Brad and Katie Chronicles: The Unexpected Love Essay

Katie Bland is a girl that has long blonde hair, blue eyes, and her skin is white as the clouds that hovered over her new hometown. All the adults in her life tell her she is absolutely beautiful. She is fifteen years old and her sophomore year at Stanport High starts today. Katie hopes silently that this is the last new school she has to move to. She had moved around her whole life and never lived in one place for more than two years.

Katie gathered all her stuff together and she was ready for her next year of high school. She arrived, and as she was walking to her first class she bumped into a boy that seemed like a football player. She fell.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t see you there,” said the player, “Here let me help you up.” He grabbed Katie’s hands and pulled her to her feet again.

“It’s fine, it’s not the first time somebody didn’t see me,” Katie remarked sarcastically. She stared into his enticing brown eyes. Then, a girl walked up, with semi-long black silky hair, and the hazel eyes of a bitch.

“Oh, hey Lea,” said Brad. The hint of admiration in his voice told Katie that they are a couple. Brad kissed Lea on the cheek. Lea seemed not to care, instead, she quickly turned to face Katie.

“Um, Brad who is this?” Lea asked in a disgusted voice. Katie realized she hadn’t told him what her name was.

“I’m Katie. Katie Bland, I’m a sophomore and I’m new to this school,” She said quickly. Lea said something under her breath, and then Lea and Brad walked away from her, and the bell rang. Her first class was biology. Katie recognized Brad. He sat in the class waiting for it to start. Katie felt awkward about her recent interaction with Brad and his obvious girlfriend. Throughout Biology she debated the idea of starting over with him and trying to make a friend. When the class finally ended, Brad walked up to Katie.

¨Hey, it’s Katie, right?¨ Brad asked her. It was barely a question.

¨Yeah, why?¨ Katie looked confused.

¨I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for how Lea acted earlier,” he said, “She has the tendency to be a little sassy when it comes to other girls flirting with me.¨ Katie formed a shocked expression.

“You think I was flirting with you?” She asked nervously. “I wasn’t, it was just an accident, I didn’t mean to bump into you,¨ She spat these last words out as fast as she could.

Brad smirked coyly, and said “Well, you’re pretty, I don’t mind,¨ Katie could swear he winked, and she felt her face flush with red.

Katie attempted to stammer something out, “Well I didn’t even know who you were until after, I’m sorry if you thought I was-.¨ She was interrupted by Lea cutting in.

“Um, babe, what’s going on, why are you talking to this girl again?¨ Then she said to Katie, “Don’t talk to my man without permission from me, he doesn’t need the ugly disease. Hoe.¨ Katie could barely contain the tears, and ran for the bathroom. She could not believe Lea had said that. When she got in the bathroom she went into the stall and cried her eyes out. She looked at her phone and saw a post on Instagram about her. It was a picture of her and a caption below reading,

“Look at this hoe. Watch out, this ugly freak is a man stealer, I caught her flirting with my man and touching him.” She saw the hashtags on the post. They were #lozer, and #hoe.

Katie couldn’t believe her first day had gone so badly. When Katie read the comments on the post, in a moment of sadness and smallness, she opened her backpack and grabbed her sharpener and she placed it on the floor and stomped on it as hard as she could.

She picked up the blade,

took a deep breath,

and cut her wrists.

And cried.

Then, a couple minutes later, her stall had silenced. She walked out, with her sweater and hood on, and her sleeves down. She just went home. As she walked in through the door she dropped her stuff and ran up stairs. She slept the whole evening, until 2:30 in the morning. Her mom had come home and woke her up, and said in a calm voice, “Katie, I got a call from your new school yesterday at work and they said you didn’t show up for six classes,” then she got concerned: “It’s your first day, Katie, what happened?”

Katie decided to lie. “Um, yeah I got lost so I went and stayed in the office and did my work there.” Katie lied to give the school a chance. Maybe everyone wasn’t so bad.

—

Katie woke up in the morning, despite the events of the previous day. As she got ready to face the day ahead, she made sure to put on clothes that covered her arms. She made her way to school and dragged her feet through biology. Brad seemed to ignore her during that class. She felt like he probably hates her after what happened with Lea. After a horrible class period, she went to the gym. Katie saw Lea, and guessed that she had PE with her. Lea decided she hadn’t done enough damage yesterday.

“I guess you saw what I posted,” she laughed, “I guess you thought I was right then, ugly hoe.” Katie did her best to keep the tears in, but one slipped out and she wiped it away quickly.

While they were stretching, Katie heard Lea talking some gossip to her friends.

“…Yeah, I made her cry so easily in the locker room, such a cry baby…” The group laughed. Lea walked up to Katie, and talked her usual crap.

”I have some friends that would like to talk to you after class, they want to get to know you better,” Oh… not her usual crap. Katie wasn’t dumb and knew that something was up, but she didn’t think too much. After a not so strenuous workout, the class came to a close. As she was walking to her next class, she heard a guy call her name… she thought for a moment. Oh… Lea’s friend is a boy. Katie definitely does not want him to get to know her better.

The boy did not take the hint.

“Katie. Hey, Katie, wait up,” he said. That was not a voice she wanted to wait for. She turned around, and it was not one boy… there were four of them walking toward her. She turned around quickly and sped up her pace.

“Hey, beautiful,” another voice said. “Why don’t you come here and hangout with us?” Katie kept walking. Hopefully, they would realize she did not want to talk to them. As Katie broke into a run, so did they. They cornered her into a small, secluded area in the school. She turned around, trying not to cry.

“Come on honey, you know you want to hangout with us,” One of them said. A guy came up behind her and grabbed her, then the boys started touching her in places she didn’t want to be touched. She screamed out for help and started to cry, but one slapped her and covered her mouth. They ripped her shirt open and threw her on the hard ground. One of the boys tore her shirt completely off and got on top of her. The weight of his body on hers was so uncomfortable, so horrible. He pressed his lips onto her body, and his dirty hands reaching down. But before he could do what he wanted, he was on the floor, knocked out, along with his friends. From what Katie could see through her watery eyes she saw Brad, Brad had come and saved her. He helped her up.

“Katie, what the hell happened, do you know these people?” Brad had a concerned look on his face. Katie thought that he’s still cute, even with that look.

Katie responded, “No, Lea said they wanted to ‘get to know me’.” Brad’s face switched from cute concern to pure anger. “Lea did this?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. “She set you up. Why would she-?” He thought for a moment. “Did she really do this just because I was talking to you after bio?” Katie nodded slightly. Tears were still streaming down her face. Brad took off his sweater and put it around her shoulders, lightly grabbed her hand, and led her to his car.

“I know it’s still school hours but, you need to get away from here,” he said, “You need it.”

Katie kept her eyes down, nervous and worried, not looking directly at him. “I….don’t want you to get in trouble.”

He ignored her. “Hey, Katie, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised, “I will never hurt you.” Katie got into his car, and Brad drove away her in the passenger seat. As he drove, Brad switched on the radio. She turned to the radio and smiled, she started to dance. She loved the song. Brad smiled, and he fell for her a little, and she, him. But despite their great time, Katie settled down, and the tears came again. Brad pulled over the car and pulled her into his strong, safe, arms.

“I can’t imagine how you must feel,” A solemn expression came over his face. Still cute, Katie thought. I’m so sorry about what Lea did. If I knew she was that bad of a person I would have never taken a chance on her.” He lightly kissed her on her forehead and then started the car up again. That kiss made her tingle from head to toe, the spot he kissed feeling more sensitive than any part of her body. Ooh, Katie thought, Brad’s car seat is so comfy. And soon, without even realizing it, Katie fell to sleep in his strangely comfortable car. Brad pulled his car into a hotel parking lot, and took Katie’s phone into his hand.

He opened her phone and texted Katie’s mom:

“A couple of friends want to take me out for a few days and, I can catch up on work there and if there is anything I miss I’ll do it back home”

Brad set her phone back into her lap. She woke up, and when she saw her surroundings, a confused look went over her face

Brad smiled, “Hey,” he said, calmly.

“Hi”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah. Um, where are we?”

“I took you to a hotel, my uncle works here and he won’t mind us staying here for a couple of days, if that’s OK with you of course.”

“Yeah, umm, sure, that’s fine,” she thought he deserved a thanks, “Thanks for everything Brad.”

“Hey it’s OK. Nobody should be treated badly, especially you,” She knew he winked this time. She smiled lightly and he smiled back.

Brad pulled Katie into his arms. He whispered into her ear. “I’m so sorry for everything. You didn’t deserve what happened to you.” Tears build up in Katie’s eyes as she remembers. It felt like a nightmare. He wiped the tears off her face and left to pay for the room, assuring her he would be back as soon as he could. Katie takes out her phone and saw 24 unread messages. Katie said to herself quietly, “What did I do wrong, why are people making up these lies?”

Brad came back with a key to the room, and led her by hand to their hotel room. They settled down, and Katie went to the restroom. She heard her phone ding.

 

“Don’t worry, Katie, it’s your mom,” Brad assured her.

“I’ll look at it when I get out.”

“She’s responding to a message I sent her earlier.”

Brad picked up Katie’s phone, and responded to her mom, but he dropped it. The back of the case fell off. Katie came out of the restroom and saw what happened, “Oh, my phone case always does that. I got it.”

Brad reached to pick up her phone for her and saw a blade with what looked like blood on it.

“Katie?” He swiped the blade from the case so she couldn’t see and handed the phone back to her. “Can I see your arms?”

Katie felt her face flush with red and freaked out internally. She said all she could say: “Why?”

Brad seemed to get frustrated. “Let me see your ams, please,” he said, and despite his frustration, he said it calmly.

“Please don’t freak out, please,” She said, still freaking out.

She took off his sweatshirt, leaving her with her shirt on. She rolled her sleeves up, revealing scars running side to side up to her shoulders and down to her wrists. Brad sat down on the bed, defeated.

“Brad, please say something!” She cried out, and covered her mouth.

“What do you want me to say? Katie, why would you do this?”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” She said, crying, “I felt like nobody cared about me so I had to do something to relieve some of the pain.”

“Did it help? It didn’t, right?”

“No, but I hate getting picked on, it hurts,” She bawled, “You have no idea how it feels to have a mom that isn’t around most days and having no dad around at all. Try being picked on for things you can’t control. It hurts and I don’t know what to do. Everything just builds up and I take it out on myself because for some reason I think it’s all my fault. Nobody’s there to save me from myself and I’m feeling so alone and trapped, I just can’t take it!” She nearly screamed these words out. Brad pulls her in close. She immediately felt safe, the emotions she felt a second ago fade into calmness.

“I’m going to be here for you. I promise. Please talk to me when you have problems, I don’t want to lose you,” He said, worried.

“But what about Lea?”

“We aren’t talking about her, we are talking about you,” he said, “Your safety.” He kissed her softly on the cheek.

Katie smiled and blushed, hard, “Thank you, for everything.”

They fell for each other a bit more, and after a night of long talking and laughter, they fell asleep in bed together, Brad wrapping his arms around Katie, and Katie, finally feeling safe after a long time.