The Hawthorne Effect (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 33 - Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty.

Ooo, look at me sticking to my promise of uploading today. 

In the words of Dan,  "Woah, somebody give the man an award, please," 

Anyway... this chapter isn't the longest, but I wanted to leave it where I left it because I thought it was a fun lil cliff hanger. 

Hope it was worth the seemingly endless wait.

See you this time next week for the next one!

//

So there's this bus stop near the school.

It's tucked away down one of the quiet, suburban side roads, and it only exists for a couple of bus services that come hourly or half-an-hourly. At the end of the school day, people from each year in the school use this stop to grab the bus to the town centre where they then get their main bus home. And at the beginning of the day, those same, rickety old busses make this stop just as busy as they bring constant shipments of tired and grotty students to yet another day of torture. But, during the school day, however, it's usually completely empty.

You wouldn't really be able to tell if you came here during peak hours, but the bus stop is actually in the middle of a picturesque area. This street seems to be in idle, only occasionally disturbed by the odd car gliding through. When you sit down on the chipped, plastic yellow bench under the scratched and abused plastic shelter, you look onto a square of grass that houses a thousand trees and, if you're quiet and still enough to make them come out, a small family of squirrels that dance up and down the tree trunks.

When I sit here, I feel like I'm just observing the world invisibly. No one can see me, no one can disturb me - it's just me and the birds and the soothing wisp of the trees.

Usually, I come here when I just need to take a break from Sixth Form and it's noisy rooms. And now it's summer I've been coming here a lot more - since it's nice being able just to go outside in the warmth and relax.

But today, I'm not here for enjoyment. I'm here to process my potential fuck up.

After Austin swore on his life that Charlie didn't do anything at the party the other night, I initially didn't believe him. Hey, as I've said before, I'm an Aquarius, so I'm very stubborn.

But after Austin continued to promise me nothing happened, I slowly started to wise up. I mean if Austin was lying to me by pleading Charlie's innocence, I would be able to tell. Having known Austin for a considerable amount of months now, I can tell when he's lying. He always giggles and chews on his lip. But all of those warning signs seemed to be dormant. He seemed genuinely panicked and disturbed by what's been going on, and that's not an easy facade to portray convincingly.

After I eventually succumbed to the truth, the boy wanted to run off and get Charlie to sort things out right then and there on the playing field. But I felt like too much of a fucking dumbass to face Charlie at that moment.

Because this isn't just a slight misunderstanding, this is a whole-ass explosion of mistrust and refusal to look past previous events.

Back when Charlie gave me that ring, he promised that, even though he had done some shitty things in the past, he wasn't going to hurt me again. And by me accepting that ring, I promised that I would trust him. And yet somehow I was the one to break their promise - not him.

He was actually as loyal as he said he was that night, but I refused to believe him.

What kind of person does that make me?