How To Be Straight

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CHAPTER 28

      [ Derek ]

Frenchy was like a fucking ninja.

Mike and I spent the entire night searching for him, but he was nowhere to be found. It was like the kid had completely vanished without a trace of him being there at all. Even the next day at school, he wasn't lurking around the hallways or bothering Calvin with his creepy love stories. He just showed up, scared the hell out of us, and disappeared.

It pissed me off that the bastard didn't get thrown into jail and it pissed me off how he couldn't take a damn hint.

But even though he wasn't around to taunt us now, I was still going to keep my eye open for any suspicious activity. Like the fact that Tanner Wilkins came to school this morning with a neck brace, an arm sling, his head wrapped up in a bandage, and severe cuts and bruises on his face. It was quite obvious that he had taken a beating, which made it even more surprising.

Tanner was the captain of the varsity football, wrestling, and lacrosse team. He was the all-around sports jock and he was ginormous. The dude was probably over six feet and he had tons and tons of muscle. I've won my fair share of fights in my lifetime, but there was no way I would win a fight against Tanner. He'd snap my neck without even lifting a finger.

Which basically meant that the only person who was capable of doing this to him was Godzilla.

All eyes were glued to him as he limped through the cafeteria, his eyes fixed on the empty table in the far corner of the room. When he passed our table, he turned his head slightly to look at Calvin and he let out an animal-like growl, which made Calvin cower in his seat. Grunting, Tanner continued to walk to his table and angrily sat down.

I looked at Calvin who had hung his head low as he took a bite from his apple. "Why'd he look at you like that?" I questioned him.

Calvin looked up almost immediately with wide eyes, like he hadn't expected me to ask that. "Huh? What? Oh, um, I guess he just wants to bully me again. Hah. Because you know, I'm bully-able."

"Did he do that to you?" The question had been plaguing my mind the entire day. It wasn't like I had expected Calvin to walk into school with cuts and bruises on his face. I never said anything about it until now, because Calvin hadn't said anything about it either. I assumed it was because he didn't want to talk about it, but I couldn't not know.

"No," he said promptly. "I fell down the stairs. It was dark and, uh, yeah."

"Fell down the stairs? How the hell did you manage to do that?"

He narrowed his eyes at me, growing irritated. "It was dark," he repeated.

I pulled my brows together in confusion, hoping that Calvin would explain a little more. He didn't. He just buried his head into his sleeve and continued to eat his apple. I was going to pry further, but my attention had switched to Mike plopping his lunch tray down at our table.

He flashed me a fake smile and nudged Calvin's shoulder, hard, before taking a seat. "Well, guess what? Maya officially hates me now."

"What'd you do now?" I groaned, already knowing where this conversation was heading.

"I may have tried to force myself on her by kissing her, and she kinda dismembered my penis, so..."

I rolled my eyes. "Mike, for the love of God, I love you because you're my best friend and everything, but let her go! Forcing yourself on her isn't going to solve anything. It'll only make her not like you even more. What about Cora? She's a nice girl."