I shut my eyes as I felt my back come into contact with the wall behind me, heard Sam hissing the same old abuse in my ear, felt him hit me hard in the chest, felt a hand reaching into my pocket. I opened my eyes to see my ipod dangling in front of my face. I reached up to grab it out of the taller boy's hand, but he let go of it, letting it fall to the ground, pulling out the headphones that were blasting music into my ears. Music. The only thing that was able to conserve even a little of my sanity. It was gone, and all I could hear was the laughter coming from the people around me, and my ipod smacked on the ground, cracking the screen, and a foot descended upon it, smashing it into pieces. I stared at it, blinking back tears.

"Come on then you faggot. You gonna put up a fight? Am I gonna have to teach you that you're a worthless piece of shit or have you already picked that up?" he snarled at me. I kept my head down, not daring to look at any of them. "Well you're not as stupid as you look, Iero." he spat at me, before grabbing the front of my shirt and pulling me up to look at him face to face, but I continued looking down. "Fucking look at me." he demanded. Reluctantly, I slowly raised my eyes to meet his, filled with venom and hate, his lips twisted into a smirk.

"You wanna go home and cry to mummy?" he asked patronisingly, knowing the pain he was causing within me as he uttered the last word. "Oh wait, you can't, she fucking killed herself." He knew exactly how much that low blow hurt, but he had no idea that fifteen years worth of abuse were boiling up inside of me. My hands flexed at my sides, itching to attack him. Without even thinking about it, one of my hands secured around his throat.

I sat slumped in the chair opposite the principle's desk, still shaking with rage, covered in both my own and Sam's blood, tears still running down my face. I stared at my feet, trying to calm myself down.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING!" the principle shouted.

"He... he was..." I couldn't manage a sentence, my throat was too choked up.

"HE WAS WHAT? COME ON, I'D LIKE TO HEAR YOUR EXCUSE THIS TIME."

"He was talking about... my mum." I finally muttered.

He sighed, not sympathetic, just disapproving. "You don't think you over reacted a little?"

"I think most people would have reacted the same way, taking into account everything else he says and does to me." I said through clenched teeth, still staring intently at my shoelaces.

"If there have been other incidents, you should have told someone while it was happening. I'm talking to you about what happened about twenty minutes ago. So Sam made a comment about your mother, obviously it's a sensitive topic for you but he's now in hospital and you'll be expelled if I don't hear a good excuse from you in the next thirty seconds." he said, folding his arms over his chest. Now I looked up at him, my mouth hanging open.

"Expelled?" I repeated in shock.

"Yes, I'm sure I don't need to remind you that there have been several other similar incidents."

"You just told me this is about what happened just now, not about anything else."

"It's up to me to take into consideration the other incidents."

"Fine." was all I could manage to say, before I began crying again. I felt so pathetic, sobbing as he glared down at me. You'd think I'd be used to rejection by now. My dad arrived about five minutes later. To my relief, my dad didn't look overly angry, which is a change for my dad, but the look he gave me was not one a loving father gives to a son. I managed to avoid making any communication with my dad while he was talking to the principle, and all the way out of school, until we got to his car. He looked at me once we were both sitting inside. I was expecting him to shout at me at least a little bit.

"I would have thought you'd be over all this by now, Frank." was all he said.