I Love You, Always

Chapter 17

"Okay. So, we need to talk about what happened," Derrick says to me once we're home from the hospital. He takes me to his room to talk and we sit in his bed.

It's been a couple hours since everything that happened with Leo and Simon. It turns out that I don't have a concussion but I did have to get a couple stitches and my arm is fractured, so now I'm sitting here with Derrick with my arm bandaged up and in a sling, thinking about how much I do not want to explain all of this to him.

"Damian." Derrick rests a hand on my arm when I don't say anything. I sigh and rub my temple. My head still hurts.

"I was walking to meet Simon and Dev outside after school," I begin, "when I ran into this guy. His name is Leo, and he used to be friends with Simon a couple years ago. He stopped me and started talking to me about Simon, telling me all these things about how Simon used to get into fights and stuff. Then..." I hate talking about this because as I talk about it, I remember how I felt in that moment, how terrifying it was. "He took my cane and pulled me into the boys bathroom, and he pushed me into a stall—that's when I hit my arm, on the toilet. He locked the stall and got on top of me, and..."

How am I supposed to tell Derrick this part? Leo being on top of me, taking advantage of me like that, was worse than anything else, even worse than my fractured arm.

Derrick has his arm around me and he starts to rub my arm, which feels nice. It coaxes me to continue even though it's hard to say these next words. I lean into Derrick's embrace and rest my cheek against his shoulder. "H-he started saying stuff about me, how I was 'pleasing to look at' or whatever, and he...he started kissing me and when I tried to push him off me, he shoved me down and I hit my head on the floor really hard. Then he threatened to choke me and..." I pause and swallow thickly as I remember the feeling of Leo's hands touching my body. "When he tried to touch me, I kicked him off me. Somehow, I made it out of the bathroom and when I did, Simon was just there. Dev said he came to look for me when I didn't meet them outside, so he must have gone back to my classroom. And, um, then Leo came out of the bathroom and Simon was so angry. He punched Leo and Leo left after that, but Simon was still really angry. After he took me outside and Dev called you, he said he had to go and left. He wouldn't really talk to me at all a-and I'm worried that maybe I did something. I don't know. I didn't think he would react like that."

Derrick sighs deeply and is quiet for a few seconds. "He didn't do anything else to you? This Leo kid?" he asks and I shake my head.

"No, I got away before he could...do anything else," I reply.

"Do you know his last name?"

Once more, I shake my head. "No. Simon might."

"Damian, I want you to be honest with me and tell me, is this the first time something like this has happened?"

Derrick's question immediately makes me think back to that day with Kyle, both times with Kyle actually. I haven't had any other problems out of him aside from name calling here and there, though.

I must take too long to reply because Derrick speaks up again, urging me more.

"What happened?" he asks, as if he knows that there is more. Of course he knows there's more. Why wouldn't there be after what happened?

I sigh again. "There's this other guy, Kyle, the guy Simon used to get into fights with a lot. He's been a problem on and off. Most of the time he just calls me stupid names. The first week of school he threatened Simon in the cafeteria and pushed him into our table, which caused Simon to spill my food all over me. Dev got pissed and yelled at Kyle about it. A couple weeks after that, Kyle came up to me in the hallway when I was drinking from the water fountain and he pushed me into it, took my cane, and pushed me to the ground. He told me it was for Devyn yelling at him and told me he wasn't afraid to hit me."