Leviticus: Return back home

Ch.19: The old Nick

《MATT’S POV》

Matt leaned forward in his chair, tapping both of his friends on their shoulders at the same time. “Hey, guys!” He whispered.
Levi turned around, a frown on his face. “What’s wrong?”

They were at the end of an excruciatingly long history lesson and Matt was honestly just feeling bored, so he hadn’t even made up what he was about to say yet.
“I ehm, I like your shirt?”

Levi looked puzzled, as did Alex, who finally also bothered to turn around. “Thanks?”
“Why did you have to tap me on the shoulder too, just to give Levi a compliment?” Alex inquired.

“You would’ve gotten one too, if you’d just cared enough to look at me.”
Alex shrugged, clearly not affected by his losing out on an incredible compliment.

“So, I’m guessing you’re bored?” Levi called him out.
“Yes. God, this is only like the third day back at school and I’m already missing those assignments.”

Levi chuckled, probably remembering the amount of complaining Matt did on the trip.
Alex yawned. “Well, I’m glad to be home, where I can play games all night instead of doing homework.”

Levi shook his head in disapproval. Then, he turned his attention back to Matt. “Hey, Matt. Talking about roommates, have you talked to yours yet, since we got back here?”

Matt shook his head. They had not talked. They had made eye contact twice, however. Once when Charley passed him by when he was grabbing some books from his locker and once when they were eating lunch in the cafeteria. But he guessed that wouldn’t be very relevant information to Levi.

“Well, I’m glad you got a chance to talk about that entire swimming pool disaster with him.” Levi said.
Matt was as well. He actually hadn’t been able to stop repeating their conversation over and over in his head since he last saw Charley.

He seemed to feel really bad about everything he did, but since then he had done nothing to show he was sorry. Charley had barely even looked Matt’s way. So at this point, he didn’t know if he should trust that this guy had told him the truth.
It had certainly worked to get Matt off his back about the being-pushed-into-the-pool incident.

Matt leaned back, trying to push back the thoughts of Charley’s honest brown eyes. He hated that he was so naive, so gullible to whatever lies this guy had been feeding him, because whatever this guy had been telling him, he was definitely not-

~~~~

“-sorry.”

Riven dropped his sandwich back onto his plate, clearly in a state of shock.
He turned to look at Matt, but he was just as confused as his friend was.

“What did you say?” Riven finally stammered at the guy none of them had even noticed coming over to their table.
“I’m sorry. About what happened. About what I did.”

Riven leaned back, his arms crossed. He wasn’t going to let off this guy that easily.
“Really? You are sorry? About what exactly?”

“About me being homophobic, I mean. When I bullied you in the store. And when I didn’t stand up to you, when my friend approached you in the cinema. Oh and about me pushing Matt in the pool and nearly giving him a concussion, I also regret that.”

His eyes shifted to look at Matt, who felt a bit guilty, considering he was just cursing this guy out in his head twenty minutes ago, thinking he had lied.

“And now what?” Riven said. “Are we supposed to just bro-hug it out now?”
Charley quickly shook his head. “No, you don’t have to forgive me, or anything. I just wanted you to know, I’m aware what I did was wrong. And I’m just really, really sorry.”