The Hopeful, The Hardheaded and the Homework

Chapter 29: Avoidance is the Easiest Way Out : Enoch

Enoch's eyes widened and his whole chest started to constrict in on itself the moment he saw Olive at the door. She had been listening the whole time, that much was obvious, and had probably slipped and given herself away. He was sure she had gone. She'd said goodbye to him at the door and his father had come out so quickly to give Enoch a piece or ten of his mind, that Olive hadn't left beforehand. He never let any stern conversations, or, more accurately, shouting and heated arguments have much of an effect on him and they certainly never made him clean up his behaviour or his school work. But having been back at school for three days, skipping a class and still not showing any interest or participation at all, resulting in another note home and no doubt, a much more serious one, had brought out the worst. It was mild now. They were in the shop where someone might have walked it at any time, not even out the back. It would be much worse at home.

Now Olive knew.

She looked mortified, caught in the act of eavesdropping and when she met his widened eyes there was a definite pity to them that Enoch didn't like to see. She vanished then, with a stammered, but certainly genuine, apology.

"Never mind 'er now, boy."

Enoch turned his head slowly, his eyes still wide with surprise and an uncomfortable shock as he stared at the floor instead. His father's face was still twisted into a stern, no nonsense, and near furious expression that rarely came out to such extremes.
"Ya gonna get back there, ya gonna finish at least some 'omework, and we're gonna talk 'bout it at 'ome."

"Talk 'bout it?" Enoch barely muttered, "That what ya callin' tryin'a shout me down again? That ain't gonna change me."

"I've tried bein' patient wiv ya. Don't answer me back now, Enoch. Office. Now."

He wanted to argue and refuse. He wanted to have a go right back and he very nearly did, but it would have done far more worse than good and even if that was something he didn't care about, he couldn't have stopped thinking of Olive's shocked and pitying expression if he tried. So Enoch just glowered darkly at his father and stormed off towards the office door.

The door slammed closed behind him and Enoch dropped into the chair but didn't take out any schoolwork. Consequences be damned. He growled and crossed his arms stubbornly as he slumped over the desk. It was a matter of minutes before he was checked in on to make sure he was doing what he was told but the more he was yelled at about his grades and forced to put in effort to something he had no interest in, the more he wanted to rebel against it. Did he ever tell his parents exactly how much staring at the numbers and symbols messed with his head and made his vision swirl? Of course not.
Science. Sure. He was good at that and he liked it which was part of the argument against his poor maths effort. Apparently they should have gone hand in hand. Good at one, be good at the other. That was a load of rubbish to Enoch.
He didn't want to do it and so he wouldn't. That was all there was to it.
If they started trying to tell him he was spending too much time with Olive now, which he had suspected might have been where it was going when his dad had brought her up, he definitely wouldn't be bridling his tongue. It was slightly ironic that he was so against letting anyone in at all, and going most of his life without any friends, and his mother especially pushing him to go outside, to now quite willingly spending enough time with a girl that they might think he was being too social.
Olive.

There was a reason he was so closed up and didn't ever really want to talk about himself at all. Even when she had just asked him about what he wanted to do, it had been awkward and he didn't know what to say. He didn't want her to know too much about him and about his parents that it would put her completely off him. She believed in him and had told him as much weeks before they'd actually become anything, no one else did and as a result, neither did he. There was only Olive and if she changed her mind about that because of what he actually put up with almost everyday, inside his head and out of it, Enoch was sure she'd see him the same way everyone else did. A freak who was only good for cutting things up. No. He could shield her from that for as long as possible.