Chapter 1

"Come on Ryan, let's do it! It'll be so fun!" my friend Alex begged me and motioned for me to follow him to the lockers. Oh, I think that he wants to make fun of another girl who's not the same as the cheerleaders.

"Hey, get up! Let's go and laugh at those soulless losers who have no taste in music!" Josh said excitedly as he jumped up and started running behind Alex.

They're not idiots, you're the stupid one, I thought, but didn't regret not having shouted at him how immature and mean he can be to other people. There have been innumerable times that I'm lying awake thinking why the hell I'm hanging out with those people.

"Are you going to come with me or not?" he asked and rolled his eyes. "God, you behave as if you wanna be like them!"

I shook my head, and came back to the real world. My imaginary world is so much better than the real one...

"Oh, I was just zoning out..sorry." I told Josh, who nodded and started walking to the lockers without looking behind him to see whether or not I was coming. He knew that I would run behind him, and, being the idiot that I am, that's what I did.

"Hey, look, it seems that he doesn't know what he's doing! How can he talk back to Alex?" Josh wondered as we reached the lockers, and continued looking at them because it was obvious that one of them was going to put up a fight or something anytime soon. Alex was yelling at some guy because he talked back to him when he called him a loser, then he punched him hard on the face. Some cheerleaders and in general, girls that I usually hanged out with were there, looking at them. It seemed that they were amused.

"I wonder how he could talk back to Alex and call him an idiot, don't you?" Kelly, one of the popular girls and the leader of the cheerleading team asked when she walked up to me.

I just nodded, wishing I was there to see the look on Alex's face when this guy called him an idiot, which he actually was.

"Aww, he can't possibly do anything! He's gonna lose the fight...Awww, poor boy..." Kelly said and started laughing along with some of her popular friends. I caught on her 'joke' but didn't like it at all. The fact that you're popular doesn't mean that you have to look down on other students who're not as popular as you, and, of course, that doesn't mean that you have to bully them, for God's sake!

The thing was that I would never say this to my friends.

"Oh my goodness, how can he listen to this band called Taking...oh, I forgot the rest of this band's name, but I bet that it's just horrible!" one of the cheerleaders said in her annoying voice and started laughing.

It is called Taking Back Sunday, you bitch, and I freaking love them, I thought to myself as another one of my friends asked me if I had ever heard of this band.

"No, I actually haven't..." I lied, wishing I could tell how much I like them.

"Oh okay...my brother listens to them, and, look at him! He's a loner!" he exclaimed, as if he put the blame on Taking Back Sunday for his brother's social status.

I wish I could be invisible and run away from here...The reason why? Everybody was looking at me, obviously waiting for me to take part in the fight.

And believe me, I regret having taken part in it.

As I walked to the boys who were fighting, I could see that every girl would not stop staring at me, as if I was a god or something. If only they could stop annoy the hell out of me by looking at me like that...

"Hey, just stay away from us, you..." I paused on looking at the beaten boy. He was wearing a Green Day band T-shirt and I wished I could wear mine to school. No, my friends wouldn't approve of it. They would probably think that I am not good enough to be one of them since I prefer rock music to this crappy pop/dance music or whatever it is.

I opened my mouth to go on talking, but I couldn't. I'd call him a freak or something, but I couldn't do this. I don't think that people who are different from other people should be labeled as freaks or losers. I think that they're unique, and I firmly believe that everyone wishes they could show to the world who they really are, but they don't cause they're afraid. I have to admit that I am one of those people.

I didn't really want to call him names, but I did as soon as my friends stared at me, waiting for me to tell this guy off for no particular reason. I don't think that yelling at someone and calling them names is something that people should do because other people are different from them.

But I had to.

"Just stay away from us, you freak!" I yelled at him. At once, Alex beat him one more time, causing him to fall down on the floor, almost screaming in pain.

I sighed. He didn't deserve it. There was nothing I could do about it, though.

They were laughing at him and went on talking badly to him. On the one hand, I wish I could be like him, because he was himself, and he wasn't ashamed of who he was, but, on the other hand, I was too much of a coward to cope with bullying.

As we started walking towards the cafeteria, I noticed that the boy was still lying on the floor. His dark hair and pale skin made him look even more like a dead person.

If only I could help him...

Before someone could say anything, the bell rang. I grabbed my stuff and walked away to my next lesson, breathing a sigh of relief because no one of my friends was in the same class as me. And there was the strangest person I have ever met in all my life. Lindsey Stevens, my weird neighbour. Well, she lives next door, so our parents are like best friends, and I think that they expected us to be best friends.

The truth is that once she was my best friend.

Anyways, I can't explain to you since our old, strict teacher who could yell at you for wearing a shirt she didn't like on the spur of the moment walked in and everyone stopped talking immediately.

The first thing I did when the bell rang after forty five minutes that were way too boring was to run out of the classroom and into the boys' restroom. The guy that my friends were bullying before had walked into my class about twenty minutes later than he should have. I didn't blame him at all, he looked pretty beaten. I was about to take a notebook out of my black schoolbag when he took the empty seat at the desk opposite mine and looked at me as if he pitied me.

What he did next shocked me the most. He passed me a paper.

"You are not like them." the note said.

I looked back at him, but he didn't notice me. However, I knew that he was right. I had seen him plenty of times around, and I was jealous of him most of those times. The reason why? I wish I could wear skinny jeans or band T-shirts without being afraid of what other people would say. I wish I wasn't reliant on all those popular people. I wish I could sit on a table on the cafeteria with some people that I really trust, with people that are real friends.

I wish I could be myself...

So, this was the first chapter of 'Fear'. I hope you liked it. If you did, please review and let me know what you think. ^_^