Words Are As Dangerous As Punches

Chapter 3 - A class project

Oliver

A few weeks had passed and there had been very little improvement in Oliver's life. His dad was drinking more, getting more aggressive towards him as well. He barely left his room at home, not even to eat, he was a prisoner in his own home. He had to climb out of his window most mornings for school, but the torture didn't stop there.

Every day at School Elliot and his friends would make sure his life was a living hell. It had turned out that Ellie was Elliot's girlfriend, she had stopped talking to him after that one time. School had become quite lonely quite quickly but it was safer than being at home.

It was now a Wednesday and he was sat in English, ignorimg Elliot's taunts as usual. He was doing some work when their teacher started talking.
"Okay so you will be doing a small project in pairs, with the person sat next to you. Just a simple book review, you will have to exchange books and write a report in the other person's book. You will have 2 weeks to get the project." As she finished talking the bell rang. Oliver picked up his bag before he felt someone's hand on his shoulder making him jump. He looked round seeing Elliot. 'Great him again.' He though to himself.
"Sooo... partner." Elliot grinned at him. That grin made Oliver's skin crawl.
"I'll ive you the book tomorrow now leave me alone Elliot, I have to get to work." Oliver huffed walking off.
"Aww how sweet, Oliver is so poor he has to go to work." Elliot's friends had joined him in the corridor all laughing.

Oliver left school ignoring them. He walked to Starbucks were he worked and started serving people, to keep his mind off of school. The girl he worked with was called Katie and was probably his only friend in the world.
"Hey Ollie what's up? There is definitely something wrong." She smiled looking at him.
"Just Elliot, again! We have to do this stupid book swap and report thing which means actually talking to him. I've avoided that since school started it is a nightmare, I can't keep away from him." He sighed brewing a coffee for someone.
"Punch him or something Ollie, he will stop eventually." Katie shrugged.
"Are you kidding? That guy is well over 6 feet and his friends aren't much shorter!" He said putting a coffee on the counter and calling the order. "Let's just not talk about him." Oliver carried on with work.
"Whatever you say Ollie." Katie laughed a bit.

When he finished work he walked home to hell. He walked inside and was met by a bottle narrowly missing his head, smashing on the wall. He jumped and looked over seeing his father seething with anger.
"Where the hell have you been boy?! You finished school over 2 hours ago!" He yelled at him clenching his fists.
"I-I was at work, I told you I have a job." Oliver said timidly.
"I want to know when you have work and you are not leaving the house other than that!" He punched him in the stomach knocking the air out of him. Oliver fell over and felt a kick in the ribs making him cough.

He stayed on the floor for a good few minutes before getting up and seeking upset to his room. He locked the door and laid down on his bed arms curled up coughing. Tears started to roll down his cheek slowly and was soon sobbing into his pillow.

He must've fallen asleep like that as he woke up to the sound of his alarm. He was still fully clothed so just put in deodorant and fixed his hair. He got everything he need and was about to climb out of his window, when he remember he had to give a book to Elliot. He just picked up the first book his saw, not even looking at the cover. That was a really bad move on his part. If he had seen the cover, he would've realised he was going to give Elliot had a lot of gay sex in it.

When he got to school he managed to avoid Elliot all day, now that was a first. He got to English, his last class, and sat down getting the book out. He saw the cover and the colour drained from his face. However, Elliot had already snatched the book from him before he could hide it. Elliot had given him a book he had read before, at least he didn't have to read it again. He took the book and put it in his bag, then started doing his work. The class was fairly uneventful. Elliot was being his usual self taunting him, by the time the lesson was over Oliver almost forgot about his meeting with Mr. Mason.

It was just to talk about him completely messing up on a practice test. All the others had been okay but this one was an absolute disaster. It was because he hadn't been able to study, with his dad around.

He walked to the classroom when the bell rang and sat on a desk. Mr. Mason smiled at him.
"Ah Oliver good to see you, I just wanted to talk about the last test you did. You've done really well on all of them, was it just a bad day or do you not understand the topic?" He asked kindly.
"Yeh just didn't get enough time to study with work and everything. I'll do better on the next one." He shrugged.
"Work? I didn't know you had a job." The teacher said curiously.
"Yeh, I like earning money for myself and my dad thinks it's good for me or something." He shrugged.
"Okay, you can go. Have a nice evening." He smiled. Oliver got up and walked to the door.
"Oh and Oliver, if something is going on at home you can always tell me. It won't get worse." He said softly. Oliver just nodded and left. He wasn't going to tell him the truth, he couldn't tell anyone.
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Thanks for reading! Vote, comment, etc.
I have some rough ideas for where I want this to go but I'm still working it out. I'm going to try about keep chapters around 1000 words maybe a little more or less.