Deer In Headlights [Minizerk]

Chapter 3

I ended up being late to maths because of mine and Josh's talk, I didn't mind though, I was glad we'd spoken. He was actually a much more reasonable guy than I realised which begged the question - why did people hate him?

After that he seemed far more mature and empathetic than almost everyone in our year group, was it just because he dressed different?

No, it was probably the crime. But were those rumours true? He'd gotten in fights, I knew that was true, but did the stealing actually happen?

I headed into maths, apologizing for being late before taking my usual seat next to Ethan.

"He was probably late because Joshua made him say sorry on his knees" someone snickered quietly to their friend. I couldn't help turning around.

"Made me? Are you seriously insinuating he is sexually assaulted me in the bathroom? And are you seriously laughing at that thought?" I snapped. I don't know where this desire to defend him came from.

"It was just a joke, jesus" he scowled.

"Sexual assault isn't a joke" I said pointedly.

"I have a dark humour" he shrugged.

"That's not what dark humour is, you can have a dark sense of humour without making it personal or joking about trauma" I  flashed a sarcastic smile "Not every punchline has to be about someone, or what makes them different, or something traumatic"

He shut up after that.

Ethan just looked at me in surprise.

"What's gotten into you Si?" He asked me.

"Josh isn't an asshole, he really isn't. I feel bad for judging him. The least I can do is shut down rumours" I explained.

He looked surprised.

"Two things. One, Josh? Two, he's not an asshole?"

"He told me hates being called Joshua, he likes Josh. Also, do you know what he said to me in that bathroom? He said he was sorry for provoking, and it would've been wrong to hit me back so he just walked away, because he tries not to hit in anger" I said.

"Are you sure that wasn't just him letting you off and trying to sound nice about it? He could've been manipulating you" he frowned, unconvinced.

"Ethan, he made me sit down with him on the counters and talk to him about what he said that upset me. Then we talked about our differences, then what we had in common, then he got mad that I get bullied and demanded to know who did it. He looked so fucking genuine I promise you, you didn't see the look on his face. I've never seen him smile or look calm until then" I told him.

"I'm glad it went well, I believe you, I'm just not convinced he's an all around good guy. I mean, he's still a thief, and gets in fights all the time" he pointed out.

"I know he gets in fights but now I keep thinking... People say a lot of shit about him, he's probably just retaliating" I trailed off momentarily "The stealing thing? Might not even be true, none of us know for certain. You've heard the stuff they make up about me, I wouldn't be surprised if they made stuff up about him"

"Yeah that's true, I shouldn't judge him off of rumours" he nodded "I wanna see his nice side for myself though before I'm completely convinced"

Ethan's scepticism made sense. If someone would've tried to tell me this an hour ago I would've laughed and told them to fuck off.

"Boys, fancy actually doing the work yet?" My teacher raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah whatever" Ethan sighed, picking up his pen. He hated maths.

I made a start on the task before sliding over my working to Ethan.

"Half the coefficient of x, make a bracket of x plus that number all squared, then figure out what numeric term you're going to get from expanding it, subtract or add what you need to in order to make it equal the original quadratic. You just want it to be exactly the same if it was expanded" I told him quietly.

"Thanks Si"