Diamondback

15: Good Vibrations

The worksheet has been defeated.

And in record time too! With my help, Olly was getting a whole lot better with the concepts of equations. I would say that helping him raise his grades was my prime reason of motivation, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that seeing his sunny smile is what I was really after.

Oliver sat on the far edge of the tattered remains of my couch, doodling on an empty page of his notebook. I sat on the other end with Chewy perched on my lap, reading Shriveled Hearts, one of the rom-com books Oliver got me. The plot was a little all over the place, but when the main characters were deliciously adorable elderly people, how was I supposed to put it down?

Flipping to the next page, a small (very unsticky) sticky note slipped out onto my lap. The handwriting was faded and so fancy to the point where it was nearly hard to read. Definitely not Olly's handwriting. Must be one of his parents'. Squinting down at the paper, it read: "BD II...Call Dr..."

Huh.

"Diamond...DB?"

"Yes?" I slipped the paper back in the book.

Oliver's cheeks became even rosier. "Thanks for helping me with my homework. I don't like bothering Toni about it 'cause he's always busy, so I'm glad that you agreed to help."

"That's what I'm here for, bud." My eyes fell back to the book.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him messing with the holes in the couch (thanks a lot, diamond spikes). He gulped as his gaze shifted to the box in the middle of the room. "About that notebook."

I slammed the book shut. "What...What about it?"

"I didn't mean to -- well -- I did mean to show you, but I didn't want to make you mad or-"

"Olly, I'm not mad. Just be direct. What do you want from me?"

He hesitated for a moment, tracing the scars on his wrists. "Those...words are all the things that they say to me everyday. Y'know, the, uh, the people at school? It helps to write it down somewhere, so I won't forget. I-I like to tally how many times they say it. That way, I can predict what they're gonna say later on in the day. It doesn't hurt as much when I already see it coming." Since he was shaking like a leaf, he probably thought I would yell at him for it. Must be what he's used to, I guess.

"If it helps you, I won't judge you for it. Just as long as you don't let those petty little sayings get into your head, a'ight? I want you to remember that those are empty words that people use to tear you down. They mean nothing. Like, at all. So if you say this helps, it helps."

My eyes stayed fixed on his scars, expecting him to continue to talk about those, but he still said nothing. I figured that wasn't for me to know yet, then.

"Alrighty," I snapped my fingers and the notebook poofed into my hands. "So what're these assholes sayin' to my Oliver?"

Olly giggled and scooted closer to me, resting his sharp chin on my shoulder to read too.

"'Faggot?' Oh, that one's my favorite. Heard it all before. 'Gaaaaaaay.' With specifically that amount of a's? Damn, Olls. We got some future literature majors here," I flipped the notebook over and saw that the back was vandalized too. One word in the middle had the most tallies next to it. "'Psychopath?'"

"That one's a long story. I don't even know what they mean by it when they say it sometimes. It's just a bunch of made up stories that blended into one big misunderstanding anyway."

Right underneath "psychopath" was "whore." Goddamn. Nobody in that school knows boundaries. To listlessly call someone a whore? There can't be any reason for that, can there?