One of the Bullied | ✔

Chapter 12 - Rebel

The next day I skip school for a reason I've never done before - because I simply can't be bothered. Jean isn't going, and now that he's here, he doesn't mind me too much, and he truly needs my help, I never want to see anyone from school ever again.

"Jean!" I exclaim in exasperation. "There are no accents in English!"

"Sorry." He mutters, rubbing it out. "It's confusing."

"In that sense, it's easier to write."

"No way, this is confusing." He complains, sitting back and putting down the pen. "I can't do this."

"At least you can introduce yourself now." I answer, finally finding the French-English dictionary I was looking for. My mum doesn't know I'm home. I don't intend to tell her. She was out for some project for the day, and hopefully she'll get back late. It's not like the school will ring her or anything.

¬

"Do you want something to eat?" I ask eventually, after we've been working for almost five hours. He nods. "Allergies?" I ask. He shakes his head. "What would you like?"

"I don't mind." He says. I get up, heading to the kitchen, only to find out a couple of seconds later he's followed me through.

"So, tell me a little more about yourself." I say, taking out a pizza and some drinks. "Do you have brothers or sisters?"

He smiles. "I have a little brother." His smiles widens. "His name is Eudes. He's really cute, but he can be a pain sometimes."

"Only child forever." I groan. "It's a bit boring sometimes, but it means you get more attention, and that your parents only have one set of Uni fees to pay."

"True." He shrugs. "But I like him."

"How old is he?"

"Nine."

"Cute." I say with a smile. He pulls out his phone, looking through it for a moment before showing me a picture of him and his brother at the beach with a huge dog. "He really is cute!"

"But those kinds of looks are always a bad sign." He grins. "Anyway, it's nice having someone you can blame things on. Like, I once broke the lamp in our living room, and I said he did it."

"That is so mean!" I exclaim, holding back my laughter.

"Oh, I paid for it." He answers. "Literally. I had to give him 20 euros to go along with it, and he started crying anyway, and my mum didn't even get mad at him."

"You paid him to take the blame?" I exclaim, not bothering to hold my laughter back anymore. "That's priceless."

"I'd like to see you saying that when you're the one paying." He laughs, taking a sip of water. "It's cost me about two hundred euros at the moment."

"That's insane." I giggle, taking the pizza out of the microwave as soon as it starts beeping.

"The worst part is, is that I have to pay him extra so he doesn't tell mum that I'm paying him to say it was him. So he receives double."

"No way!" I exclaim.

"Yeah, he kind of takes after my father. He's a businessman, always trying to squeeze money out of everyone." He sighs. "My mum's a judge, and she's never really at home."

"That sucks." I sigh, offering him a slice before tucking myself. I hold back a groan of pleasure as I do, not wanting him to think I'm completely mental. I'm pretty sure he already thinks I'm not all there. "We're here because of my dad's job. He had a great opportunity, here, in the middle of bloody nowhere, for some reason."

"It's okay here. At least it's not like one of the states in the middle of the country, where it's literally just desert. In Oregon at least you have beaches and stuff too."

"The beaches aren't great." I sigh. "And it's boring. The weather sucks, anyway. I wanted to go to Florida."