Prologue : Bryce Fletcher (2)

During his third year of high school, as he was walking alone towards the cafeteria, he overheard shouting from behind a staircase. As he turned the corner, he first saw the backs of two senior students: a tall, well-built blond boy and a girl with black hair. Both of them were looking down and snickering at something.

Moving in closer to see what they were laughing at, Bryce found himself appalled; there on the floor was sitting a girl in the same year as him. He first noticed her curly dark red hair, then her large green eyes, glittering through streams of tears. Finally, he noticed her face, not ugly by any means but not stunning either; however, that mattered little; what he focused on was a bruise just beneath her right eye.

The chivalrous spirit that Bryce once cultivated in his childhood was reignited; for a moment, it was as if all he could hear were the sounds of the girl's panicked breathing.

He felt that if he wanted to be true to the knight that he always wanted to be, he needed to act. Thus, he gathered his courage and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hey ! What's going on here?!"

Taken off guard, both of the seniors jumped, perhaps slighted by the scare. The blond youth took a loud, intimidating tone before responding rudely.

"This bitch here bumped into my girl; we were just teaching her a lesson about manners!"

"Is that any reason to hit her, dumbass? Get lost before I make you." 

Bryce was well known in the school for being athletic; despite the senior's build, the simple thought of looking bad in front of his girlfriend was enough for him to relent, bringing along his partner.

"Yeah, whatever you fucking simp." 

Despite the snide remark, Bryce remained focused and reached his hand down to the girl, who had done her best to slow her breath and wipe her ruined makeup off of her face.

"My name's Bryce; what's yours?"

Through gasps and gulps, the girl reached her hand up and replied in a hushed tone:

"My name is Alice; thanks for helping me."

Just the sound of her voice was enough to make Bryce's heart skip a beat, as if he had been struck by an unknown force. He suddenly felt nervous and broke out in subtle cold sweats. This was the first time that he felt this way; he had dated girls before, but this was new. He felt that he was entirely captivated by her being, though now was hardly the time for a confession. Instead, he wore his best smile and did his best to put on a comforting tone.

"Well, Alice, shall I take you to the nurse's office? That's a nasty bruise you have there."

Alice's cheeks were suddenly flushed with a bright red, though this time not out of anger. She looked down at the ground, letting her shoulders down. With a deep sigh, she gathered all her courage and replied in a near whisper:

"Sure thing, Bryce, thank you."

Following this event, Bryce would begin talking with Alice more and more; they shared meals together, talked about their surprisingly mutual interests, exchanged numbers, and eventually started dating. This was the first relationship that Bryce truly cared about, and every day he would feel a strange rush of motivation that he seemed to lack before meeting Alice. 

Soon after he began dating Alice, Bryce noticed that she would often act hesitant out of nowhere and cover benign parts of her body. He was no fool; he knew that something was up, but any time he would ask, Alice simply insisted that everything was fine, though he could see that her condition was worsening week by week.

One night, during a bout of unrest, Bryce tossed and turned, imagining the troubles that must have been plaguing his girlfriend. He had consulted Oliver many times about her in the past, but having no real experience, he always just seemed to repeat what Bryce already knew, though he could never find it in himself to blame Oliver for his ignorance. Bryce stared at the ceiling in deep thought when his reflection was suddenly broken by two notifications from his phone:

'Thanks for everything, Bryce', 'I'm really, really sorry'

Suddenly, feelings of dread, nausea, and panic set in, reaching his very core.

Without a second, Bryce jumped out of bed, animated by an intense urgency that would not allow him to stay still. He stormed out of his house, still in his pajamas, and began running, barefoot in the middle of the night, as fast as his legs would allow him to move; he felt neither his winded lungs begging him to stop nor his aching feet, whose bare skin had been bruised by the warm asphalt of the road.

He ran all of ten kilometers before he reached Alice's house, but by the time he had arrived, his heart sank as his trance was broken by the wails of police and ambulance sirens and bright flashes of red and blue lights. His very last memory of Alice was her body on a stretcher, her fingernails bloody, and her neck bruised.