"Man, this is so unfair." Roman railed against what his father had said.

Not being able to go to the hottest party in the entire school year had been what he had hoped to participate in that coming Saturday.

He shoved his hair from his face as he looked at his mother and father. Roman couldn't believe that just because he got a C in his Biology class he couldn't go to the best party of the year. His own cousins, well second cousins, were going and they had failed at least one or two of their classes, yet their parents were letting them go.

Sika Reigns looked at his son. "Until you get up to a B you are not going anywhere except for after school practice or home straight after school."

Throwing his hands up in the air, Roman headed for the backdoor. The kitchen was bare of his siblings, they were sent up to their rooms while Patricia and Sika had a talk with their youngest son, the senior in high school. The varsity football player that was going to be going off to college and then to the NFL, if they had any say in what he did. He was going to follow his father's footsteps, just like almost everyone else, at least the guys in the family did. His other cousin, though not through blood was nicknamed The Rock and was an NFL star out of California.

He easily bounded out of the house, jumping the three steps of the deck and landing with a muffled thud on the green grass. His house was off set from the ocean, tsunami warnings were always posted in the area. Only a small patch of small woods separated his house from the ocean. Living in Pensacola, Florida, right there on the ocean was a nice place to live but that evening all Roman could think about was missing out on the hottest party of the year. Homecoming was approaching fast and he still had yet to figure out who to invite to school. Maybe he could look at his FriendFace account and see who wanted to go with him if he asked.

FriendSpace was the best domain concocted for chatty teenagers, it was a social media sight where people could post pictures, say crap or whatever they wanted and no one could know who said what. At least that was the downside.

One county over, Roman had heard about a kid, some girl, committing suicide because she was bullied or whatever over the Internet social media site. He didn't understand how anyone could do that. Why would people do that.

He looked at his phone when it went off. It was his cousin Jimmy sending him a text.

Uso1: Coming to the party?

ReigningSupreme: I can't, I'm grounded.

Uso1: What did you do?

ReigningSupreme: C in Biology.

Uso1: Ruff, sorry, Cuz. Tell you how it goes.

That was the end of the conversation.

Roman stood on the soft Pensacola sand of the public beach. The sand was too soft for people to drive on so they didn't allow cars out this way. Plus this area was a little bit more secluded with the small woods keeping residential areas away from the sands. It was a place where Roman could go exploring and see what he could find. At least that was what he had done when he was a little kid and followed his brother out here to hang out with his friends.

Walking along the sand, not caring if he was getting sand inside his shoes he heard something. Stopping, he looking up, raising an eyebrow in confusion. It almost sounded like a wail of some sort and it wasn't from an animal either. He knew the animals around here, aside from coyotes or wild feral dogs, not even the deer made those sounds. It nearly sounded like crying but there was no one out on the beach. The breeze was bringing it from the trees.

"Hello?" Roman stopped at the tree line and he stopped, maybe thinking that something was wrong.

Maybe it was an attack or something.

But his father had taught him to be strong, to do the right thing. If there was a female in trouble you fight for your life to save her. That was what he'd been taught most of his teen life. You help those that couldn't help themselves, even the ones that didn't want to help themselves.

Sucking in a breath through his nose, Roman stepped into the woods.

The woods were not entirely thick, it wasn't dense or tightly packed. It was a reserve of sorts along the coast line near his home. No one could came out there a lot but when they do people liked to hike small trails the weaved through the area. He would often take jogs along the more visible trails in the woods, the ones closer to his house when he was getting up in the morning before school or before practice.

There was one trail that led straight through the woods towards the beach and then out to a nearby sidewalk. The crying came from the direction of the central part of the woods so that was where he headed. Before he realized it there was a girl sitting in a circular clearing Indian style and then he say the knife that she had pressed to her left wrist.

It was on instinct, Roman took two quick long strides towards her, picked up what appeared to be a seraded steak knife and chucked it as far as he could, off the beaten track. Her crying turned into a shriek of shock before the short girl shot up and tried attacking him.

"Leave me alone!" He caught her flailing fists as they tried to connect with his face.

Roman easily ducked out of the line of fire, easily out muscling her. She was small, kind of spindly, maybe one of the dancer types. She had darkish looking blond hair, at least that's what it looked like in the darkening evening sun. She still fought him, trying to push him off balance, away from her. She continued to cry, wailing that he was like the others, the ones that were doing this to her.

"Can't you let me die alone! That's all anyone want, they want me to die. I want to die!" She screamed, making him do the only thing to actually shut her up.

His first instinct was to tell her to shut up, her wailing was killing his ears, but then he knew what a distressed girl needed. He pulled her flush to him and wrapped his arms around her. Almost instantly she stopped yelling, she cried but her screams were muffled by his shirt.

He wasn't sure how long they had stayed like that, with his arms around her, her face pressed into his lower chest. She was so small, so short. She was like five feet, if that. His chin rested on her head, his hand rubbing up and down her white cotton shirt. And then he saw something on the ground that focused his gaze. It was a white piece of paper laying on the ground next to where she had been sitting. In big Sharpie letters there was I'm sorry, I can't go on like this.

She was trying to kill herself, but why? She was pretty, she had nice features, something young and pixie like. She was small, sure, but...she looked normal.

When her crying started to subside, Roman stepped away from her, reached down, picked up the piece of paper and shoved it in his pocket.

"I have to go." She mumbled deeply, murmured in a tone that sounded like defeat.

Like hell she was, Roman decided as he caught her wrist. Without saying anything, he started pulling her out of the woods, back towards the beach. All he knew was that she needed to talk to someone, maybe his mom and dad could do that for him.

He knew her but he didn't know her name. Even as she continued to protest as they got out of the woods, Roman would look back at her, the frightened pale girl as she tried, without success, to get out of his grasp. Roman was not going to let her go, not after what he had seen. He needed to get her some place safe, some place where she could talk and not feel scared.

Through his back gate he and the girl came. She had a hard time keeping up with his longer strides- obviously- and she had mostly stopped trying to get away from him.

"Where are we?" She asked, out of breath and defeated it sounded like.

"My home. Don't worry, my parents are home. You're going to talk to them."

"Why?"

"Because obviously you need someone to talk to and they are good people. I'm a good person." Roman tried to persuade her.

She didn't look at him when he glanced back at her as he mounted the back steps. It was close to sundown at that time, it was growing darker. He knew he had a curfew to uphold but he knew nothing about the girl. She was just someone he recognized that went to his school. So peer help was essential at that moment. At least he hope so.

"Roman, what's going on?" His father asked when he swung the back door open.

"Where's mom?" He asked tugging the reluctant girl in after him. "I need to talk to you both."

"She's helping Summer with something. What's going on? Who's this?"

Who was this, Roman wanted to know that as well. He only hung out with the other athletes at school, not some girl that was so quiet like a mouse, well a mouse disguised as a banshee. She did have a set of lungs on her.

"A friend that needs help." Producing the note he picked up back in the woods, he gave it to his father. "She needs help, Dad, I don't know what to do."

For a moment Sika stared at the piece of paper. His short curly hair framed his face as he looked at the note and then at the girl that was now trying to use Roman as a Shield.

"What's your name, girl?" Sika asked finally.

"Evelyn," she stuttered, shaking as she spoke. "Evelyn Kimball."

Sika nodded, though seeing that she wasn't trying to look at him, he turned and left the room.

"Sit down, Eevee." Roman said pulling out one of the chairs that went to the small kitchen island in the room.

She flinched when he tried to touch her shoulder but she sat down. Obviously if she tried to make a break for it, a football player and his strong looking father would stop her. Roman stood for a moment before pulling out one of the island stools for him to perch on, though he kept his eyes pinned to her.

"Roman, honey, what's wrong? Is there something going on with your friend?" Roman's mother asked walking into the kitchen a minute or so later.

Roman couldn't understand it but he knew his mother had a calming personality about her that could ease the scared of people. "Hello, Dear, I'm Patricia, I'm Roman's mom."

Evelyn looked up from her clasped and fidgety hands to look at Patricia. "Hi, I'm Evelyn."

"Evelyn, such a pretty name for a pretty girl. Let me guess, they didn't offer you something to drink. I thought I raised my son better than that."

"Mom," Roman found himself groaning.

Unlike his father, his mother was a different nationality, Italian. With both of those heritages in his blood, he had caramel skin, dark hair and an odd shade of gray eyes that could change from time to time. He had been called handsome, sexy and other terms of hot looking over his life. He knew he was one of the best looking guys in school, but he had other things going on to realize what was happening around him at that moment.

"Honey, you should know that my son is only doing what we have told him to do, to help others."

Evelyn rubbed her nose. "No one can help me."

"Bullshit," cursed Roman.

"Excuse me, young man?" His mother's green eyes looked at him. "We don't use that language in this house. I thought I taught you better than that."

"Sorry, ma'am." Roman ducked his head and then looked at the girl next to him. "She had a knife. I couldn't just let her, you know."

"I know, I know. You were doing your best, son." Sika spoke up. "Young lady, I mean Evelyn, is there something going on that you want to talk about."

"Not really. I mean it's not a big deal."

"And using a knife would make things better?" Roman asked.

"Maybe it would, for me. You don't understand, Roman. You don't know what it's like. Everyone is making fun of me just because..." she shook her head.

"Just because what?"

"My mom and Ambrose's dad, you know."

Roman furrowed his brows at her. "I don't understand. Dean's old man ran off with some hooker, I mean working woman."

"The hooker is my mother. She just up and left Dad, Grandma and me behind." She rubbed her eye with a small dainty closed fist. "I didn't even know Ambrose's dad knew my mom. All I know is that he came and picked her up and they left town together."

Roman knew Dean real well, though more of a social outcast and that was the way Dean liked it. Dean was one of the poorest kids in school, considering everyone else either had a lot of money or were well off in general. Though Dean was working at a Boxing gym place in town to earn extra money to live off of, he wasn't interested in the social scene anyway. He liked his privacy and it even took Roman a long time to understand the guy. Dean never spoke about his dad or what happened, all he knew was that Dean's dad left one day with some woman... and...Roman realized what she was getting at.

"Everyone's making fun of you because of your and Dean's dad?" Patricia asked the question that Roman was about ready to ask.

"Basically. It started out with something like 'hey look, your dad didn't want you. I guess no one else does.' I don't have friends, I only use FriendSpace because I can post pictures online that I have of me performing but after a while someone started to really get mean with me and soon other people started in."

"Do you know who?" Sika asked as he settled in the stool facing her.

Evelyn shrugged. "They are all faceless people to me. I just...I only do it because I can post pictures and no one isn't really my friend anyway so I didn't think anyone would recognize me. I'm just the symphonic first fiddle, I play at dances and stuff like that. No one knows me."

Roman wanted to slap himself in the face. Of course, of course he didn't know her. She was a junior and he was a senior. It was only the start of the year but he knew he had seen her before. The symphonic band played at his Junior prom that he went to. Dean was a junior, and after all his dad did apparently went with her mom, maybe he would know.

"Roman, why didn't you know..." Patricia started in on her son again.

"I never said hi to him." Evelyn said.

"Eevee," he whispered.

"Roman, we go to one of the biggest schools in Pensacola, how can you know everyone you've come into contact with?" She asked, glancing back at her hands. "May I have a glass of water, ma'am?"

"Of course," he mom stood up and went to the sink and the clean dish drainer.

No one spoke while Patricia got the drink ready for Evelyn.

"I want to…" Evelyn started to say, forcing herself it seemed to speak.

"If you say die, yeah right. I'll hide all the knives if I have to." Roman couldn't help but roll his eyes at her when he said that.

Really, was it so bad for this girl, a girl he had never actually met before? Most of the texts on his phone were about football, classes and stuff like that. Not about a girl that…deserved to die.

Roman shook his head and took a deep breath. "Look, that isn't the answer to all your problems. Let me see what everyone is saying and then we'll talk to Mr. Helmsley tomorrow."

Mr. Helmsley was their principle and the head coach for the entire school football team. He was the winning school administrator in the school and there was no denying that he could help out Evelyn since his wife Stephanie was a guidance councilor.

Evelyn pulled her cell phone out and accessed her FriendSpace account. Then she handed the phone over to Roman to look at.

"What does it say, son?" Sika asked.

"Just crap about her. You're fat, you're a cow, U R A slut, just like your Mommy." He slid the phone over to his dad. "The worst one is the newest one she got about an hour ago. The world would be a better place if you went off and died. Stop posting pictures, no one likes you."

Sika shook his head. "Have you shown this to anyone, besides us?"

"No. Because they're right."

"What happened between your guys' parents has nothing to do with you." Patricia said as she looked over at the phone, shook her head and then reached across the island to take Evelyn's hand. "You are a special person, sweetie. If you could just talk about this with someone, it would have made it all worth while."

"Oh, dear." Sika said.

"What?" Roman and Patricia said together.

It was a new post, one that had been posted minutes ago. It was of Roman and Evelyn in the wooded area, him holding onto her as she cried into his chest. He didn't see anyone out there, of course it was kind of dark and the woods could have hid anyone. But the poster, BBShadow, was someone he knew. It was someone's name that he recognized on FriendSpace because she was a friend of his.

"I'm sorry, but that's a bitch I know." Roman nearly howled, shoving his chair back so hard that it nearly toppled right over onto the floor. "I can't believe she would do that."

"Roman, settle down." His mother stood up, her voice going up as well. "What are you talking about? Do you know who posted this."

The Caption said: She's giving the hottest guy STDs, ewe gross, who'd want to touch that thing?

And people were commenting on the picture, people that he recognize as friends and associates from school. It only made the senior angrier. But his anger was scaring the shiest person he had ever met.

If she bowed her head any further then her forehead would touch the counter top. Her hand pooled down around her hands as her shoulders started to shake. So this is what she had to deal with, this was what she had to be around all day every day.

"I could have done something." He was fuming.

"How could you when you've never looked at me twice." Evelyn asked as she sniffled slightly.

That stopped Roman's tirade. "Huh?"

Finally she looked up at him, really at him. Not at his forehead or an ear, but she looked right into his eyes. "I'm in your Senior Biology class, Roman. I sit in the back where no one can see me. You sit with some of those football people midway through the field of tables. I sit in the back alone because no one wants to sit with me."

He shared a class with her? She'd been that close and he never recognized her, he never said hi to her? What kind of person was he?

"Don't blame yourself. I like it when people don't recognize me."

"They should just passed a law." Patricia said, tapping her crossed forearm. "I think it should be something about anti-bullying and it being linked to stalking. Maybe this kind of thing should go to the police."

"I know who is doing this. I'm taking it to Principle Helmsley." Roman finally sat down next to Evelyn again as Sika handed her phone back. "Tomorrow I'll take her to the principle and tell him what's going on."

"I don't want to cause a problem."

"You're not a problem." Sika said. "I raised my boy to help people and you definitely do not hurt women. And you're a pretty young lady that needs all the help in the world. How about Roman take you home. It's getting closer to dark and I'm sure your…"

"Grandma will be worrying about me. She's always worried about me." Evelyn stood up and looked at Roman slightly. "Are you really going to take me home are you joking?"

"I'm taking you home." Roman told her sternly.

He grabbed his keys off the nearby key ring holder and guided her to the front door.

This is just something that had been dancing around in my head for a while. My intent is to make it a short story, simple three parts. If people like it I'll try to swing it into a longer one. Hopefully you enjoyed this part. Let me know how you like it.