Leif frowned the moment he saw Frank, and a mocking smile formed on his lips as he leaned against the doorframe.
"Stop joking, Frank. Who in their right mind would want to go out with you? Besides, I already made plans with Jennifer."
Frank opened his eyes as if he had just witnessed a live murder.
"What do you mean you already made plans?" he said, placing a hand on his chest as if having a heart attack. "Brother, that is betrayal. You replace me with a girl without even warning me? And what am I then? The old toy you threw away because you found a new one?"
He shook his head dramatically and added:
"My God, Leif… this is how moral decay begins."
Leif let out a laugh as both of them began walking down the sidewalk toward the school.
It was a quiet morning, with a soft sun descending through the trees and leaving a golden glow on the pavement, and a light breeze that pushed dry leaves along the street.
Then, without even planning it, both of them stopped.
A little further ahead, near a street crossing, a blonde girl, so thin she looked fragile, was being surrounded by a small group of older students.
The pushes they gave her looked strong enough to knock her down at any moment. Her body trembled visibly, and her large eyes were filled with fear.
Fear born not from physical pain, but from humiliation repeated so many times it tears something inside.
Leif and Frank looked at each other, and in that instant they did not need words.
Both took a step forward at the same time, until they ended up running with such determination that they kicked up dust from the sidewalk.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" shouted Leif with a voice so loud and firm that even he was surprised by how authoritative it sounded. "Let her go! Now!"
"If you want to mess with someone, do it with me!"
Frank stopped and gave him a strange look, like, "Brother, seriously? You choose now to get dramatic?"
But he kept going.
The group of bullies froze when they saw them appear suddenly. They evaluated Leif and Frank with a mix of irritation and caution; neither of them looked intimidated, and that always created doubt in people who enjoyed picking on someone defenseless.
One of the guys frowned, spat on the ground, and spoke with an arrogant tone that could not hide the hesitation in his eyes.
"These two idiots got lucky today," he muttered as he backed away with the rest of the group behind him. "But do not get used to it. Next time no one is going to save you."
Leif reached the blonde girl first and leaned down to look at her, trying to make his voice as calm and gentle as possible.
"Are you okay? Did they hurt you anywhere?"
She was still trembling and answered in a very soft voice, "I-I am… okay. I think."
Frank, always more relaxed, tried to soften the tension with a warm smile, "I am Frank, and he is Leif. It is alright now, it is over. What is your name?"
"..."
The girl hesitated, lowered her gaze, and breathed with difficulty before answering, "Carrie… Carrie White."
Frank widened his eyes with surprise and poorly hidden nervousness.
"Carrie…? That Carrie!?" he blurted out without thinking.
Leif looked at him with a frown, completely lost. "What? What is wrong with her?"
Frank's face froze, and he immediately forced himself to recover, shaking his head with a small laugh that sounded more fake than convincing.
"Nothing, nothing. Forget it. We have to hurry if we do not want to be late."
Leif then noticed something that took him by surprise: the embroidered crest on her uniform was exactly the same as his.
"So you are from our school," he said in a softer tone. "If you want, we can go together. We are going the same way anyway."
As soon as he finished talking, Carrie gave a small startled jump. She stood up, took a step back, and her hands tightened even more around her books.
"I… no… you do not… you do not have to. Really. I can go alone," she whispered while backing away, not lifting her eyes even for a second.
And before either of them could insist, she turned around and walked away quickly, almost running.
"..."
Leif watched her figure grow distant. Then he looked at Frank, who remained still, staring at the spot where Carrie had disappeared.
"Well," he said at last, crossing his arms, "what the hell was that?"
Frank cleared his throat, uncomfortable, and rubbed the back of his neck before speaking.
"It is nothing… or at least it should not be anything. I just heard some weird rumors about her, you know how people are. But do not worry, it is not a big deal…"
Leif raised his eyebrows, "Weird rumors?"
Frank glanced around quickly, and when he saw no one was listening, he leaned closer to Leif and lowered his voice.
"Bro, I swear… there are really weird rumors about Carrie." He made a vague gesture with his hand. "They say the girl has… I do not know, a strange vibe. And it does not help that her mom is completely insane with religion. She controls her in everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything."
Leif lifted an eyebrow, because that part he had heard before.
Frank continued, more animated now that he had fully entered gossip mode.
"Do you remember those idiots who used to bully her just because? Well… later, all kinds of things happened to them. Bad luck out of nowhere. Dumb accidents. Weird stuff. Like something had cursed them or something." He shrugged. "I do not believe in that stuff, but… you know how school is, any story catches fire."
When Leif heard that, he also remembered she was Carrie the witch.
Margaret White, her mother, had taken religious fanaticism to an extreme difficult for anyone to understand. She was not simply devout, she was trapped in her own twisted interpretation of Christianity, a vision so distorted it shaped her character until it became obsessive and paranoid.
For Margaret, things as normal as puberty, the body, or the simple fact that her daughter was growing up were signs of "sin." It was as if everything natural were a threat against her faith.
Under that roof, Carrie had no freedom at all.
Margaret supervised every breath, every step, every gesture. She did not allow her to have friends, go out, or even interact with others without supervision. She treated her as if she were a fragile object that should not be touched by the light of the world.
In the house, there was a small room they called "the prayer room." In reality, it was little more than a closet where barely one person could sit. The walls were so cold and closed in that they gave the sensation of being trapped with no possibility of escape.
Every time Carrie did something her mother considered a "mistake," even something as small as arriving two minutes late or having an opinion of her own, Margaret locked her inside.
And while Carrie remained alone in that suffocating darkness, she listened to her mother's obsessive sermons through the door. Sermons that were repetitive, fanatical, almost delirious, forcing her to "confess" again and again, as if she needed to ask for forgiveness simply for existing.
Throughout the years, that constant pressure, that brainwashing disguised as religion, slowly broke Carrie's confidence, sinking her into a fear that followed her everywhere.
By the time she reached high school, Carrie White was nothing more than a shy, withdrawn girl, always curled into herself, like a little bird that has lived too long in a cage where no one listens to it.
________
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