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Cry Me a River

It had been twenty minutes since the bell for the end of Oscar’s free period had rung, yet here he was, curled up in a ball, shaking, on the floor of the boys’ bathroom. He’d locked himself in the cubicle furthest from the door, and slid down the wall, feeling warm tears carve tracks down his cheeks. It’d been a while since he’d broken down, actually. He had been doing so well. Oscar wasn’t sure why he was shaking now. Maybe he was cold; the bathrooms never had heating and the tiled floors conducted all bodily heat as soon as you made contact with them. Maybe he was still sobbing, but he couldn’t quite tell; there were no tears falling, but he was still breathing in gulps, and his head still hurt. All out of tears. Good job, idiot. The door opened unexpectedly, and Oscar stiffened as footsteps echoed through the room. He considered risking looking at the shoes, to see if he could tell who it was, but before he craned his neck down to look under the door, a voice called out.

“Oscar? Are-are you in h-h-here?” Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Oscar had to cover his mouth with his hand to stop himself from making any noise, any way to let Sebastian know he was here. Sebastian was the last person he wanted to talk to, if at all. The footsteps picked up again, moving towards the door, and Oscar let out a sigh. That also coupled with a slight teary hiccup. That Sebastian definitely heard. “Oscar, I-I heard that. I kn-kn-know you’re in here. Are y-you alright?” Oscar stayed silent again, but Sebastian’s footsteps picked up, moving towards the cubicle he was on. Sebastian’s voice dropped low, a quiet hush that was calming to listen to. “Oscar, if you don’t w-want to say anything, you d-d-don’t have to. But please, c-come out of there. Classes started tw-tw-twenty minutes ago. Your t-teacher is worried about you.” Oscar didn’t trust his voice, but he decided to speak anyway.

“I’m fine,” he choked out, stifling a sob just as he finished speaking.

“That is-is a blatant lie, Oscar. Y-y-you’re not fine. I can hear t-that.” Oscar stifled another sob, and listened as Sebastian slid down the wall next to him, sitting on the tiles on the other side of the cubicle door. They sat in silence for a while, Sebastian’s steady breaths calming Oscar’s gulped, uneven ones, until they were breathing in time.

“Vous faites mon cœur battait deux fois plus vite,” Oscar whispered, his voice muffled slightly by his sleeve, which was covering the hand that he was leaning on.

“What?”

“I… it doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t kn-know you were fl-fl-fluent in French.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m half French. My mum’s from Bordeaux.”

“Oh,” Sebastian replied, and Oscar heard shuffling once more, and assumed Sebastian was standing up. There was a knock on his cubicle door, and he looked up. “Come o-on. We have to g-g-get going. Y-you can’t stay in h-h-here all period.”

“I know, just give me a minute.” More like an eternity.

“I-I-I’ll wait outside, Oscar. D-don’t try and climb out-out of the window,” Sebastian chuckled slightly, and his footsteps echoed throughout the room. The door creaked twice, and suddenly Oscar was alone in silence once more, and it engulfed him. It took all his strength not to cry again as he stood up, unlocking the cubicle door and stepping out. Looking to his left, the window loomed, open slightly, and he weighed up his options. He could either climb out through the window and just… go, or he could step out the bathroom door and risk breaking down in front of Sebastian, not being able to offer up any explanation at all. He didn’t even have an explanation for himself, so how the hell was he meant to tell Sebastian why he was crying on the floor of the boys’ bathroom in block C? The window seemed ever more promising, and, before he could rethink and regret his decision, Oscar found himself opening the window wide enough for him to fit through and climbing out. He closed it behind him, back to roughly what it was, and began sprinting across the school lawn, his bag hitting his back in time with his footfalls.