"Just leave me alone, Jamie!" Gumball shouted in fear as he was being grabbed by the collar of his sweater, and being pinned against a wall of lockers behind him.
"Not until you give me what I want, Gummypuss." An enraged Jamie replied in a threatening manner. "Now, where's my lunch money?"
"I already told you a thousand times! I don't have any lunch money!" Gumball replied in defense.
"Don't make me ask you again, shrimp!" Jamie added threateningly; clenching her fist in anger with each passing second.
"I swear I'm telling you the truth!" Gumball said, practically pleading for his life at this point. He had a feeling that he knew what was going to happen next, but just the overall suspense of waiting for what was coming to him was enough to completely break him.
Finally, not willing to take anymore of his "lies", Jamie sent her fist flying straight at him, and hit Gumball square in the jaw; causing him to fly three feet off the ground and land right in front of Principal Brown's office door.
As Gumball started to slowly lose consciousness, he looked around at his surroundings; his vision becoming extremely blurry due to the aftermath of the punch. Despite that, he barely managed to make out the image of Jamie staring right at him as he sat there on the floor.
"Maybe next time you won't make any excuses and pay up, Gummypuss." Jamie said sadistically to herself. She quietly laughed to herself at Gumball's misfortune before finally walking off down towards the cafeteria for lunch.
Gumball just sat there on the floor; unresponsive and unmoving for quite some time. He just sat there, thinking to himself about the events that had just taken place. 'Why does she always have to be so mean?' Gumball thought to himself as blood started to trickle from his nose.
'Granted, she IS a bully after all," Gumball added to himself, 'But what makes her think that she can just pick on other people like that and just get away with it? What makes her think she has the right to make other people's lives completely miserable for no reason?'
After he had finished his train of thought, Gumball made his way to the front of the school building; wishing for nothing more but to be left alone.
The rest of the day didn't go as well as Gumball had hoped, but it wasn't as bad as what happened to him during lunch. For the rest of the day, he just sat there in class and stared off into space as Ms. Simian droned on and on about life science.
Once the school day had finally ended, Gumball made his way to his locker to grab his textbooks for the massive amount of homework that he had to do over the coming weekend. As he made his way towards the front door, he suddenly noticed something that had caught his attention.
He slightly turned his head towards the left, past the massive trophy case which held all of Ms. Simians "distinguished" teaching awards, and noticed that Mr. Small's door was slightly open. He made his way to the door to close it for him, when he saw something inside that had instantly caught his attention.
He saw none other than Jamie, or "the female devil" as he had become accustomed to calling her to himself, sitting on the other side of Mr. Small's desk. Gumball wasn't really sure why Jamie was in Mr. Small's office, but something inside of him couldn't even begin to comprehend missing a seemingly perfect opportunity to grab some dirt on her, and hopefully using that to end her bullying days once and for all.
But just as Gumball's hopes began to rise higher than ever, they were suddenly brought back down when he heard Jamie say to Mr. Small, "…and I just don't know how much more I can take. I know I shouldn't be thinking like this but I can't help it. I just want this all to end; I don't want to have to deal with their crap anymore."
Gumball was surprisingly taken aback at Jamie's words. He had never even heard about this side of Jamie before, and he was surprised to realize that she of all people could feel other emotions besides anger and arrogance.
'Wow' was all that Gumball could possibly think to himself about this sudden turn of events.
"Well Jamie, you always know that if you ever need to talk, I'm always right here." Mr. Small said in a comforting voice. Jamie didn't give an initial response to Mr. Small's words of sympathy. She merely got out of her chair and started making her way toward the door.
As Gumball saw Jamie coming towards the door, he knew he needed to get out of there as fast as he possibly could. But for some unknown reason, he couldn't move his legs. It was almost as if somebody had stuck his legs to the ground with cement; causing him to stand there and not move a single muscle.
When Jamie finally stepped out of Mr. Small's office, she started to make her way toward her locker to grab her things. But just before she was about to turn away, she suddenly noticed Gumball standing there, looking straight at her exactly like a deer does in the face of headlights.
Jamie gave him a questioning look for a while before finally asking, "What the hell are you doing there, numbskull?"
Gumball didn't respond to her question at first; he only continued to stand there, completely unable to say or do anything. But suddenly, without him even realizing it at first, Gumball asked Jamie in a curious and sympathetic voice, "Jamie, is something wrong?"
That's when Jamie started to give him an even more confused look, while Gumball stood there in absolute silence, immediately regretting what he had just said to her. Suddenly, Jamie started to realize what Gumball had meant and stated to become extremely angry with him.
Before he had the time to run away, Jamie had suddenly grabbed Gumball once again by the collar of his sweatshirt, preventing him from running off. She pulled him in close toward her and said in an intimidating voice, "Listen here and listen good; whatever you heard in that room is none of your damn business. You got that, Gummypuss?"
Gumball merely nodded in response, unable to say anything out of fear of what might happen. After what felt like an eternity to Gumball, Jamie finally let him go, and made her way toward her locker. She shot him one last glaring look that burned inside of his head as he made his way back home.
Gumball couldn't get any sleep. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he tried to take his mind off of it, Gumball couldn't stop thinking about Jamie and the incident outside of Mr. Small's office. He couldn't explain why he wanted to know what was wrong with Jamie, and he also knew that if he asked too many questions then he might end up getting severely hurt.
But regardless of all that, he couldn't possibly think of anything else. He decided to try and get some fresh air by opening his window, but that didn't seem to do anything to help him. After sitting on his bed for a while, Gumball had decided to sneak out of the house for a while and take a quick little walk down to the park.
He climbed out of his window, because going out through the front door was considered suicide, and landed straight on his feet as he hit the ground. After recovering from the initial shock of the landing, Gumball made his way towards the park.
He didn't think about anything or say anything to himself on the way over to the park; but all he could really focus on was Jamie. He tried all he could to possibly think of something other than her, but something inside of himself wouldn't let him think about anything else.
After about ten minutes of walking, Gumball finally made his way to the park and started walking down the cobblestone path. After walking for quite some time, he suddenly heard something coming from inside of the bushes off towards his right hand side.
He turned his attention towards that spot, and cautiously made his way to the bushes to see what was going on. When he had finally made it to a reasonable viewing distance, he couldn't believe his eyes at what he was seeing. There, in the bushes, crying her eyes out, was none other than Jamie.
Suddenly, as if by the turning of a dime, Jamie had unexpectedly decided to look up from where she was sitting, and saw none other and Gumball staring right back at her. He tried to run away, but he accidentally tripped over a rock and fell flat on his face.
He stumbled backwards to try and get away from the now enraged Jamie, but it was completely useless. Before he even knew it, she was right on top of him; pinning him against the floor and pressing his shoulders down to the ground with all of her strength.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE!?" Jamie shouted in absolute rage, unable to control all of the emotions that were pouring out of her at once.
Gumball tried to think of an excuse to make for himself, but all of a sudden a different idea came to mind. "Jamie, just calm down." Gumball said, trying to sound as calm and collective as he possibly could.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Jamie replied even louder than before.
Gumball started to become afraid for his life, but nonetheless he continued on. "Jamie, just hear me out for two minutes!" All of a sudden, Jamie had stopped her angry yelling, and gave him her undivided attention.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Gumball continued to say, "Whether you want to admit it or not, I know that there's something that's troubling you and making you upset."
"Yeah; no shit Sherlock." Jamie replied, cutting him off from his sentence.
"And, as crazy at it might sound to the both of us," Gumball added, "I…I want to help you."
"What?" Jamie asked in a surprised manner.
"You heard what I said, didn't you?" Gumball replied. "I want to help you. And whether you want my help or not, I just don't want to see you like this."
All of a sudden, Jamie started to see a side of Gumball that she never would've believed existed. She felt a sense of trust as she looked into his eyes; she felt like she could talk to him and he would listen to what she had to say.
It took her a while, but she finally built up enough trust to believe what he was saying. She got off of him, helped him back up to his feet, and took him by the hand to a nearby park bench just on the other side of the pathway.
When Jamie and Gumball sat down together, Jamie remained silent for a while; not willing to say a single word. But after a while, she had finally broken the silence by asking, "Gumball, when you wake up in the morning, and take a look at yourself in the mirror, are you proud of the person staring back at you?"
Gumball didn't know how to respond to that question, so he chose to remain silent and keep his peace. Jamie continued by saying, "I envy you , you know that? Not because you offended me in any way, or because you insulted my honor, but I envy you because of your relationship with your family.
"I always used to dream of having a family like yours; one where I could talk to my parents and laugh in joy, like any other regular person. But unfortunately, I was forced to draw the short end of the stick. My parents are probably the only people I hate more in this world than anybody; and that's saying a lot.
"My father is an alcoholic, unkind, and uncaring bastard. Every night, he always comes back home, drunk off of his pathetic ass, and starts yelling at my mom. And even if I try to step into the argument, or even if he thinks that I'm stepping out of line, he…" she paused for a minute to try and fight back tears that were starting to form in her eyes.
"…he beats me right there on the spot. I tried to fight back, but he only beats me harder every time I try. And when he finally finishes beating me, my mother just stands there and starts scolding me; telling me that everything bad that happens in this family is all my fault.
"I tried to keep living life as best as I could, but it seems like that all that ever got me was more beatings and more scolding from my bitch mother. So...so I turned towards drugs to try and help me get through these times.
"I thought that if I could just feel good about myself, no matter what the cost, I would finally find something that I could fall back on; a reason for living. But all that the drugs ever did to me was make me feel even WORSE about who I was. I kept slipping into a never-ending pit of addiction, and it seems like I can't dig myself out of it no matter how hard I try.
"And the worst part of it is, I've thought about committing suicide as well. I just can't deal with all of this crap anymore, and I don't want to live another day on this earth if it means I have to keep going home to the same ungrateful family, keep doing the same damn drugs, and keep thinking about ways to end my pathetic life."
Despite her best efforts, Jamie finally began to cry uncontrollably to herself. Tears started to pour down her face at an unbelievable rate, and she couldn't fight them back no matter how hard she tried. She didn't want to look weak in front of anybody, least of all Gumball, but she couldn't stop herself.
All of a sudden, Gumball did the most surprising thing he had ever done. He leaned in towards Jamie, and gave her a comforting hug. Jamie suddenly started to try and fight back the tears as she looked at Gumball in surprise of what he was doing. One half of her wanted to shove him off of her, while the other half wanted him to hold on to her tighter and not let go.
Jamie leaned in towards Gumball's shoulder and started crying , while Gumball started stroking the back of her head to try his best to comfort her. They sat on the park benches for God knows how long, until finally Jamie looked back up at Gumball and said, "You better not tell anybody about this, Gummypuss."
Gumball looked back down at her and said in a kind and caring voice, "Don't worry Jamie; your secret's safe with me."
