Back To Our Roots, Book One

LXI. Welcome To Health Class! Have Some Depression

"I'm sure you've been given an easy time in your other classes, but don't expect that here. Welcome to health class, I'm Mrs. Webster, I'm your new teacher."

She looked over the class, making them mildly uncomfortable under her gaze.

"Glasses, up here. Blondie, back there. Mini-Ryan, somewhere in there. You, up here. Tree, back there. Freckles, over there." She continued to seat the class, using different identifying features.

"Alright. Lesson plan for today is something you should have covered already; abuse and sexual harassment. Please take out something to take notes with. Here's a statistic for you: before the age of eighteen, one in three girls and one in five boys are sexually assaulted."

A sudden cold seemed to sweep across the room as that sunk in.

She turned on a powerpoint presentation.

"Abusers could be practically anybody. Step-siblings, step-parents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, teachers, significant others, anyone."

"Anyone," she repeated seriously, looking out at the class.

Clicking to the next slide, she turned back to the board. "A question I bet about, ah, half of you are wondering: what is sexual abuse? Sexual abuse is any act where one person sexually touches another without that person's consent, or coerces or forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will.
It takes many forms, such as rape, incest, sexual child abuse, fondling, and sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is any kind of unwanted sexual behavior or pressure that embarrasses, intimidates, or humiliates the intimidates an individual."

They were all furiously writing down notes through their unease. It was easily the most uncomfortable class they had had.

"Some ways to tell if someone is being abused are if they are distant or angry, they have unexplained injuries, they have unexplained gifts or money, they're uncomfortable around certain adults, or if they're frequently absent from school."

Jeff frowned. "That doesn't work."

He hadn't realized he had said it out loud until everyone's attention was on him.

"What doesn't work?" she asked.

"Oh, um, nothing," Jeff said quickly, intimidated.

"No, please. You had a concern about this, I want to hear it."

Jeff nodded apprehensively. "It's just... I know a person who was abused for his– their– life by their parents but W– he– they aren't ever absent from school."

Wes cleared his throat softly. "I agree with Jeff. Staying home from school is suspicious, and they'd have to stay at their house, where the threat most likely is. I'd say they'd want to be away from home as much as they wanted. But, um, that's just my opinion."

"Spoiler alert: Jeff's talking about Wes and Wes knows from experience," someone stage-whispered.

The teacher looked furious but Wes spoke up before she could.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious, for that chilling fact none of us knew," he said dryly.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," somebody else said.

Her anger faded to confusion. "I'm sorry, what...?"

"My parents are huge in the business industry, when people found out they had been abusing me it caused a huge scandal. They're in jail now," Wes explained absentmindedly.

"And this happened...?"

"A bit after Christmas."

The bell rang before they could say anything else and everyone started to pack up their things.

The room began to spin as soon as Matt stood up and he grabbed his desk in an attempt to not fall over. Thad immediately saw what was going on and helped him until the dizzy spell passed.

"Matt, are you sure you're okay?" Thad asked worriedly.

"I might need to go have my blood sugar levels checked out," Matt admitted. Then he laughed. "Watch, I'm diabetic. Surprise!"

Thad chuckled. "That's probably smart."