Changing Will [boyxboy]

Changing Will {8}

                “I seriously want to figure out my brother’s opinion of you,” Sonnet said as we all followed Benji down to his car the next day.

                “Everyone’s opinion of me is that I’m wonderful,” I said.

                “Yea, obviously Jude thinks you’re just a charming young man,” Sonnet said.

                Gideon winced a little. “Ethan, tell me if Jude gives you anymore problems,” he said nervously.

                “Calm down Gideon. The kid’s been kicking my ass for years, before I even met you guys. It’s not your fault,” I said.

                “Gideon, just because you broke up with him, it doesn’t mean he’s going to go after Ethan more,” Benji said, taking Gideon’s hand in his. “If anything, he’d go after me more.”

                “That wasn’t reassuring at all, but points for trying,” I said.

                “Shut up Ethan,” Benji groaned as we climbed into his car.

                He drove to Sonnet’s house, pulling into the driveway. We waved bye to them as we got out of the car, and I followed Sonnet into her house.

                She grabbed my arm as I started towards the basement. She spun me so that I was facing her and let out a sigh.

                “Look, my brother is getting on my nerves lately. And if anyone can find out why he’s being such a drama queen, it’s you. So get to the bottom of this, and shut William up,” she said.

                Translation: I’m worried about my brother, and I need Ethan to fix him because he’s clearly not okay.

                “Got it chief,” I said, saluting her.

                She released my arm and left without another word to me. I went down to Will’s room and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, I pushed the door open and stepped in.

                Will wasn’t in his bedroom. I shut the door, deciding to do a little snooping while I had the chance.

                There was a bag slung over the chair at his desk, and several notebooks thrown around on the desk. I went over to them, flipping them open and leafing through the papers tucked into them.

                “Interesting,” I mumbled as I went through the papers in the notebooks.

                In his media classes, Will had consistent 100s on quizzes and roughly 90s on all of his tests. But in his others classes, I was seeing grades ranging from 0-100. He had 10s, 20s, 30s, 50s, and even a few 0s. Shitty grades.

                “Midterm,” I said, picking up a midterm paper and inspecting it. He had gotten a C- on the midterm.

                I set it back down and knelt down. There were textbooks stacked up under his desk. I slid them out, looking through them.

                His media textbooks had sticky notes all through them, marking pages and words, summarizing ideas. They were heavily highlighted in sections. Clearly, he had been studying hard.

                But the other three textbooks he had were only partially bookmarked and highlighted, as if Will had abandoned them part way through the semester. There were more shitty grades stuffed into the pages of the textbooks.