Imperfect

Chapter 20

"Hey guys! How are you?" Simon asks straight away, heading towards Oscar.

"Definitely better than before. Max got a concussion." Oscar tells us.

"And guess who got one heck of a black eye?" I say.

"Toby! I punched him right in the face!" Oscar responds, happily laughing.

"We could see that!" I joke.

"So did we miss anything important?" Oscar asks.

"Not really, all anyone was talking about was the fight. Anything else wrong?" I continue.

"Just some bruises and scratches. Then Max's got an egg on his head!" Oscar jokes.

"You okay mate?" Simon finally asks Max.

"Yeah, I'm better than before at least." Max mutters, shifting his eyes from Simon to Oscar to me and then back again.

"Have you eaten?" Simon asks after a long pause.

"No, but we're starving!" Oscar tells him.

"How about me and Oscar go and get something to eat whilst you to stay?" Simon suggests.

"Yeah!" Oscar agrees quickly, following Simon out of the ward.

"So... they ran off quickly." I remark.

"Yep!" He acknowledges.

"Can we talk?" I request.

He nods wordlessly, frowning slightly.

You know when someone looks sad and it just makes you feel sad yourself because it's like you made them feel like that? Well that's how his expression makes me feel now.

As I think about it I realise that I cannot think of a single thing to say and whatever's going to come out of my mouth will just sound stupid. Then there's too many things to ask!

"What exactly happened with everything? The fight and the blackmail?" I specify when he looks confused.

"I first of met Toby in homeroom. He introduced himself and seemed really nice and asked about my friend group. He seemed interested in meeting you all, especially you, so I introduced everyone. A little while later after I talked to someone about it; I came out. Since I'd known him for less time I thought it might be better because he wouldn't have a really good idea about how I was like everyone else. But then he started blackmailing me. I came out to my Dad because of it, I can't really do that with my Mum, my sister didn't seem to care all that much so it was a relief. But he told me to keep my mouth shut about it after that. Then he made me give him my phone and invite him along to other things. I couldn't do it for that long, I sort of came out to Oscar and told him that I was being blackmailed because of it, though I didn't tell him who was doing it. I think he accused Toby of blackmail and that's what made him mad and post that message on the school web thing. Then I got super embarrassed, I managed to come out to the others, but I was kind of hoping you would be there because I just wanted to apologise." He explains.

"Wait! Why?" I ask, surprise quite clear.

"Because if I'd have the courage to get over my own insignificant little issue then you wouldn't have had to battle with the truck load of hurt he gave you." Max says.

"Wow, that's a lot of metaphors!" I bring up, trying to stop him from feeling bad.

It works slightly and he smiles at me before blushing and looking back at his feet.