The Truce

Chapter 25

"Are you sure you want to be here?" Natalie asked as we sat on the bleachers in the Gym.

I hoped I would have more time before the assembly, but apparently the announcement was made while I was in the office. So after lunch, everyone came here instead of going to class.

"Not really," I admitted. "But I don't want to hide." Tempting as that was, I wanted to know what was said about me. I needed to know what to expect. Besides, if I'd gone to the library, I just would have been obsessing over the assembly the whole time.

Sebastian gave me a little squeeze with the arm that was around my shoulders. Smiling a little, I leaned my head against him. If he could, he'd shield me from the world.

When the bell rang, everyone miraculously quieted with very little prompting. Apparently, they were all pretty curious about what we were doing here.

Mrs. Foster stood at a small podium in front of everyone and waited a moment as we watched her in silence. She was focused somewhere around the middle of the bleachers, and she looked stern.

"Thank you for giving me your attention, Mr. Phillips," she said curtly. "With your permission, perhaps we can get this assembly started?"

I glanced over to see a red-faced Quinn Phillips nod.

Mrs. Foster scanned the crowd of students for a moment and people shifted uncomfortably. She was nice to me, but she definitely had that stern principal look down.

"The reason I've called everyone here is to address a rather serious situation involving baseless rumors and fraudulent pictures."

Despite being fully aware of the purpose of this assembly, my face still flamed as several people glanced at me, many of them smirking. To make it even worse, a loud cat call whistle came from somewhere behind me, making a bunch of people chuckle.

Mrs. Foster was about to go on, but she stopped and looked in this direction. "Congratulations, Mr. Bennett, you've just earned yourself two weeks of detention."

My eyes widened and there were shocked murmurs all around.

"The next outburst will be three weeks," she threatened before getting back on track. "Every teacher, every principal wants to believe that their students are the best. You hope that as a society we've evolved and that you've managed to offer enough guidance so that when a situation like this occurs, your students will rise above and act gracefully... with understanding. That they will be better than previous generations might have been." She paused. "A few of you have done just that, and that's to be commended. Many of you have not. As a whole, I'm sorry to say, my students have been a considerable disappointment."

When I turned to look over everyone, there were a lot of smug, defiant attitudes, but there were quite a few people who seemed uneasy too.

"Scott Conway has been suspended for the remainder of the semester," she said, rousing more of those shocked murmurs. "What he did was not only cruel, it was also illegal, and it is something this school has absolutely no tolerance for. I would hope it does not need to be said, but as I've already been disappointed, I'm letting each of you know that a similar incident will result in immediate expulsion as well as involvement of the local authorities."

When I glanced around this time, those smug attitudes had mostly disappeared.

"As this situation is a legal matter, those pictures are now evidence. Anyone caught with them in their possession, particularly anyone found to be circulating them will be implicated along with Mr. Conway."

It was pretty satisfying to see how nervous everyone suddenly became. Sebastian looked at me questioningly and I nodded.

"I realize that many of you currently have them on your phones. Which is why you will be given a few moments to remedy that," she said. "I urge you to take advantage of that time. At the beginning of each school year, your parents sign an agreement which states that your phones may be requested by faculty or staff at any time to be searched. In the past, I've opted to allow you all your privacy. Thanks to Mr. Conway's actions and your response to those actions, going forward, there will be several checks per day at random. You may be asked in class, in the halls between classes, or any other time you are on school property or at a school sponsored event. If you refuse, you will be assumed guilty and will face consequences. There will be zero tolerance concerning those pictures. No excuses will be accepted, and the consequences will be severe. Checks will commence when this assembly is over, so I will pause for a few minutes to allow you to absolve yourselves of any guilt and delete them now."

All around me, people complained. They were shocked, dismayed, incredulous, but they also moved to delete the pictures. Aside from myself, the only ones who didn't seem to need to do it were Natalie, Wes, Sebastian, and maybe one or two others nearby. It was wonderful. I didn't fool myself into thinking the pictures would be gone forever but knowing that none of these people would have them any longer was incredible. When I looked at Mrs. Foster, she sent me a discrete wink and I grinned.

After people mostly settled, Mrs. Foster said, "I sincerely hope none of you are foolish enough to test me on this." She scanned the room for a moment. "Now, I'm well aware that we cannot delete the rumors as easily, but they are no less a legal matter. Any derogatory remarks regarding either the rumors or the pictures will be treated as an assault. Any joke, any suggestion, any minor comment or insinuation such as a whistle, intended to demean will be seen as a malicious assault and will, at minimum, be met with a week's suspension. Trust me when I say that you do not want your name added to any sort of list on this issue."

Stunned by that pronouncement, I exchanged a delighted glance with Natalie, and she squeezed my hand. When I looked at Sebastian, he smiled and kissed my forehead.

I had my doubts about the legal implications Mrs. Foster talked about, but if anyone else shared those doubts, they wouldn't be willing to put it to the test. Especially not with such harsh consequences from the school. This wouldn't fix everything, but it was huge. If these people couldn't openly taunt me any longer, I almost didn't care about the rest. I was glad I hadn't decided to run away and hide for the rest of the semester.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things at school were strange after the assembly. Everyone was angry about the phone checks, and since Mrs. Foster put the blame on Scott, they mostly grumbled about him. Of course, plenty of people still blamed me, which was completely unfair, but I guess without Scott present, they wanted an actual target. After Mrs. Foster's threats, though, people were hesitant to say anything negative to me at all. For those first few days, they basically sent me a lot of nasty looks. Which was still an improvement.

However, it wasn't very long before they realized that in order to be given consequences, a teacher actually had to see or hear them doing something, and there were a lot of times when a teacher wasn't very close or just wasn't around at all. It became a quest for some of the guys to find covert ways to taunt me in the halls. They weren't terribly original though. A favorite was when someone would cough as a way to cover their comment. Honestly, it became so overused, I just started laughing at them.

What was surprising was when Nick and a few others started sticking up for me. Sebastian, Wes, and some of our other friends had been doing that the whole time, but it seemed that decency might actually be starting to spread. Of course, it didn't counteract everything. In fact, a few of the more bold guys would say something before class with the teacher in the room. It was always noisy, and they'd make sure they were just loud enough for me to hear. For the most part, I chose to ignore them since it was a vast improvement over the loud comments and open laughter before. But after Wyatt Taylor said something particularly disgusting, I narrowed my eyes at him.

"What was that, Wyatt?" I said loudly enough that Mr. Green couldn't possibly miss it from the front of the room.

Wyatt's sneer disappeared and he glanced nervously at our teacher before dropping his eyes to his desk. "Nothing," he muttered.

Mr. Green held his stern expression for the sake of the rest of the class, but I saw the amusement in his eyes.

Wyatt kept quiet after that.

Since it was so difficult for people to openly do or say anything to me, my locker became pretty popular. It was rare that something new didn't fall out whenever I opened the door. I didn't bother to read the notes, but it was pretty embarrassing when a thong or little foil packets landed at my feet. Especially if Sebastian was with me.

Personally, I thought it was a really stupid thing to do since it probably wouldn't be that difficult to put a camera in the hall. After that assembly, I wouldn't put it past Mrs. Foster either.

But other than maybe blushing, I'd just shove those little surprises in the plastic garbage bag that I now stored in my locker, and act like I hadn't noticed a thing out of the ordinary. I kept telling myself that eventually, they'd get bored and become tired of wasting their money.