Matthew clamped her chin and said, "Was I not good enough to you?"
"No."
"Then why do you want to break up with me?"
Emily said, "Because it's not the stage for dating, and my grades have dropped a lot."
Because her grades dropped, Jessica talked to her a lot, questioning her over and over again if she was dating, and if she was, she must break up.
Matthew "tsk"ed, then reached his hand under her clothes. Emily resisted constantly, but where could a girl's strength compare to a boy's? She was held by Matthew, her wrists bound to the equipment with a rope.
She cried out in a muffled voice.
Matthew took out his phone from his pocket, snapped a few photos, smirked, and said, "I wonder what people would think if they saw you like this? Tsk tsk, just thinking about it is thrilling, don't you think?"
"Stop taking pictures of me, please."
"Stop."
Emily's school pants were pulled down, her top lifted up significantly, and she was held by Matthew, unable to move.
"William, it seems like there's some noise coming from in here," Daniel said suspiciously, looking at the closed equipment room.
William glanced over, hearing rustling sounds from inside, and a girl's sudden cry for help: "Save me."
Matthew covered Emily's mouth, threatening, "Shut up, after dumping me, believe it or not, if you shout again, your photos will be on the school's forum tomorrow."
Emily cried out in a muffled voice.
William said to Daniel, "Kick the door down, there's someone inside."
With that, he kicked open the equipment room door.
He came towards them against the light, like a hero.
Daniel looked at Emily, whose clothes were in disarray, and Matthew, who was holding her tightly, and said, "What are you doing? Why did you lock the girl in the equipment room?"
William glanced at Matthew, pulled him over, and said to Daniel behind him, "Hold him, don't let him go."
He looked down at Emily and said, "Fix your clothes first, and then tell us slowly, what happened."
Emily straightened her clothes, crying and unable to speak a complete sentence: "He... dragged me... here, took off my clothes... took nude photos of me... and just now he wanted to... assault me..."
William's eyes flickered.
Daniel felt in Matthew's pocket and, as expected, pulled out a phone. He said to Matthew, "Unlock it."
"This is my phone, why should you get to look at it whenever you want."
William looked down at him, then punched him in the right face, and said, "Unlock it."
Matthew was a bully who preyed on the weak; facing William, he knew he was in trouble. He took his phone and entered the password.
William said, "Delete those photos from your phone."
Matthew fumbled through his gallery, selected those photos, and pressed delete.
"Are there any others?"
Matthew shook his head desperately: "No, no, that's all."
William wasn't good at comforting girls. He looked at Emily, who was crying in gasps, and said, "Do you need me to call the police or get a teacher for you?"
"Don't call the police, don't tell the teacher."
Daniel said, "But what he did today clearly constitutes a crime. If we hadn't passed by today, you would have been ruined, do you understand?"
Emily just repeated one sentence: "Don't call the police, don't tell the teacher."
If this got out, Jessica would go crazy.
She wouldn't care about what she had been through.
She would only think that she had almost been dirtied, that she was like a rotten flower, permeated with disgust.
William was silent for a while, then said, "We respect your thoughts. Let me ask you one last time, do you really not need to call the police?"
Emily shook her head and said, "No, thank you."
William walked up to Matthew and said, "Do you know what you were doing today?"
Matthew kept his head down and bit his lip, not speaking.
Daniel said, "What are you pretending for? What you did is attempted rape, do you understand? And taking photos of the girl, are you even a man? It's disgusting."
Matthew knew William; getting on this guy's bad side meant he might end up in the hospital for ten days or half a month. He knelt on the ground, holding William's leg, and said, "I was wrong, I shouldn't have taken inappropriate photos of her, and I shouldn't have had bad intentions. Please forgive me since it didn't happen."
William recorded every word he said to have evidence in case the girl regretted later.
William kicked him away, speaking in a low voice, "Don't touch me, disgusting."
He picked up Matthew and walked outside, his sleeve gently tugged.
"Please, can you not tell anyone about this?"
William agreed, "Okay, I will keep it a secret." He added, "Do you need to borrow a phone to call home?"
"Thank you." Emily was still in a state of high tension as she took the phone he offered.
...
Emily felt she might have made a mistake by letting William keep her secret.
He was the one who saved her, yet she brought him trouble.
He had burst in like a hero radiating light, but now he had become the perpetrator in everyone's mouths, and all because of her.
She saw Matthew walk in from outside the classroom, then glance at her, his gaze sticky and disgusting, making Emily feel nauseous. Her mind kept replaying that day's scene and Matthew's ugly face.
She saw a piece of white paper clipped to her desk, her report card this time. She pulled it out and looked, seeing Matthew's name at the top and her own at the bottom, crumpling the paper in her hand.
"Emily, come out for a moment."
The head teacher of Class 7 was a strict woman, wearing black-rimmed glasses. She put the report card on the table and pointed to Emily's ranking, saying, "Did you see your ranking this time?"
Emily kept her head down and whispered, "I saw it."
"Emily, I remember you weren't like this before. I always thought you were a very promising student. How could your grades have dropped to this extent? Is your mind not on your studies? I spoke with your mother today, and she said you didn't want to come to school. I've noticed that you haven't been focusing on your studies lately..."
Emily was in a daze, not even knowing how she left the office.
————
"Damn, have you heard? Something happened on the rooftop."
"What?"