Breaking Down Your Walls

Chapter 6

Mike

'This is unbelievably... Uhm... I can't find the word honestly' Odette baffled said as she watched the video.

I nodded while my eyebrows involuntarily frowned 'everyone at school thinks I am some sort of a thug. Someone made it look like I was the perpetrator. But it is weird though. You didn't hear 

anything about this?'

'Well, I saw the title circulating with your and Zane's names as in mugging case or Zane's mugging incident. Your name wasn't mentioned somewhere. Some comments were calling you either weird names or badass. So me and the others didn't bat an eye because we knew what happened and saw the real footage the very next day after the attempted mugging. It makes sense though, because the situation wasn't put in the news, Zane's parents didn't want to make this into an uproar about their Zane and his safety. The titles of the videos weren't making any remark on you being the perpetrator. The weird thing is, at the same time, Zane got to know of that audio file of the hack that faked your voice.'

'Curiouser and curiouser said Alice' I sighed. 'The problem is, I want to know who was the first to send this video. Thanks to that, no one at school talks to me. And thanks to that audio track, my best friends abandoned me' I noticed how she flinched when I said that with a harsher tone as I sipped my hot cocoa.

We were sitting across each other on my office, in my bedroom. A rather small, dull room that my brother and sister decorated with my favourite literature quotes and a few baroque style paintings. The vase of roses I had needed some new life there, I might go get a small bouquet later.

'I am sorry' Odette said softly 'what we did is cruel.'

I nodded 'indeed, but they also made sure that this would untimately happen without us being able to properly communicate. Someone made sure to have us divided, maybe they even tampered with Zane's, Manu's or even Sherrie's phones. But, why did Zane fight with you?'

Odette's eyes flared 'I am sure that Velma's friends said something bad about me to him. He told me he has a pervert stalking him, he doesn't need people trying to defend his stalker or make more advances to him as a stalker.'

My heart ached when I heard the word pervert. 'Someone tried to make you seem like that huh. This is bad. I bet it is the same people that marked me like a pervert. In other words, the fact that we worked things out and we reconciled should remain a secret for now. If they get to know we talk again, who knows what they will muster to make us seem like the bad guys again.'

Odette nodded and added thoughtfully 'we can hang out here or at my house in secret. Maybe during hours that aren't compatible with our gym sessions. Those people calculated many things about us, they might try to trap us around the times we come back home.'

'I will visit you in three days after I finish training Sam and his mates.'

'Sam? You mean that thug leader asshole?'

I chuckled and told her everything about him. She was shocked.

'He made a move on you?! What?!'

'Chill, he didn't do something inappropriate.'

She laughed at my seriousness 'dude, the guy is known for being a thug and a home wrecker. Seriously, he was dating a married woman, her husband caught them on the act. And that is a fact because it happened in my neighborhood. I was woken up by the shouts of a half naked Sam, strutting away from a very pissed off man that was yelling profanities at him.'