Chapter 5: Anthony
“What?”
I blurted out, with my voice out of control. I couldn’t bear the thought of my girlfriend being raped. And the fact that this came from her brother makes it hard to fight it. I don’t understand…
Is that why she pushed me off her when we had sex?
But it doesn’t make any sense…
“Did you witness it?” I ask Levi after standing up from the chair, looking back at him as the tears were falling down my face, gathering my words as the tears were failing to stay in, brushing my hands through my long blonde hair. “Part of it,” he tells me after standing and trying to reach my hand, but I refuse to let him. The only person who I would let hold my hand was Guinevere, and the fact that I’m learning about this from her brother just goes to show that she doesn’t want to be with me anymore. But doesn’t she know that I want to be with her?
She knows that I can be someone for her to go to…
I want to be someone who can be there for her…
Guinevere, let me be there for you…
Why couldn’t she let me be there for her?
Not being able to handle it, I bent over and let the tears fall - out of my dark blue eyes that I couldn’t compare to Guinevere’s and onto the ground. I just wanted this feeling to end, cause I felt like someone just punched me in the heart, I’m on the ground, and I can’t seem to get up. No matter how much I try, I feel the kicks of feet keeping me on the ground, holding me down as she would’ve been.
Oh God…
“Who did this?” I asked Levi as he held me in his arms. I didn’t want to cry, but I felt like my heart was hit by a sword, and I couldn’t pick up the pieces. “Carter Dawson,” Levi tells me. I don’t know why I recognize that name, but it’s familiar. Maybe I went to church with Guinevere one time and that’s why I recognize the name? Maybe…
But that doesn’t make it okay for him to hurt her - because isn’t he 21 years older than her and married? “What did you see exactly?” I thought I’d ask Levi with my voice breaking, so I knew whether I needed to talk to Carter and give him a piece of this angry-furied mind. “I saw him on top of her one night with pants undone and his underwear at the knee,” Levi tells me.
The thought of someone else having sex with Guinevere just sickens me…
Even the thought of someone raping Guinevere sickens me…
I just want to hide in a bathroom stall and wait for the emotions to pass by, but they won’t go away. Even if I tried to do that, Guinevere would find me. But when that would happen, I would just hold those delicate arms of hers in mine as I stared into those ocean eyes of hers. Oh Guinevere, I could get lost in them for hours. Your ocean eyes - I don’t know how to describe them. The color of your waves change from day to day, a light pearl blue color to aquamarine to dark navy blue or royal blue. But they’re mainly the color of ocean waves, with a light pearl blue on the surface, as if they’re carrying not just me, but also you down to the depths, where the color changes to a dark navy blue, where you would even swim me down even more. I would try to go back up to the surface with you, but you decided to let go of my hand and not return. Why? Why Guinevere? I told you I loved you, yet you never responded.
Levi lets go of me before walking off and leaving me alone. He clearly wasn’t having any of this. However, I wasn’t alone for long. Maverick, a former friend of Guinevere’s, walks up to me. “Maverick?” I ask him from the ground, staring up at him reaching out his light pale right hand to me, with a small smile on his face. “Need help?” He asks me as I stare at those green eyes of his, seeing his short dark brown hair slicked back with hair gel. “Thanks,” I tell him as I give him my right hand, and he pulls me up from the ground. However, one part of me just felt like I wanted to be one with the ground, because standing up I feel like I have this weight that is pounding on my heart, and it was not going away. “What’s wrong?” Maverick asks me as he finds a twig of hair dangling in front of him and pulls it back - he is wearing a black leather jacket with a small silver chain that swings from one pocket to the other, a white u-neck shirt, and dark blue leggings that didn’t match the jacket. “I heard something about Guinevere,” I tell him as I take my right hand and dry my tears, watching my own hair dangle in my face. “What about her?” He asks me, leaning in towards me so no one could hear him. “That she could’ve been raped,” I tell him, going silent after hearing myself say that. The thought of her being pinned down by Carter just makes my face go red with anger. “Would you recognize the name Carter Dawson?” I ask Maverick, wondering if he would recognize it. “Isn’t he the music teacher on the elementary side?” Maverick reminds me. That’s right - I forgot he taught music. “What about him?” Maverick asks me, clearly dumbfounded because he couldn’t put the pieces together right away. “Oh,” he lets out after realizing the truth. “I don’t think he’d be able to do that. He’s too nice,” Maverick tells me, making my rage reach a new level of fury.
Without realizing it, my hand forms a fist from the anger burning up inside of me, and the next thing I knew, my hand was swung against Maverick’s nose. “What the hell did you do that for?” Maverick lets out rather angrily, grabbing onto what would now be a broken nose. I couldn’t take it…
I couldn’t take it anymore…
I grabbed onto Maverick by the edges of his jacket, and in a fit of rage, threw him onto the ground, releasing my anger with him. But the anger wasn’t gone. Getting on top of him, I sent my anger into my hand, forming into a fist, and I started throwing punches at his face while staring at those green eyes. Those damn green eyes. They acted like they were trying to tell me that he was better than me. His black leather jacket - he acted like it was speaking to me, like I would never be cool like him. His entire body seemed like it was yelling at me, telling me I was never going to be enough for Guinevere, and I had it with him. He tried pushing me off of him, but I kept my dominant role on top of him, only to notice Carter and Guinevere in the distance, walking towards me and Maverick. Carter rushed in, grabbed onto my light pink shirt and pulled me off of Maverick, only to press me away from Maverick as Guinevere swooped towards him with her coral pink scarf and emerald body-length dress with short sleeves that stopped at the shoulder, with her aquamarine hair pulled back in a low ponytail, featuring her ocean wave earrings that she got from Grace. Carter on the other hand wore a black and red plaid shirt and dark blue jeans. “What’s going on here?” Carter asks, looking back and forth between Guinevere, Maverick, and I, before focusing those piercing brown eyes of his on me as if he was going to try and make me confess to a crime I never committed. “Don’t make me say,” I growl at him, sending the vibe right back at him. “Anthony, what the hell?” Guinevere had let out, raising her voice at me. Clearly those ocean eyes that I thought of were a storm of rage. “I’m sorry. I learnt the truth from Levi!” I yell back at her. I wonder if she remembers when Carter would’ve forced himself on her. But then again, would she? The two of them walked into the cafeteria together rather casually. But maybe she was already with him and the two of them were walking by, holding hands, or he would try to hold her hand. “What truth?” Carter asks me, after looking back at Guinevere with pleading eyes. Without saying anything, I look down at his pants, thinking about that night of when he allegedly raped her with his pants undone and underwear at the knee. I could tell Carter finally realized that I knew the truth when he saw me staring down at his penis in his pants. “Hell no,” he lets out when he finally puts two and two together, releasing his right hand from my left shoulder in shock, only to back away while muttering to himself while running his hands through his hair, “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” “He told you?” He raised at me, facing back towards me, revealing those teary-filled brown eyes. “What’s going on?” Guinevere asked after letting go of Maverick. “So you admit it!” I yelled at Carter, with my hand about to turn into a fist again, and that I was going to smack him with it. Hopefully that’ll get rid of my anger. “Admit what?” Guinevere asked rather curiously, stepping closer to me and my anger-filled fist. Now was my perfect chance to teach him a lesson. I couldn’t handle the truth anymore…
Turning around, I ended up whipping my hand straight across Guinevere’s face as I slapped her on the left cheek, sending all my anger through it and onto her as she fell over, grasping her left cheek with her left hand…
Staring at her on the ground, I notice Guinevere in pain as she holds onto her cheek, seeing the blood rush to her cheek underneath her hand. “Anthony? What the hell?” I hear a pained Guinevere let out from the floor. What the hell did I just do? I didn’t want to do that. I told myself that I would never hurt her - so why am I doing just that? “Come with me Guinevere,” Carter tells her rather gently, before he walks up to her and wraps his arm around her before helping her up from the floor and walking away with her. However, seeing Carter and Guinevere together didn’t just cause my rage to temper again, but Logan had noticed the two of them together as well. “Did you hit her?” Maverick asks me, raising his voice. “I did,” I tell him with my voice breaking. I told myself that I would never do that to her. I love her, so why did I hit her? Why did I slap Guinevere? Is it because of my rage towards Carter, where that was meant for him but Guinevere just happened to be in the way? Still, that doesn’t justify the right to hit her. Logan walked towards us, wearing a worried look on his face. “What happened with Guinevere and Mr. Dawson?” Logan asks Maverick and I. However, I just looked back at Maverick, hoping that he would tell the story. “Go on, tell him,” Maverick tells me. I didn’t want to tell anyone, or even admit that I hit her, but I have no choice. Looking back at Logan, you can see he is wearing a purple felt u-neck shirt and ripped knee blue jeans. “I hit Guinevere,” I tell Logan after taking a deep, long sigh, hearing myself say words I never thought I would say. “What?” Logan raised his voice towards me. I couldn’t bear the thought of doing that…
Maybe this ties into when we had sex before…
“Is there something wrong with me?” I blurted out as the tears started falling again with no control. “Is there something I’m doing wrong?” I ask with my voice a little quieter. I couldn’t tell the entire school that I hit her. Maverick, Logan, and I are all one or two years older than Guinevere, but we’ve all been held back. Logan is a year older than Guinevere, making him 18, even though he turned 19 earlier this month, two days after Carter’s birthday. Maverick is two years older than Guinevere, so he would be 20 this June, and I’m a year and a half older than Guinevere (I turned 19 last September), but two grade years older than her. I was held back in grade 5, and then grade 8. Maverick was held back in grade 7, so I ended up in the same class as him and Logan. Logan was held back in grade 8, taking him back to grade 7. Ever since then, we’ve technically been in the same grade as Guinevere. “Why do you think that something’s wrong with you?” Logan asks me as he reaches out his hand towards me, so all I could see was his long dark brown hair and those blue eyes. Why?
Why did he have to have a long-lost twin brother that went missing?
“Guinevere and I had sex before and in the middle of it, she ended up pushing me off of her. Now, I’ve slapped her. Is there something that I’m doing that I have no control over?” I ask them, and as I hear myself asking them those words, I crumble down to the floor, where I had let the tears fall. I just wanted to disappear - be one with the floor and disappear from the world. Looking over at Carter and Guinevere, she holds a damp cold cloth against her rosy red cheek, probably thinking about why I would do such a thing to her. Carter would maybe tell her the truth of what happened that night when he raped her, but then again, I don’t see her getting angry and walking away from the table. Instead, I see him standing up from the table, and after giving her a long hug, headed off to the elementary side, exiting towards the dance studio, only to turn down the hallway at his right, and walk down the path past the theatre, and towards the elementary side, where the path would connect near to the first entrance of the music room on that side of the school.
I don’t understand - are the two of them friends? I thought they couldn’t be, but I guess they are. Staring back at Logan and Maverick, after getting the courage, I admit to Logan, “I messed up.” “We all do,” Logan tells me as he lets me look into those blue eyes of his. However, they’re not as magnetic as Guinevere’s. Guinevere’s eyes are more ocean eyes than blue. Guinevere’s you could get lost in for hours, but Logan’s just seemed like the kind of eyes that didn’t want you to stare at them for too long, because otherwise they would force you to look away. Even after looking away, you want to look back at them, but you know that Logan would tell you to stop, because his eyes are different - something he’s not used to. I look back over at Guinevere, sitting at a table with the cloth on her face, seeing those ocean eyes cry as the rain rolls over. Even from a distance, I know what her eyes look like. No matter what anyone says, Guinevere will always be my girlfriend. I will always love her.
“Logan, you say that we all mess up?” I hear Maverick ask Logan, looking back at him, showing that his eyes were giving a “you messed up” vibe. “Yes we do,” Logan tells Maverick. However, Maverick sat beside me, scoffed, and told Logan in the face, “says the rapist,” before walking off towards Guinevere at the table.
Did I miss something?
Did Logan hurt someone? Or did he hurt Guinevere?
No - it’s not possible…
“Rapist?” I ask Logan as my anger slowly starts tempering back up again.