Bad weather meant I had the day off today, so here's a chapter for y'all.

Chapter 11 – Safe

For the rest of the school week Adam had to go from class to class accompanied by a teacher, but that didn't stop the other students from having their fun. Adam's locker was filled with various things, from tampons to water balloons, he was locked in a supply closet when the teachers weren't looking and on Thursday the basketball team used him as target practice by throwing mass amounts of basketballs at him (whilst telling Adam that they though he wanted balls anyway, which Drew felt guilty about for finding just a little bit funny.) Drew felt bad about what was happening, but what made him feel worse was that if it had been any other person in school, Drew probably would have joined in. And although he bore the brunt of it, Adam wasn't the only one getting grief about the situation; on Tuesday morning Nicole greeted Drew with a slap on the face.

"You knew about this," she said before Drew could even make sense of what was going on. "You told me your weird sister was in therapy, you knew what was going on."

"Well obviously" Said Drew, rubbing his cheek.

"So you let me have private study sessions with that… that-"

"-And you're science grade went from a fail to a B," Drew interjected before Nicole could think of a cruel enough noun.

Nicole sighed and crossed her arms impatiently.

"I know it must really suck for you guys right now," she said, not looking at Drew. "But it doesn't make mean that I'm not mad at you. You let me study with someone who thinks they're a guy – I'm not comfortable with that, it's not natural."

Nicole tried to make eye contact with Drew, but Drew imagined that his indignant expression made it too hard for her. She continued.

"CosmoGirl says that if a guy violates your trust, then he isn't worth keeping around. You violated mine by leaving me alone with someone who has serious mental problems and not telling me about it."

Drew didn't like where this was all going.

"Nicole-"

"Don't talk to me okay?" Nicole said as she started to walk away. "I'll leave you and your sister alone, but that means you both need to stay away from me."

And true to her word, Nicole didn't speak to Drew or Adam for the rest of the week. It was now Friday and Drew was on the football field after school, waiting for practice to start.

He had been looking forward to this practice all week. Marc had gotten a 3-day suspension for fighting with Adam and Friday was his first day back at school, as well as his first day back at practice. Drew couldn't wait to have an excuse to knock him to the ground. Repeatedly.

But Marc never showed up. The rest of the team started to occupy the field, but Marc wasn't among them.

Drew tried to ignore the feeling of dread that started to fill him. Marc could've just been late, or maybe he had gotten a playing ban along with his suspension. Really, Drew had no reason to worry, right?

Coach Anderson noticed Marc's absence too and started to question where he was. He didn't have a playing ban. He wasn't late. Marc wasn't coming because he had somewhere else to be. Friday was the only day that Adam had to walk home from school alone.

"Coach, I have to go," Drew said as he started running back towards the school.

Drew ignored Coach Anderson's protests, he didn't bother going to the changing rooms to put on his regular clothes or pick up his belongings. He just ran home as fast as he could.

He didn't stop running until he got to the top of his street. He saw no sign of Marc or Adam. He made his way towards the house and hoped that Adam was in there, doing his homework in peace. As he approached he noticed something on the sidewalk.

It was a large red stain.

Drew felt ill. He sprinted to the door, also covered in red and darted into the house.

"Adam!" He shouted, praying for a response.

A quiet voice answered. It came from the couch.

"Drew?"

Drew hesitated for a moment, frightened of what he would find, before walking over to the couch.

Adam was lying down, a bag of frozen carrots on his face a large red stain matching the one outside was on the side of his torso.

"Adam!"

Drew felt himself fall to his knees, his head spinning with panic. He could hear a faint voice in his head repeating "please be ok, I'll do anything, just please be ok."

But then he heard another voice. This one belonged to Adam.

"I didn't think you'd be home 'til five."

Drew looked up to see Adam pulling himself into a sitting position, holding the bag up to his face. Drew sprung back on to his feet.

"Don't get up, you're injured." Drew said fretfully. Adam didn't seem to flinch from the injury to his side. He must have been in shock.

"What this?" Adam said, pulling the bag down to reveal the start of a black eye, "'tis but a scratch."

He was in shock. Drew tried to force him to lay down again.

"You lie down," He said as he flipped the carrots to the cold side before putting back over Adam's eye, "I need to find something to stop the bleeding."

Adam sat up once again, "Bleeding? You mean this?" He said pointing to the stain on his shirt. Adam began to laugh.

"Dude, this isn't blood. It's spray paint." Adam said, smiling. "Didn't you see it on the sidewalk outside?"

Drew said nothing, he was trying to process what was happening, but his mind was working so frantically that he couldn't make sense of anything.

Adam sighed.

"So, I was walking home from school and when I got home Marc was standing by the door," Adam started. "He had something in his hand. A spray can."

Drew instantly knew exactly what Marc was planning to do. Two years earlier, Kyle Powers reported Marc to the Principal for cheating on a math test. The next day after school, Kyle was found duct taped to his own front door with the word "NARC" spray-painted on his house. It had become Marc's calling card ever since.

"Is that what all of that red outside is?" Drew asked. "It's spray paint?"

"Of course it is dofus," Adam said teasingly.

Drew decided to ignore that last part and instead urged Adam to continue his story.

"So what happened," he asked.

"He made some very charming remarks, perfectly fit for a Neanderthal, and then he tried to knock me to the ground. I managed to get away and then he made the genius move of throwing the spray can at me – that's where this came from," Adam said, pointing to his eye. "He came at me again, so I picked up the can and started spraying it in front of me to try and ward him off, but he tried to walk thought it – you were right; Marc's an idiot! He was standing around choking on the fumes and I did what you taught me to do if I ever get into a fight."

"What did I teach you to do when you get into a fight?" Drew asked, he genuinely could not remember a single instance of giving Adam fighting tips.

"You remember, when I started high school. You said 'Gracie, if a guy ever gets in your face, you kick him in the nards as hard as you can, push him to the ground and run away.' So I did."

Drew flinched involuntarily as he imagined being spray painted in the face and immediately being kicked in the groin, then he remembered that he hated Marc and began to laugh.

"Aw man," said Drew through tears of laughter, "you should've duct taped him to a tree or something. That would've been priceless."

"Are you kidding?" said Adam, who was also laughing, "I wasn't going anywhere near that psycho." But then his laugh stopped and his smile faded.

"He's never going to leave me alone, is he?"

Drew stopped laughing too. He knew that Adam was right. Sure, Marc was stopped this time, but what about next time, and the time after that? What if he came back with more people? Adam could outsmart Marc, but there was no way he could defend himself against a whole gang. Drew knew that there was only way they could guarantee Adam's safety.

"I think we're going to have to move."

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oOo

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"I've made a few calls," Dad said pacing around the dining room. "I can get a transfer to the Toronto firm with 4 weeks notice."

He joined the rest of the family around the dinner table. Adam's 2-day old black eye was being fretted over by Mom, who had the laptop in front of her.

"Toronto." She said, as she clicked on various web pages, "I spoke to Margot, about a place in Riverdale. I can ask her to put in an offer."

Mom took the phone off Dad and made her way to the kitchen. This was what the whole weekend had been, working out what the very uncertain future held for the Torres family. It was Sunday evening, and it seemed like only now was some progress actually being made.

Marc didn't come back to the house, but that didn't stop Mom from calling the police. They were very nice about the whole thing, but they didn't seem to actually do anything about it. Both Mom and Dad agreed with Drew that a move would be the best idea, and now it seemed that that move would be to Toronto. Mom came back from the kitchen a few minutes later.

"She's going to put in an offer for us," she said, sitting back at the table, massaging the side of her head. "We should look at schools."

Drew had already had a look at schools when he found out that Toronto was probably going to be their new home, and he already knew where he wanted to go.

"Now Drew, I know that you really want to go to Montgomery," Mom said. "But what about Adam?"

Montgomery Academy was a private school with an emphasis on sports. They had strong links with Banting, Haslet, Eastern and Toronto universities – Banting even had a number of sports scholarships exclusively available to Montgomery students. The only problem was that it was an all-boys school, and that meant that technically Adam wouldn't be allowed to go.

"It's cool," Adam shrugged. "I wouldn't want to go to a school entirely populated by jocks. Besides – any school that has a uniform is a deal-breaker!"

Mom worked on the laptop again.

"How about a community school?" She said, "There's one in Riverdale – Degrassi, I think."

"Community school might be a good idea," Dad added. "They tend to have very good support networks."

"Found it – Degrassi." Mom said triumphantly, reading their website. "Degrassi Community School is a modern, progressive high school accommodating students grade 9-12 in the residential area of Riverdale."

"Let me see" Adam said, tilting the computer towards him. He began to read to himself, he face lighting up the more he read.

"This sound great," Adam said, "They've got everything you would need from a school."

"Do they have a football team?" Drew asked out of curiosity, maybe he and Adam could hang out after their teams played each other.

"They do, the Panthers." Adam said, "They're pretty new actually, this is the end of their 2nd season. Here's a photograph."

Adam turned the laptop around so that Drew could see, the Panthers wore blue and yellow and were currently "between coaches". They also had a girl as their wide receiver. Drew felt pretty confident that Montgomery would have no problem beating them. He pulled a face.

"I'm not going to school for the sports any," Adam said, "They have an award-winning science team and a state-of-the-art computer lab."

Drew didn't respond; science and computers sounded boring to him, but it was perfect for Adam, who, alternatively, would hate the sports-heavy curriculum offered at Montgomery. They had both found the perfect schools, but they were different schools. Drew wasn't sure how he felt about being separated from Adam, especially after everything that had happened. Adam continued looking up information on Degrassi.

"It says that they have a 'zero-tolerance stance on bullying' and 'have taken action to ensure preventative measures considering the school's history'… what history?"

Adam went quiet as he began to type, Mom was looking over his shoulder cautiously.

"They had a school shooting a few years ago," Adam said, staring at the screen in shock "A student was bullied so much that he just snapped one day and brought a gun to school. A kid got paralysed."

"Maybe that's a good thing." Drew said, trying to help. Everyone at the table looked at him as if he had truly lost his mind.

"Yeah, it sounds magnificent!" Adam said sarcastically, "I don't really want someone at school to shoot me, Drew."

"Sweetheart, no one at school it going to shoot you." Mom chirped in, putting her arms around Adam's shoulders and giving Drew a stare that could easily kill someone.

"No hear me out," Drew said. "You know like how they say that after a terror threat is the safest time to fly? Think about it; a school that had something like that happen is going to go above and beyond to make sure that nothing similar ever happens again."

Mom pondered this for a moment.

"I think," she said, "I think you may have a very good point. But I'm not sending either of you boys anywhere without checking out these schools in person."

"Ok, deal." Adam said.

"Deal." Drew concurred.

"Alright." Mom said, standing up. "Toronto it is then."

.

oOo

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Ahh, we're so close to Degrassi, I can almost taste it!

- Yeah Mrs. Torres, there's absolutely no way Adam is ever going to get shot going to Degrassi, none whatsoever…*

- According to wikipedia, CosmoGirl stop being published in 2008 – I guess Nicole's been reading the back issues?

- Fun fact: Riverdale, Toronto has a street called De Grassi Street – coincidence?

- Yeah Adam, there's absolutely no way you're ever going to have to wear a uniform going to Degrassi, none whatsoever…*

*clearly dramatic irony is genetic.

- The next Chapter is called "Whatever it Takes" – I wonder what that could be referring to…