"Why didn't he stick up for me?", High school memory that haunts me. Options

[*CrackedRearView*]

The halls were particularly crowded today,
So it comes as a faint surprise –
That my ears decided to pinpoint the destruction of feelings.
There was a strangely sullen look on his face,
One that is ordinarily more discernable as cheery –
One that does not offer a twinge in the heart.
He always smiles at me and most obviously regards me,
And it exists, however misguided –
A genuine desire to be accepted among his peers.
I can parallel his high school experience to min,
He’s clumsy, displaced, confused –
He’s adjusting to the mores and customs of a strange place.
It’s one of those things he’ll get over,
He’ll learn to navigate the halls with confidence –
He’ll learn to be a teenager, to be cool.
But it was this instance, an inexorable freshman,
Soaking in the boorish remarks of a pedantic fool –
Learning the opposition to maturity.
“You probably have to squint,” he had said,
“To see through the fat pockets on your face,” –
Childishly sniggering while I trailed inches behind.
“No I don’t” crept feebly out of his mouth,
And he bleakly set his eyes on a point on the floor –
Trying desperately to stifle tears.
And I remember, seconds before the bell sounded,
He turned and looked at me morosely –
With an absolutely unmistakable countenance of betrayal.
And I just kept walking, and I just kept my mouth shut,
And I just defied everything I’ve been taught --
Everything my mother so painstakingly instilled in me.
I flouted the most important ideal,
I ignored worthy counsel, and for what? –
For the false comfort of a blanket of pretense?
I didn’t help him; I didn’t even lift my lips,
And I’m only left with one image –
One haunting illustration in my head.
I’m left to imagine him returning home,
Tossing his book bag down in anger –
And thinking to himself, while he represses the urge to cry,

“Why didn’t he stick up for me?”