Like it or not, bullying was still a problem in Starlight Academy. It would always be. Bullies preyed on the weak or the small. Shay knew that well, although she'd never been bullied in the direct sense. Maybe she was too violent, and that showed in her eyes. A willingness to fight back that wasn't often picked on first.
Honestly, for Shay, those fights had lessened dramatically over the last month of so. No one wanted to mess with a Rosales. Not even kids. And Shay didn't blame them (though she wasn't one hundred percent clear on if a child would be beaten up for hurting her; she guessed it was a strong possibility).
It was one of those days when anger was building in Shay's stomach, and she felt a deep sense of sickness. She wasn't feeling well, emotionally or physically speaking. No blood this morning, but her skin was too sensitive, as were her eyes, and her muscles were sore beyond belief. It was a no bullshit kind of day. Which could only mean one thing in the long run: Shay was going to get into a fight.
And that was how the Little Rosales (as so many seemed to call her now) wound up shoved against a locker by a larger kid (a boy no less, pff) and breathless from a sharp punch in the gut that had her reeling forward, head spinning.
It felt like it had been going on forever, but in reality, it couldn't have been more than three minutes. When the boy released Shay, she fell to the ground, coughing up spit, eyesight a little hazy. Too bright here and too much pain in her body. And too many bullies and fights and people.
Eroshay liked to see herself as a rational person. Someone who didn't let emotions get the best of her, and right then her last rational thought was that she should let the fight end. Let him win and leave. But the red came. She had never been blinded with red before now. It wasn't registering consciously to her what she was doing, but she took the nearest sharp object she could. A number two pencil, as it were. Lucky she couldn't bring her large knife on school grounds.
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