck off, Zach," Tricia snarled at him, whipping her ebony hair with fierce anger behind her head, having tasted the vitriolic shit Zach digs up from the sleazy bottoms of the world where he lays, his attempts at insult and isolation sometimes effective.

"Well, well," Zach said, raising his voice an octive, surprise expressed well in his face. She bent down slowly to Tricia, dragging the seconds with a leash of illwill, his cutting tounge ready to warm up for battle. "What a big mouth for a girl who can't handle the real thing," Zach hissed back, his amber eyes spearing into Tricia's, both of them strong souls, immoble from challenges.

"Get lost, Zach," Luke demanded asceticly, jumping to his feet and pushing him lightly away from Tricia's strenght, afraid he might steel her last morsel of power to be that much more potent in his threats.

Zach laughed childly, rolling his eyes at Luke's lame rescue technique. His snickering eyes rested on McKenzie, frozen about what to do. "You going to let him talk to me like that?" Zach asked her innocently, his head leaping into her view like a nightmare.

McKenzie abrputly rose to her feet and motioned for Zach to follow her to the stairs by Peterson's Hall. Zach strolled over in victory, smiling deep inside his hallow being. McKenzie turned towards him as he radiated arrogance in his bright smile. "What's you problem, Zach?" McKenzie asked aggressively, instantly repenting the way the words spilled from her mouth.

Zach's eyes narrowed at her, fury sparkling in red, stinging flairs. "I don't know how you can ask me that," Zach began degenerately, clamping his hand to the right on the cold, silver railing of the stairs, the railing shuttering with fear, "When your parading around with your little gay club over there. This school does have a rep to uphold and I've made it my personal duty to ensure the rep stays clean, as you can ask your friend Tricia." His eyes snaked over to Tricia, coiling her in his ruthless, bloodthirsty grasp. Tricia resisted, only with the help of Drew and Luke on both her sides.

"What I do is really none of your business or the school's," McKenzie challenged, flipping her blonde hair in his face and struggling to pass through the gate of his iron arm. He clutched his hand on the side of her face and she shivered; an unpleasent, vexed sensating crawling fatally down her face and her neck.

"Hey, I'm over that you don't want to go out with me, no hard feelings. But I want you to think," Zach cooed, descending his wicked face inches from hers, seriousness locked on his emotionless gaze. "Real hard...do you want to be my friend or my enemy? I can get these people to turn their backs on you with the snap of my fingers and trust me, it wouldn't be pretty." McKenzie's forced placid expression fled away, being replaced with a look of terror and anger. Zach peered at her with his irate eyes, a smirk slipping onto the side of his smile. SHe felt as if she was peering at the Devil himself, evil power and authority oozing from his heated fingers. Zach lifted his hand to her side, rubbing it along the material of her blue Ambercrombie tank top in a racy fashion.

"Stop," McKenzie droned, brushing desperately at the unwanted hand clamped at her side, her insides wanting to scream.

Surprisingly, his hand released her side and inched to her face, caressing it gently, spite snapping with lingering hunger at her sanity. Fear tranquilized her, inable to fend off this undying, egotistical jackass. "Will you think about it, Mac?" Zach asked bitter-sweetly, discrasing her face with a tender kiss to her right cheek. She peered over at her friend, her mouth unable to produce any words to call for help, her friends inscrutably hidden by the masses of rejoycing students swarming about the grounds.

"Yes," McKenzie whispered, his kisses tracing down the slopes of her full cheeks to her neck.

"What was that?" Zach asked her skin as if he hadn't heard her responce, her skin feeling less spoiled as his lips stung her skin more sparatically.

McKenzie didn't want to grovel at his feet once more with that degrading responce. "Yes!" she choked out, pulling slightly away, cuddling her books to her violated body like her purple teddy, aways able to chase away the evils lurking in the dark and in her mind.

His eyes locked with hers, burning one last morsel of her neck with the insincere embrace of his lips. "Good girl," he said breathlessly, licking his lips and raising his arm from the railing. She awkwardly passed by him coldly, starting to sprint to her friends once she was out of eyeshot of Zach. Her hands trembled against her sturdy textbooks as her eyes gratefully discovered her friends.

"Are you OK?" Tricia asked suspiciously, closely watching Zach sashay back to Trey's car, his spiteful eyes conjoining with hers, a staring contest continuing until Zach reached the passanger's side of Trey's car. He blew her a kiss marked by ill-will as he lowered himself into the car.

"Yeah," McKenzie assured her, watching Zach zoom by, the growling of the engine threatning the 4 friends without prevail. "I won't let him get to me. Nothing he can say will change how I feel."