Gabriella today. And I'd be lying if I said the encounter with Maria hadn't thrown me off my game.

But that was three weeks ago.

Gabriella is in a class I don't have. She does chemistry. That concept bewildered me when I first heard it. She's gorgeous, she's popular, surely she must be sinfully stupid, but apparently not. Well, she does have a hidden key rock. About a month ago I took it and brought it to the mall to make a copy. Then I neatly placed it back in it's place. Now it's the dead of night, and Gabriella's night classes are a blessing for me. I get to try my key.

It's her parents old house, not too old. It really is a lovely little building. I slide my shiny key into the lock and twist, and it works. I give the door the slightest little push and I feel something fantastic as the heat of the house collides with chilly old me. I quickly enter the house and shut the door behind me. I take off my shoes and I help myself to a cold soda before relaxing on the couch. I notice a few daisies on the coffee table. They smell like Maria. Odd.

I met Maria in one of my most embarrassing moments at school. Embarrassing because I was so exposed, at least one of the girls saw me, I was sure. I punished myself for a long time. As I was walking across the street in front of the library, I tripped and fell. My books flew in front of me and I scuffed the side of my face. My blood ran hot and I nearly cried tears of rage at myself after finally being noticed, after all those years of being a figure in the shadows. Maria approached me, sweeping up my books as she equipped medical gauze to my bloodied face. She saw the pain etched in my face and recognized it wasn't only from the wound, and she told me her name and we went for coffee. We became friends, and she was attractive, but we never became an item. I had an agenda with many other women, and I find myself repeatedly incapable of feeling anything else.

We were friends for a long time before the second incident. Over the years we established a lunch time spot once a week in the middle of the bleachers of the baseball field. One day, she wasn't in the middle, she was off to the left side in the corner, weeping uncontrollably. She told me her and her friends were called by Andrew Ethan, a guy known for being incredibly popular, and for hitting his girlfriend after a football game. Everybody saw, but he wasn't ostracized. He was accepted back into the circles immediately.

He had called Maria and her friends, drunk and looking to joke around with some girls. Seemingly harmless, but when somebody on Maria's end shouted a comment about the incident, Andrew got violent and they hung up. The next morning, Andrew approached her, and that was all her sobbing lips could utter.

Suddenly, I am not Peter Hoskins. I am a defender. I am a black knight with a rage untold, ready to reign terror on a wrongdoer of my choice. I am furious. I run from the bleachers, leaving her crying but unavenged, not for long. When I reach Andrew's usual spot where he and all of his friends shout to women who dare to cross, I am no longer running. I see him. I am a stampeding avenger, walking with rage fueling my feet. I grab him by his face, my palm outstretched and I drag him from his wolf pack. Andrew being their leader, they dare not follow, assuming Andrew can fight his own battles. But I am not a defenseless woman.

He laughed when I walked toward him. He was angry when I dragged him away. But as he stared into my mad eyes and the frenzy etched into my face, terror escaped the cracks in his alpha male guise.

"You can hit women all you like but don't think everybody respects your social ladder. You think you inflict it but you don't know pain. Forget Maria. If you ever hit a woman again, if you ever make a woman cry, and if you ever make another woman feel fear, I will show you pain you can hardly register. I will break you down and destroy you. I will kill you."

I walked back to the bleachers and told Maria that Andrew wouldn't be a bother anymore. All was well, but once she found out how I had actually gotten Andrew to stop, our friendship began to diminish. She did not condone violence, her intolerance rooted to her history of her father abusing her mother. After a while, our lunches stopped and our friendship became small talk. And I haven't thought about her in a long time.

I'm not really paying attention to the television. I turn it off and proceed to enter Gabriella's bedroom. I open her closet and touch the different clothes, both hanging and on the shelves. But somehow, I can't access the same burning desire.

Feeling a bit off, I make sure everything is in the same place, I put on my shoes, and I leave. And I take my soda can with me.

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