Chapter 32: A past of pain.
"What happened?" the girl asked in a gentle tone.
In front of her stood her childhood friend: a small boy with beautiful green eyes filled with tears. The boy had a bruise on his cheek, another on his knee, and his clothes were completely dirty.
At the time, Lara was only 13 years old and still attended a regular school. In fact, that would be her last year in that place, though she didn’t know it yet.
Still visibly shaken by what had happened, the boy hesitated to answer the question. Perhaps he didn’t want to involve his friend in his problems.
Everyone knew that Lara had a strong sense of justice and always did everything she could to help those around her. Perhaps he feared that involving her would only get her hurt.
"Zey," she called the boy by the affectionate nickname she had given him, "you know you can trust me. Tell me what happened. Did someone hit you?"
Zey finally gave in, and after taking a deep breath, he began to explain what had happened that morning. According to him, it all started when he was on his way to school but accidentally bumped into one of the older boys from high school.
It wasn’t the first time he had trouble with the seniors. For some reason, they enjoyed picking on Zey, labeling him as a coward.
And, of course, the boy, still too weak, could do little to defend himself from it.
But that day had been worse. Zey couldn’t hold back his tears as he explained that his precious sketchbook had been taken from him. Apparently, the older boys thought his drawings were funny and pathetic.
Wanting to protect what was most precious to him, the boy did something that was out of character: he fought back. Zey knew that retaliating would only make things worse, making those guys even angrier at him, but he couldn’t help it, he simply couldn’t take it anymore, and that was the last straw.