+ Positively Negative - | Freddie & Joey

15. Joey - Suspension [Part Three]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER, HeartOfCookieDough <3

Do enjoy.. 

-

Chapter Fifteen

Suspension Part Three

Joey -

Monday morning I arrived at the curb Ryan and I usually met Courtney and Abby. I was pretty tired because I’d barely slept at all on Saturday night and then had to help mum with minding a kid most of Sunday because she was ill, followed by homework.

It was getting cold and Ryan was almost ten minutes late when he usually turned up first –and I’d had to endure that Sherry girl looking at me smugly, as though she knew something that I didn’t. I got kind of worried about Ryan, but just as I got out my phone to call him, he, Courtney and Abby appeared around the corner, all in deep conversation.

My eyebrows knitted together as I watched them approach and pushed my phone back into my pocket. When they eventually noticed me, their conversation halted and they waved awkwardly.

I sighed; everything was going to be uncomfortable for a while, but I hadn’t expected Ryan to actually start meeting Courtney and Abby first to escape being alone with me.

‘Hi,’ Courtney was the one to speak as they got to me, looking overly happy. I nodded at her.

‘Hey,’ I said. My eyes landed briefly on Ryan and Abby; both looking less at ease than Courtney –Ryan the worst of all.

The silence that settled as we began to walk was awkward. None of us talked to each other and Ryan and Courtney stood on the opposite sides of me and Abby. I wanted to tell them to stop being so stupid but I wasn’t sure how. I’d already told them I’d forgiven them; I didn’t care. What else could I say? And they’d been fine Friday night. They’d been chatting again. What else could it have been?

-

When we got to school, they seemed to disperse with vague goodbyes and I was alone. I was okay at first, heading slowly towards my form room feeling odd; usually I had people calling me. I was passing people I knew and instead of the usual nod in acknowledgment, I was getting strange looks; as if people were trying to figure me out. Confused, I hunched my shoulders up slightly. Moments away from my form room, I heard my name being yelled. I turned around to see Pete Lowood from my Science class. I smiled at him just as he sneered.

‘Gayboy.’

I barely heard it, but I could read his lips. And the rest of the corridor seemed to. There was a hush so silent I was sure my weak, pathetically out of rhythm heart beats could be heard from Heaven. And I desperately hoped that God, where ever that guy was, could hear my prayer; ‘Let him have said something else. Please…’

In a second , Pete was out of sight and the faceless bodies in the corridor began to move again. The only feature they had, their eyes, trained on me. I backed into my form room, eyes stinging.

How the fuck did he know? How the fuck did he know anything about me?

My heart was in my mouth as I shut the door behind me and remained glued to it.

‘Joey?’ I turned to the Asian man at the desk. Mr. Chou looked at me oddly. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine, Sir,’ I said, clearing my throat, my eyes desperate to release tears.

‘Joey, really. If it’s about the homework thing-’

‘It is nothing to do with that sir,’ I said softly. I felt like crumpling into myself, finding a hole to die in. It wasn’t just that I’d been called gayboy before- because I had, as joke. It was that fact that Pete Lowood said it to me. It was his expression that sent shivers through me, and his tone… Hatred; disgust. I was disgusting.