His Unveiled Passion

Before Naomi entered middle school, she had always been on the receiving end of bullying.

Quentin loved playing cruel pranks on her. He would slip bugs into her backpack, lace her milk with laxatives, and use scissors to chop the hair off all her dolls, leaving them bald.

Benjamin was always busy and rarely ever at home.

At first, every time Quentin bullied Naomi, she would run to her mother, Mary, in tears. However, as his stepmother, Mary had little authority to discipline him.

In the name of familial harmony, Mary chose to turn a blind eye to Quentin's childish pranks. She never told Benjamin what was happening.

With his stepmother protecting him, Quentin grew increasingly reckless.

Poor Naomi was bullied for so long that she came to believe that even her own mother would not protect her. She became quiet and withdrawn soon after.

That personality only made things worse for her in middle school. Her classmates, especially those who had no interest in studying, began to target her.

Since no one had ever helped her, she believed that telling a teacher or her parents would make no difference. No one would stand up for her. So she endured it silently for more than a year.

This continued until the second semester of eighth grade.

One afternoon, a group of classmates cornered her and forced her into a narrow alley just outside the campus.

picking on her. Even at a prestigious private school, some students liked to bully others, and Naomi had always been an

over the ground. Two of them grabbed her by the

back, but there were too many of them. The more she resisted, the worse the beating became. Eventually,

what was happening, but

money and snacks

tugging at her

you think

forward, shoved the group aside,

looked up at her unexpected savior

was Quentin, the very boy who had

18,

alone made the girls fall silent. They glanced at each other nervously, unsure

in their

of

their name, student number, and

stupid. They knew that handing over the

but so did most of

Naomi