The art room was just as he’d left it yesterday. It didn’t surprise Koby that no one else had been back here yet.

He placed his bag of shopping from the pet store down on one of the desks and turned on the light. It was a gloomy day and looked like rain outside, so even though it was only late afternoon, it was pretty dark.

Koby also had a bag from the hardware store that he set down nearer to the mess that remained of his sculpture, sighing and taking a good, long, hard look at it.

He wasn’t going to let this bastard win.

First, he took out the aerosol cans of paint remover he’d bought and read one of the labels. It seemed simple enough. He just had to coat the metal with the solution, leave it for a while, then wash it off.

Koby decided he’d start with some of the smaller parts first. So he collected them from the floor and put them by the bag of stuff for Pac-Man.

He smiled, a little flutter of hope finding its way into his heart for the first time since yesterday morning. After growing up with dogs all around him, he had always told himself he was too busy for one of his own. That he wouldn’t be able to take care of a pet.

But sometimes, moms knew better.

He already felt fractionally less hollow after one night of being a dog dad. Once he’d done some work tonight, he was going to go pick up Pac-Man and take him home with all the new supplies to get him settled into the apartment. He’d already checked the building allowed pets, thank goodness.

It was mostly the fingers from the sculpture that the vandal had managed to bash and twist off. So Koby arranged the several larger bits on the desk as well as all the little innards. He treated them with the paint remover and washed them in the sink before grabbing a pair of pliers to attempt to reshape what had been bent.

He tried to listen to the radio for about a minute, but it reminded him that he was missing his fellow classmates. There was no Wendell grumbling in the corner or little Zane sitting under the table singing, making up his own childish words to the melodies. There was no Yu Yan poking out her tongue as she concentrated on her work, the side of her hand black from her pencils. No Alanna tapping her foot as she click-click-clicked away on her laptop, no Gareth punching the air when he managed to make a panel composition come together.

Instead, Koby worked in silence until a drop or two of rain hit against the windows. He nodded to himself. It had felt like rain all day.

He was relieved, in a way. He didn’t feel like his mood was one for sunshine. It was nice of his buddies to have made such an effort the night before, but all it had really done was convince Koby that he had actual feelings for Vince. The kind that ate you up at night and made it impossible to do anything without catching yourself wishing that person was there. That things were different.

He rubbed his chin, then tried to align the little cogs that he was sure had gone into the insides of this finger. He realized with no small amount of irony that it was the ring finger he had in his hands.

“No ring for you, I’m afraid,” Koby told the strips of metal. “Not for either of us.”

He was so absorbed in his work he didn’t know he was no longer alone in the room until the voice made his head snap up.

“You.”

Koby blinked. He may have put the lights on, but like everything else in this department, they weren’t really worth anything at all. It was really starting to rain outside now and the evening sky was almost as black as night.

Koby squinted at the dripping figure as he pushed back the sweater hood from his head. He had straw-like blond hair and murky eyes that were currently glaring at Koby. He was big. Not as big as Vince, and like he’d maybe once been toned but was now kind of flabby. Either way, he was definitely bigger than Koby.

Koby tightened his grip on the pliers and tried not to panic. “Can I help you?” he asked. There was something very familiar about this guy in a way that set every one of Koby’s nerves on edge.

“I should have known you wouldn’t give up,” the guy said in disgust. “You never give up.”

That voice. Shit – this was the guy Vince had been talking to outside the workroom the other day. Koby hadn’t recognized it then, but now he was looking at this man and suddenly it hit him.

“Andrew Morton?” Koby cried incredulously.

He stumbled from his stool, the pliers still defensively in his grasp as he took a few steps backward. How could he have ever forgotten one of the ringleaders of those shitheads who used to do their best to make his life a living hell? In the blink of an eye, it was as if the last ten years had never happened. Koby was back at Hidden Creek High, caught working after hours by half a dozen members of the Bears football team.

About to get a pounding.

Vince had never been one of them. Koby knew that for sure. But did he know what his friend here used to get up to, back in the day?

“What do you want, Drew?” Koby asked, moving back another step and raising the pliers.

Drew shook his head and sneered. “You little fucking prick,” he growled, taking a step closer. “Why can’t you just disappear? You fucking ruin everything!” he roared.

Koby swallowed. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking, but he stood as tall as he was able. There were several desks between him and Drew, but Drew was also between him and the only door. How was he going to get away?

How was he going to outrun this two-hundred-pound monster?

“Did you do this?” Koby asked, stalling for time. His eyes flicked toward his sculpture.

Drew scoffed, curling and uncurling his fists. He was stalking Koby like a hyena that had its prey cornered. “You think you’re so special,” Drew spat, blinking his eyes rapidly. Koby wondered if he was on something. “You got to piss around with paints and everyone told you you were amazing. I tried to make them see what a piece of shit you were. But you’re like a cockroach, aren’t you? You just keep coming back.”

Koby’s heart was pounding and his legs trembled. The pliers were slipping in his fingers, now slick with perspiration. He always knew Drew and the others hated him, but he always figured it was because he was an artsy little queer. The way Drew was talking made it sound like he was offended by Koby on a personal level.

“I was just doing my thing, man.” Koby wasn’t sure if he was trying to placate Drew or aggravate him. “Why couldn’t you have just done yours? I wasn’t hurting you. But you jocks can’t leave the nerds alone, can you?”

“You fucking deserve to get put in your place!” Drew snarled, jabbing a finger toward Koby and jerking forward. Koby flinched and Drew laughed. “There’s an order to these things!”

“You’re crazy!” Koby spluttered. Tears of dread were prickling in his eyes. He didn’t want this to happen. Drew was so much bigger than him. What if he landed Koby in the hospital?

What if he did something worse?

“You make me fucking crazy!” Drew shot back, grabbing his straw-blond hair and giving Koby a look of disbelief. “You never had any idea. You still don’t! You selfish fuck. Everything was fine, but no, you have to come and take everything like always. You get everything and I get nothing and now you’ve taken Vince too! He’s mine!”

Koby tried to make sense of the rant. “You were popular, on the football team-”

“You had freedom!” Drew bellowed back. “Jesus, fuck. If I’d ever picked up a pencil to do anything more than draw homos fucking other homos on the bathroom walls, my dad would have killed me. I drew cars, did you know that? Motorcycles, too. They were fucking great! But, oh, no. I had to play football, but I was never as good as Vince. So I just sat in his shadows, telling myself it was enough. But you had to ruin that too! You’ve made him a fucking queer like you!”

He shoved one of the desks toward Koby, forcing him to reel back.

“W-what?” Koby stammered, too shocked and scared to process what Drew was screaming at him.

He was jealous of Koby for doing art? How much did he know about Vince?

“Yeah, Vince told me to fuck off,” Drew shouted, pushing another desk. The closer he got, the faster he moved. Koby’s eyes darted from left to right, but whichever way he moved, Drew copied him. “All I had was Vince, and since he started hanging out with you he’s got all these fucked-up ideas in his dumb head! What’d you do, homo? Huh? You suck him off? If you suck me off, will I get all smart and shit too?”

A whole new level of fear rinsed through Koby’s body. “Stay away from me!” he yelled.

But Drew was still advancing.

There were only a couple of desks between them now, less than a dozen feet. Koby choked back a sob and held the pliers up with both hands. Not that he figured they would do much, but they were better than nothing.

Drew was shaking his head and snarling. “I fucked up your little art project before and I fucked this one up too,” Drew hissed. “But I knew you’d try and save it, so I came back to finish the job.” He grinned manically. “If I have to fuck you up too, then that’s okay. Faggots like you ruin everything!”

He lunged for Koby. Koby cried out and dashed to the right, but Drew shoved the desk into Koby’s hip. Pain exploded in his body and he stumbled to the floor, the pliers flying from his hand and skittering across the linoleum.

Koby tried to scramble to his feet, but Drew grabbed his sweater from the back and hauled him up, throwing him against another desk. Koby’s chest slammed into it, his hands only able to stop some of the blow. He turned around as fast as he could to face Drew, but that just meant he took a fist straight to the jaw.

“You piece of shit!” Drew howled as he landed another punch to Koby’s gut. “I’m gonna fuck you up, then I’ll burn this whole place down! You don’t get to win again, you hear me? You hear me?”

Koby took another blow against his ribs, trying to drop or run or something better than just covering his face with his arms and crying out for Drew to stop.

This was it. He wasn’t sure if he was going to make it out of this one.

There was a crash and a roar so loud Koby’s jerked his arms down in shock. He was just in time to see Drew flying backward to the floor, scattering several desks and chairs with his body.

Because Vince had thrown him.

He looked beyond furious, like he was ready to break the world in half, dripping from the rain and breathing heavily like he’d been running. Then he turned to Koby with a gasp and dragged him into his big, safe arms.

“Baby,” Vince cried, hugging Koby’s back and cradling his head. “Oh my god, are you okay? Did he hurt you too badly?”

“Vince,” Koby whimpered in his soaked T-shirt, unable to stop himself from sobbing in relief.

The sound caught their attention of furniture squealing as it was scraped over the floor and a box of pens clattering down. Vince broke away from Koby so Koby could see Drew lurching to his feet. “I knew you were fucking!” he bellowed, like he was going to cry. “You dumbass sick piece of shit! You really chose him – that – over me?”

“Stay away from us, Drew,” Vince snarled, hugging Koby to his side. “Don’t make this any worse than it already is.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Drew cried. He slapped another of the supply baskets, sending wax crayons flying everywhere. Koby flinched, unable to stop his trembling.

“Vandalism?” Vince said. “Assault? On top of your DUIs? You’re looking at real jail time, man. Just calm the fuck down!”

Drew went as white as a sheet. “No, no! You’re not telling anyone! You’re not fucking up anything else for me, either of you!”

He lunged for Vince. Vince let Koby go and pushed Drew back. But even Koby could see Vince was still trying to calm his former friend down.

Drew was like a rabid animal, going in for the kill.

He slashed his fingers at Vince’s eyes, making him duck. Drew took that chance to slam Vince’s stomach with his fist, landing a tight double jab.

Koby grabbed the first thing he could reach – another supply basket filled with paint tubes – and swung it with everything he had against Drew’s back. “Stop it!” Koby screamed, shoving Drew away from Vince.

Drew made to turn his fist on Koby again, but Vince tackled him around his waist, dragging them both away and stumbling into a desk. They wrestled and kicked, raindrops flying from their wet clothes before Drew headbutted Vince’s chin, using Vince’s momentary shock to scramble away from his grasp and land another punch.

Koby looked around desperately. His eyes landed on the pliers and he snatched them up. Drew and Vince collided again, fists flying as they crashed into another desk. Koby wasn’t sure the pliers would do much or if he could really hit another human being. But in that moment, he knew he’d do anything to get Drew off Vince.

He just didn’t get the chance.

Vince stumbled, slipping on the debris on the floor. Drew dove forward, grabbing Vince’s head by the side, then cracking it against the top of the desk.

It was like time froze. “No!” Koby screamed as Vince’s fragile head bounced against the desk.

His huge body went down like a sack of potatoes.

Koby dropped the pliers in absolute horror. “Vince!” he bellowed, running to his side, not caring Drew was still there. Was he dead? Koby couldn’t bear it as he scrambled, jabbing his fingers into Vince’s throat, desperate to find a pulse. “Vince, please!” he sobbed. “Don’t leave me. Vince!”

His chest moved just as Koby found a faint flicker of a pulse, and he cried out in relief. But Vince was still in terrible danger.

“Call an ambulance!” he yelled at Drew.

But Drew stumbled backward, his hands over his mouth. “You – you made me,” he gibbered. “Self-defense. It was – I – you…”

He staggered back a few more steps before turning and breaking into a run, sprinting out the door.

Koby couldn’t believe it, the selfish coward. He cried out a pitiful sound as he fumbled to get his phone out of his jeans. His hands were shaking so much it took him a couple of attempts to hit the ‘emergency call’ button on the lock screen.

“It’s okay, baby,” he whispered, waiting for the call to connect as tears streamed down his face. “I’ve got you. Don’t leave me, okay? I didn’t mean it. I want you to stay. You have to stay. You hear me, Vince? Vince, please. Please. I – I love you.”

Vince didn’t hear him.

All Koby could do was frantically give the details to the operator, and pray that help would arrive soon.