Rae

 

Over the next couple of weeks, Rae did everything she could to keep her feelings for A.J hidden whenever she was at the school. She knew she needed to carry on as if everything was normal for A.J’s sake, but being there at the school, almost felt like she was playing with fire. What if she couldn’t hide her feelings for A.J?

They agreed to give each other some space while they were at the school, agreeing it was the best way for them both to get through this. A.J reluctantly agreed to stay away from rehearsals for the time being.

Rae knew that it was going to be hard to keep up the pretense, but she kept telling herself that it wouldn’t be forever. She just needed to remember that in the end, she was the one A.J wanted.

When she arrived at the school one morning, Rae hurried along the corridor, making her way down to the dance studio. She was supposed to be meeting Calum early, and she was already ten minutes late. 

When she reached the studio, she hurried inside and was not surprised to find Calum already waiting for her.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said as she hurried across the dance floor, and pulled her iPod dock from her bag. “I slept through the alarm. I swear, I didn’t wake up properly until I was halfway here.”

She plugged in the dock, then turned back to Calum and gave him a warm smile. However, the moment she saw him, her smile quickly faded, and her heart almost stopped in her chest.

Calum was sitting on the chair in the corner, his eye bruised swollen, and his lip split and bloodied, as tears danced in his eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Rae.

“OH, MY GOD!” She exclaimed as she hurried across the room to where the boy was and took his face in her hands. “What happened? Who did this to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Calum replied as he pulled his face free from her grasp.

“Yes it does,” Rae cried as she took hold of him once more. “No one has the right to do this to anyone. I want to know, who did this?”

“And if I tell you, it will just make everything even worse than it already is,” Calum sighed as he looked up into Rae’s eyes. “I told Father Alex that doing this was a bad idea. I knew if anyone found out, something like this would happen. I knew that it was a matter of time…”

“You were beaten up because you dance?” Rae said feeling sick with anger. “Calum, please, I need to know who did this to you.”

“I TOLD YOU!” Calum shouted as he stood up suddenly and pulled away from Rae. “It doesn’t matter. Telling you won’t change anything.”

“But it does matter, Calum,” Rae said as she followed him across the room. “You matter. Whoever did this to you, should not be allowed to get away with it. Please, Calum; don’t ask me to stand here and do nothing.”

“I can’t tell you,” Calum said as tears suddenly trickled down his face. “I just came here this morning to say thank you for trying to help me, but I won’t be coming here anymore. I’m going to stop dancing. I know you don’t understand, and I’m sorry to have wasted your time, but my mind is made up.”

Rae’s heart broke with those words. She knew only too well how Calum was feeling right at that moment. She had let Dean beat the love of dancing out of her, and now Calum was letting the same thing happen to him.

She wanted to plead with him not to give up; not to let whoever did this to him win, but she knew there was nothing she could say to him to make any of this okay for him. The courage to go on was something he needed to find for himself and right now, looking at his face, she knew he was not ready to be that strong.

“Calum,” she said as suddenly tears trickled down her face. “Please don’t let them win. I beg you. Dancing is who you are. It’s what you love. Don’t let them take that away from you.”

“They already have,” the boy replied and gave her a sad smile before he turned and walked towards the door. “Now please. Stay the hell out of it.”

Rae stood there in the center of the room, long after Calum had vanished through the doors. She wished more than anything that A.J was there with her right at that moment. She wished that she could have said the right thing to help Calum. And there was a tiny part of her that wished she had never come to Saint Mike’s.

Suddenly a sob escaped from deep inside her, as her heart shattered into pieces not just for Calum, but for her too. She just wished that for once, life didn’t have to be so hard. She dropped down to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and let go of all her sadness.

By the time Rae had to go to class, she had managed to compose herself and had even managed to fix her make up to hide her puffy, red eyes, but her mind was still working overtime. There was no way she could stand by and allow what happened to Calum to be accepted.

She wondered what A.J would think about it when he discovered what had happened to the boy. Surely he would insist on getting to the bottom of it. Either way, she was not going to let this go until she got some answers, and she was not going to let Calum give up on his dream.

As the kids filed into the classroom, for her first class, Rae was miles away. It wasn’t until someone made a coughing sound that she realised that the class was all seated and were now staring at her expectantly.

“Good morning,” She said with a smile, as she slowly rose from her seat. “I hope you all had a good weekend and are ready for another week of hard work. This week we will be concentrating on a classic. Romeo and Juliet; a tale of forbidden love, and tragedy.”

Rae walked down the aisle of her class as she spoke.

“Now I know you think that Shakespeare is boring,” she continued with a smile, and most of the class groaned, while one or two giggled. “And that Romeo and Juliet has nothing to do with modern day society, but you’re wrong. In fact, most of you have probably watched a movie based on the main premise of Romeo and Juliet. There are many of them, and I bet most of you would be surprised by them.”

This comment was greeted with a wave of chatter.

“Who here has seen West Side Story?” She asked as she looked around the class. That’s when she spotted one of the boys she knew from the Basketball team. Reece had a small cut under his eye. Her eyes instantly dropped to his hands, and Rae's stomach heaved when she saw the bruising on his knuckles.

She let her eyes meet his, and the moment they did, his face flushed with embarrassment, as he quickly pulled his hands back from the table, and tried his hardest to hide them from her.

Rae knew in her heart; he was involved with what happened to Calum. The look on his face told her that he was.

She quickly turned away and tried to refocus her thoughts to what she was discussing in class. She walked back to her desk, and sat down, as a hum of whispers slowly spread out throughout the class.

She looked up at the class, and twenty-nine pairs of eyes were fixed on her. One pair remained focused on the table in front of him and Rae wanted to slap him for what he had done to Calum.

“I…um…where was I,” Rae said as she tried to refocus her thoughts. She closed her eyes, and images of Calum’s bruised face, as the tears spilled down his cheeks crashed into her mind. “I... actually, can you all open your books on page ten, and start reading the first chapter. Rebecca, I’m leaving you in charge. I want you just to read, and behave. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, Ms. Sullivan,” Rebecca said as she stood up and walked to the front of the room.

Without saying another word, Rae hurried out of the classroom, and along the empty corridors. She didn’t know if she wanted to cry, throw up, or beat the crap out of someone, but she knew she was not letting this go.

When she reached the gym, she wasn’t that surprised to see it empty. She knew that A.J didn’t have any classes till later that day. Rae hurried across the hardwood floors, and through the double doors at the far end of the gym, toward the locker rooms, and A.J’s office.

When she stormed into the office, she found A.J working on some game strategies on a huge white board, lost in thought.

“They beat him up!” She exclaimed as she tried to calm her ragged breathing. A.J quickly spun around, a look of surprise on his face, to see Rae standing there. “They know about the dancing, and they beat him up!”

“Rae!” A.J exclaimed as he set down his marker and walked towards her. “Who was beaten up?”

“Calum,” she said as she blinked back the tears that were now burning her eyes. “He came to practice, and his face…he was beaten and so broken. He said he is not going to dance anymore because they beat him up.”

“WHAT!” A.J exclaimed, and Rae knew that he was thrown by what she had told him. “Who beat him up?”

“Reece!” Rae replied as she looked up into A.J’s eyes. “He beat Calum, and now Calum won’t dance anymore.”

“Did Calum tell you it was Reece?” A.J asked, as a look of anger settled across his face.             

“No,” she sighed as she began to pace up and down. “But Reece has a cut on his face and his hands… I know it was him because when I spotted his hands, he tried to hide them. He couldn’t even look at me… He beat him…he…he beat him.”

Rae couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, as A.J wrapped her in his arms.

“It’s okay,” A.J whispered in a calming voice, as he tried his hardest to comfort her. “I will find out what the hell happened, and I will make sure whoever hurt Calum pay for what they have done.”

When the final bell of the day rang out throughout the school. Rae breathed out a long, exhausted sigh. The day had seemed endless, and she was glad it was finally over.

She was desperate to talk to A.J again and find out if he managed to get to the bottom of what had happened. She had been tempted to go look for him so many times during the day, but she knew she needed to let A.J handle this.

She had seen Calum several times during the day in the hallway of the school, but each time he saw her, he would turn and walk in the other direction. Rae was surprised how sad that made her feel when he did, but she knew he was more ashamed of himself than angry at her.

When the last kid finally left her class, she stood up and headed for the door too. She had waited long enough, and now she wanted to know what had happened to the boys that had beaten Calum.

Rae made her way to the gym, knowing that the basketball team were supposed to be practicing there that afternoon. She had expected to find A.J reading the team the riot act over what had happened to Calum, but instead, she found them going through practice as though nothing had happened.

Rae could instantly feel her blood boil, as anger coursed through her body. Without even thinking, she pulled open the door. The whole team stopped and turned when they saw her making her way across the floor.

“Rae,” A.J said when he too turned and saw her walking towards him. She could see from the look on his face that he knew she was angrier than hell, and he was right. She had never felt so angry about anything in her entire life.

“What the hell is going on?” She demanded as she glanced toward, Calum, then back to A.J. “I thought you said you were going to take care of things.”

“Can you calm down,” A.J said as he took hold of Rae’s arm, and led her away from the rest of the team.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” she retorted in a hushed growl as she yanked her arm free. “Those boys beat him, and they need to be held accountable.”

“And they will be,” A.J assured her. “But I talked to Calum, and he refuses to tell me who did this to him.”

“You don’t need him to tell you,” Rae hissed. “Look at them. Reece has a cut on his face, and bruised hands.”

She glanced over at the team, and her eyes fell to another boy, who had a cut on his lip. Instinctively, she looked down at his hands, and sure enough, they were bruised too.

“He isn’t the only one,” Rae continued as she pointed towards the team. “You only have to look…”

“He doesn’t want me to,” A.J said, stopping her mid-sentence. “I know this is not what you want to hear, Rae, but I have to respect what Calum wants.”

“So they get away with it?” Rae asked in disbelief. “Just like that, they win, and Calum has to give up what he loves.”

“It’s not as simple as that, Rae,” A.J sighed, and Rae knew that he was trying to find the right words to say. But there was nothing he could say to make her understand.

“No, and as long as the basketball team is okay,” Rae said as she gave A.J a look of disgust. “Then that’s all that really matters.”

She turned without saying another word and walked away from A.J.

“Rae!” He called after her, but she didn’t stop. “Rae, wait!”

She stopped this time and turned back to A.J, and gave him a questioning look.

“I know you don’t understand,” A.J said once he had closed the distance between them. “And part of me doesn’t get this either. But these boys are a team, and they have each other’s backs.”

“And who has Calum’s back?” Rae asked as she pinned A.J with a look of pure contempt. She turned away once more and walked towards the exit feeling completely confused and angrier than she had ever felt before.