Home ~ A Merome Fanfic

Chapter Three

Mitch's POV
~ When I wake up, my throat feels like it's on fire. I walk slowly to the bathroom and take a shower. The rest of the morning goes pretty slow. Aunt Rose said that Jerome will help me around at school. Jerome and I take the bus to school. Jerome goes back to sit with his friends in the back, I follow him. A girl with pink hair notices me.
"Jerome, who's this?" She asks Jerome, pointing to me.
"That's Rose's nephew. I have to show him around at school." He answered, staring out the window. She does a once-over look of me and squints her right eye.
"You're not like us, are you?" She says, more of a statement than a question.
"Yep." I concur, nodding. I'm not anything like his friends. And I don't like the same things but I feel connected somehow. Maybe it's the secrets I hide.
~ Jerome walks me to my new locker, which is not too far from his. A bunch of guys walk down the hall toward us, laughing. Jerome ducks his head and stares at the floor when they pass by. One of the bigger jocks notice.
"Fag." He says and pushes Jerome forcefully into the lockers. All of the guys laugh and continue to walk down the hall. I look over to Jerome, he has his head down again. I run up to the guys and throw one of them into the lockers.
"What did you say?" I ask, my teeth clenched.
"I called your boyfriend a fag." He smirked and I punched the locker right next to his face. His eyes widen in fear.
"If you ever say one more thing to Jerome, I'll make sure you won't say anything again." I threaten. Jerome runs up to me tries to get me away from them.
"They're not worth it, Mitch. Let's just go." He says, grabbing my arm. The rest of the guys start to surround us.
"Jerome! Go now!" I yell and he gets on his skateboard. I run after Jerome and we start laughing hysterically. We turn the corner and bump into a teacher. Only it wasn't a teacher, it was the principal. He is round with white hair. He looks nice but not right now.
"I'm sorry Dr. Gordon, w-we were, uh..." Jerome stutters.
"Dr. Gordon we were running away from some pricks that wanted to beat the crap out of us. Did you know that they were calling a student a 'fag'? You don't tolerate bullying, right?" I questioned, smiling on the inside. I always knew how to get out of trouble.
"Uh, we don't tolerate bullying...Mr...." Dr. Gordon says.
"Hughes." I answer him.
"Mr. Hughes, if we knew bullying was going on on school grounds, we would solve the problem." Dr. Gordon explains. I nudge Jerome.
"Um, they threatened me and said if I told anyone, they would kick the crap out of me." Jerome said shyly.
"Threatening is not allowed at this school but so is running in the hallway. If you two would just come to my office, we can discuss what happened." The principal explained. We walk to his office and told him what had happened. We both missed first period but we got off the hook.
"Thanks Mitch." Jerome said. I smiled and put my arm around him. He looked surprised but he smiled back.
"I thought you hated me." Jerome presumed. I shook my head.
"Not anymore. Hey, why did they call you that?" I ask. He looked down at the floor again.
"Because they saw me kiss a guy once. It's not like I'm gay, I just felt like it was needed." I stared down the hall. I've always liked girls, but the way my arm is around Jerome...it feels nice. I turn my head and kiss Jerome on the cheek. He looks startled and starts blushing.
"W-what was that for?" Jerome stutters. I shrug.
"It just felt needed." I smirk. He laughs along with me as we head to our lockers.