Be Myself! - 10. Drifting

We saw Henry in school next day, but he merely greeted us from afar and walked in the opposite direction, and during all the breaks he was nowhere to be seen. Despite his obvious avoidance of our group, Jean did not seem at all concerned. The whole day he acted as if he had not been making out with the brunet since he started school, as if he barely remembered Henry from days long past. Probably as a way of proving his point, Jean dragged Edward to sit with us again, and proceeded to try doing with him what he used to do with Henry, at least until Hannah got too annoyed and forced him to stop.

“But I’m just having fun!” Jean argued when Hannah dragged him off Edward’s lap.

“Well, Edward isn’t, so you’ll have to live with it.” Hannah answered, holding Jean by the collar of his shirt. His school tie had long fallen to the ground.

“Or I could try harder until he’s having fun too!” Jean beamed, preparing to jump on his foster brother again. Edward put his fists up in a threatening stance, but it only made Jean’s smile widen.

“No. If you keep sexually harassing Edward I’ll have to call Mr Smith and have you suspended again.” Hannah threatened, getting her face very close to Jean’s and staring at him in her best imitation of my father’s angry glare. I felt slightly intimidated, even though she was not looking directly at me.

“Fine, it’s not like I can’t have him at home...” Jean shrugged, apparently giving in to Hannah’s threats. “I suppose I have to use the time I’m at school to have fun with other people instead!” Before I could understand what he was implying, Jean had jumped on my lap. His hands travelled to my back under my shirt and he moved his hips back and forth, making his growing erection painfully obvious. His mouth found my neck and a surprised moan left my lips. I felt my face heat up in embarrassment soon afterwards, though my brain did not register the blushing like it normally did, distracted as it was with the things the blond was doing all over my body. “See, Oscar is having fun too!” Jean beamed again. Because of the situation he had put me in I found it really difficult to argue either way. Thankfully Olivia did it for me.

“You’re making it hard for him to say anything.” My girlfriend pointed out, keeping a careful distance. I could not see her facial expression because my field of vision was filled with Jean’s hair.

“If he doesn’t like it, he’s welcome to punch me off of him.” Jean answered, probably winking at Olivia. I could feel his sexy smirk too. “On second thoughts, he’s welcome to punch and kick and bite and spank me any time!”

“You’re creepy!” Edward shouted, sounding horrified. “Why did dad take you in anyway? I’m sick of you!”

“Hey, Ed, don’t go!” Jean’s body was gone from my lap as suddenly as it had landed on it. The blond flew to his foster brother’s back, bear-hugging him back to his place. “You can’t possibly hate me that much!”

“You’re an annoying arsehole.” Edward sighed, once again resigning to his fate.

“No, I have a sexy, tight, and ready-to-be-fucked arsehole. Do you wanna try it?”

“No, ask Oscar.” Edward deadpanned, grinning at me almost sadistically.

“Oscar” Jean turned to me almost instantly. “I have a sexy, tight, and ready-to-be-fucked arsehole. Do you wanna try it again?”

“No.” I managed to answer, sounding more panicking than I would have liked. Jean pouted and walked away from us, shaking his ass as much as humanly possible and somehow irradiating sexiness with every step.

“You guys are no fun. I’ll have to find someone else; maybe one of the teachers. See you later!” And he was gone, though his sexiness stayed in the air for a while. Edward soon returned to his other friends, and Hannah, Olivia and I did not talk much until the end of the break.

(...)

Helena and Ariadne returned to school on Thursday. As soon as they saw our group sitting outside waiting for the bell, they did not hesitate to join. Henry was still not speaking to us, even when we had shared classes. We had not seen him that morning yet.

“So, how was your forced break?” Hannah asked the girls. We were sitting at a table in the front patio, observing the students and teachers go by and trying to imagine what their personalities were like based on their appearance. I had been against that ‘game’ at first, but Hannah and Olivia seemed to be having fun, so I decided to just listen to them without commenting on their generalisations. Jean’s participation was limited to shouting ‘sexy’ to any guy older than he was. “What did you use your free time for?”

“What do you think?” Helena answered, making Ariadne blush. “There was some revising for exams, but it mostly involved things Jean probably doesn’t want to know about.”

“Right you are.” The other blond agreed, nodding his head vigorously. “Anything else you say is TMI now.”

“Why do you get to decide what is TMI and what isn’t?” Hannah asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Because I’m the sexiest person in this school.” The rest of us shared knowing glances and decided not to argue any further. By now we all knew Jean well enough to realise this kind of argument could not end well, or at least not without minor incidents of sexual harassment.

“Like it or not, now that Ari and I are part of this group, you’ll have to get used to us.” Helena said instead, changing the conversation a bit. “It looks like you gay guys are a minority now.”

Helena was right. With her and Ariadne joining and Henry leaving, the school’s ‘gay club’ had three lesbians and Olivia, and then me, Jean and maybe Edward. Edward was obviously straight and I was… well, I was making an effort to stop thinking about my sexual orientation for the time being. So, really, Jean was the only gay guy in the group. Unless Henry came back, but it did not seem likely, at least not in the foreseeable future.

“Then I’ll just have to fuck more people in the sex toilet and convince them to join us!” Jean argued, his eyes shining dangerously. “See you later!” And he disappeared inside the school building.

“That was quick.” Ariadne noted, sounding impressed.

“You have seen nothing yet. Wait until there is a guy close by, then you’ll see what is quick.” Hannah answered, definitively not sharing the girl’s feelings. In fact, she sounded rather bored by Jean’s antics. “Welcome to the group, though.” She turned to the new couple, surprising me and Olivia by flashing out a genuine smile.

“Thank you. I hope you don’t think I’m too boring…” Ariadne answered, blushing slightly. Helena rolled her eyes.

“Don’t worry, Oscar is almost as bad as you and we haven’t got bored of him yet.” The blonde said, looking pointedly at me. I wanted to say something in my defence, but Henry was crossing the school gates at that precise moment and I decided to talk to him instead, taking advantage of the fact that Jean was not around.

“Henry, how are you?” I called out to him, but he ignored me kept walking towards the school building. Olivia stood up and began to follow him, and I decided to follow her.

“Henry, wait!” She called, running to catch up to him. Henry finally stopped a few steps from the front door with his back to us. “Henry, it’s so good to see you. I miss you, you know.”

“I’m sorry, Olivia, I miss you guys too, but I can’t… I can’t really stay around.” Henry answered, without turning to face us. “Not if Jean…”

“We understand.” Olivia patted him on the back affectionately. “I’m not going to ask you to come back to the group, but you could at least hang out during class.”

“I suppose I could.” Henry seemed anxious for some reason. He resumed walking in such hurry as if he needed to be somewhere very far away in the next second.

“Hey, wait! Jean won’t be around for a while, so can’t we hang out for a bit?” Olivia insisted, making some effort to match Henry’s pace. I followed them, worried that Henry was trying to hide something. Looking at his body language reminded me of my first day back in school after my father’s punishment; something was wrong with him and I feared the worst.

“No, I don’t feel like it… not now…” I hurried to catch up to them, approaching Henry from his other side. I did not need to get very close to finally see what he was hiding, and my stomach churned in the most unpleasant way.

“Henry, what happened to your eye?” I asked, grabbing his arm so he and Olivia would stop. We had just reached an old staircase. Realising he would have to stop and talk, Henry signalled for us to hide under the stairs to get more privacy. Olivia seemed just as scared as I was once she noticed the huge black bruise that covered Henry’s swollen left eye.

“Yesterday some guys came up to me when I was walking home from school.” Henry said, looking around to see if other people were listening to him. “They called me ‘dirty fag’ and one of them hit me.”

“Oh, no! We have to tell the Headmistress!” Olivia exclaimed, so shocked and horrified her mouth hung open and her eyebrows almost hid under her fringe. “Do you know if they were students from here? Do you know who they are?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Henry hurriedly shushed my girlfriend, looking even more paranoid. “We don’t need to tell anyone, I’ll be fine. I don’t know who did it.” Though considering how agitated he was, he probably knew it was someone from the school, or he would not be so nervous about someone else hearing us.

“But let’s at least talk to the Headmistress, maybe she can do something to help you be safe…” Olivia insisted, getting more concerned the more anxious Henry became.

“There’s nothing she can do. I’ll be fine.” Henry dismissed Olivia’s concern, walking out of our hiding space. “Please don’t tell anyone. I can handle this.” Olivia and I tried to protest, but Henry did not look back as he hurriedly climbed the stairs and disappeared in the sea of students.

“I wonder if it was Brandon who did this.” I told Olivia once Henry was gone. We were still in our hiding place. “And if that’s the reason he doesn’t want to tell me.”

“It was definitely someone from the school.” Olivia nodded, sharing my suspicion. “I want to talk to the Headmistress, but I don’t want to betray Henry’s trust…”

“I think we should talk to her anyway.” I said, remembering what Hannah had told us about our Headmistress being a strong LGBT ally. “Henry will be fine when he realises we did it for his own good.”

“But we can’t do it now. Henry’s already feeling betrayed because of what Jean did to him; we’ll only make it worse if his other two friends betray him too!” Olivia argued, more resolute than usual. “Let’s wait a little bit more and see. If this keeps happening we’ll talk to Henry again and convince him to talk to the Headmistress.”

I agreed with Olivia in the end. She convinced me it would be reasonable to wait a little more; after all it could have been just an isolated incident. I had to hope she was right, I did not want to think of what it would mean for Henry if she was not.

(...)

Unfortunately over the next couple of days it became painfully clear that Olivia had been wrong. On Friday there was a new bruise on Henry’s cheek and his body language indicated he might have even more injuries hidden under his clothes. Olivia and I tried to approach him many times that day, but he ran away as soon as he noticed our presence. In the end we decided to observe him from a distance, and every time he flinched or contorted his face in a painful expression after an unexpected movement I was reminded of my father’s punishment; of the pain and humiliation and the need to conceal everything. I wondered if I would ever talk to anyone about it, and then wondered if Henry ever would. It downed on me that I possibly understood how he was feeling, and thus when Olivia decided it was time to talk to the Headmistress, I convinced her to wait a bit more. It was a complete inversion of our position the day before, but if Henry felt anything like me he would think that involving anyone in his mess would only make things worse. I could relate to that; it was what I wished people would do for me.

On Monday it was as if instead of getting better with a weekend’s worth of rest, Henry had become even more battered and zombie-like. He was obviously limping and the bruises on his face were turning into a nasty yellow colour. There was an extra cut on his lip. During our Geography class Mr Smith tried to ask him what was wrong, but Henry claimed he had been trying to learn to skateboard and got hurt because he still sucked at it. Mr Smith did not believe him, but told him to wear protective equipment nonetheless.

At least the fact that Henry was not walking properly meant he could not avoid us during lunch break. Our group as a whole was concerned about him (though Jean still acted as if he was no longer important), so Hannah, Edward and Ariadne stayed behind with the blonde to make sure he would not interfere while Olivia, Helena and I went to look for him. Olivia had asked Helena to come because she felt the blonde’s scary persuasion methods would have more effect on our friend than what we had been trying so far.

“Henry, wait!” Olivia called as soon as we found Henry. He was walking aimlessly around the Maths building, looking dejected and not caring that he was favouring his left leg so much as he walked it was almost painful to watch. “We need to talk to you!”

The three of us caught up to him so quickly he could not hide anymore. Resigned, he sat on the dirty ground, looking down as he spoke. “What do you want?”

“We want you to stop pretending you can deal with whoever is beating you up and go talk to the Headmistress.” Helena answered in the same acid tone she had used when we first talked. “You’re obviously no match for them, stop this nonsense before you end up in hospital.”

“I don’t really care.” Henry answered in a weak whisper.

“Oh, why not? Because your life is worthless if the boy you have a crush on thinks you’re an idiot?” Helena argued. Olivia and I watched from the sidelines, hoping she would be able to take care of everything. “There’s plenty of people out there with much bigger problems who won’t give up so easily.”

“I’m not one of those people.” Henry answered in the same apathetic whisper.

“Well, if you’re not going to tell the Headmistress I’ll do little favour for you and talk to her myself.” Helena carried on, sounding threatening. “She’s a very nice woman once you get to know her. I spent the weekend at her house, you know, we’re very good friends now. She’ll listen to the things I say and will be more than happy to tackle this little problem of yours. I bet I could convince her to expel your bullies and make sure they can’t find a decent school to go to ever again.”

“Isn’t that a little too far?” I whispered to Olivia, apparently more afraid of Helena’s threats than Henry. If it was really Brandon who was doing this to him, I was not sure I really wanted him expelled, even after what he did to me.

“I don’t think so.” Olivia, however, agreed wholeheartedly with Helena. She was nodding approvingly to the blonde. “Bullies need real punishments if they are to learn anything.”

“Yeah, but if you just punish them and don’t teach why they are wrong, they won’t stop doing it.” I argued, thinking of my father again, even though I no longer shared his views about homosexuality. I remembered how he kept saying I had acted like a girl and how wrong and shameful it was, and how he beat his words on my skin until it bled. My backside and legs hurt again from the memory, and I had to bit back my will to scream.

“But until you’re sure they’ve learned, you can’t let them be around other people!” Olivia retorted, though I was no longer listening. My mind was lost wondering back to the day my life changed so much; to the words that physically hurt so much and made me so ashamed I dreaded talking to my friends about it. My silence had caused me to lose my friends, and now Henry was drifting away too.

“Fuck it! I couldn’t give a flying monkey’s fucking shit!” Henry screamed, bringing me back from my inner thoughts in the most surreal way. He and Helena had obviously carried on talking while my mind was gone. The brunet was livid, angry as I had never seen him. It was also the first time I had heard him swear too. Those words sounded so foreign coming from his mouth that for a moment I thought someone else had spoken. “Do whatever the hell you want! Just leave me alone!”

“Fine, but don’t come crying to us if those guys send you to hospital!” Helena barked back, seemingly not impressed by his outburst.

“Fine! Now get the fuck out!” Henry screamed again, turning and walking away as fast as he could. Helena did not try to follow, so Olivia and I did not move either.

“We’re talking to the Headmistress.” Helena announced, waiting until Henry was considerably far away to walk in the opposite direction, back to the main building. “It’ll be difficult to punish anyone if we don’t know who’s doing it to him, but at least she will be able to set up some scheme to watch Henry and find out what he’s hiding.”

“Good. Thank you for doing this.” Olivia said, sounding relieved. “I hope it won’t take long to catch the bullies.”

We returned to our friends soon afterwards. Jean had once again been hitting on Edward, but as we approached the scene we saw that Ariadne had come to the aid of her classmate, using her well-developed chest area to scare the blond away from Edward. The whole thing was funnier than it should have been, with Helena laughing the loudest, the kind of evil laughter never seen on the good guys’ side. Nevertheless she proudly complimented her girlfriend and they engaged in the kind of display of affection I had come to associate with Henry and Jean. My surprise did not last for long, though, because Jean soon decided that the best way of getting rid of the ‘boob trauma’, as he called it, was to have plenty of cock, so he jumped on me at the earliest opportunity.

(...)

We talked to the Headmistress the next day, though Jean found a silly excuse not to go with us. Ariadne had spoken to her mother at home to let her know there was something we needed to tell her. Ms Stellori was obviously concerned about Henry’s situation and promised to look out for possible bullies. We left her office feeling more relieved and certain that things would improve for Henry now. We even wondered if there would be a way for him to come back to our group.

I did not speak to Henry that day, though, because we had no shared classes; I only saw him on Wednesday at Geography. He was looking a little better, with no new visible injuries and less flinching at awkward movements. Olivia and I tried to sit next to him, but he avoided us for the whole class. We decided not to push it for the time being, giving him some time to recover from Helena’s harshness.

“Hey, guys, I have a plan!” Jean announced at lunch. I was sitting between him and Olivia, with Edward on the blonde’s other side. Hannah, Helena and Ariadne sat in front of us in the canteen. The new couple had been flirting and making out for most of the break, while Jean divided his attention between me and Edward. Olivia had been mostly quiet, smiling a bit when Jean turned to me, but otherwise spacing out and withdrawing in her own thoughts. I made a mental note to ask if there was anything bothering her when we were alone again.

“Plan for what?” Hannah asked, rising an eyebrow. Helena and Ariadne had stopped feeding each other to look at the blond and Olivia looked like she had just been yanked back to reality after a deep sleep.

“For bringing us all closer together!” Jean answered, smiling somewhat terrifyingly. “And before you ask, yes, wild fucking is involved, but is just part of it.”

“Then forget about it.” Edward objected, doing his best to stay out of Jean’s reach.

“Oh, Ed, but you’re an essential part of it! And your father too!” The blond argued, getting even closer to his foster brother and effectively eliminating the gap Edward was trying to create.

“I don’t see how my father would let you do anything that involves fucking.”

“Oh, he’s not involved in the fucking part. Not that I have given up on that!” Jean winked at Edward, who looked alarmingly terrified. Hannah rolled her eyes, though, which hopefully indicated it whatever was going on was something we should not really be too concerned about. “I think we should all go camping this weekend!” The blond announced for everyone else. There was a collective eyebrow raise as we tried to make sense of his plan. “Edgar can take us there and we can have lots of fun and plenty of wild sex in the wilderness! What do you think?”

“I’m all for it.” Helena was the first to answer, smirking to her girlfriend. Ariadne blushed just a little before agreeing too.

“I don’t think dad will let you do it.” Edward noted, his eyebrows so up his forehead they were hidden by his messy fringe.

“So if he does you’ll come too? We can take Emma too…”

“Leave my sister out of it.” Edward threatened, though judging by Jean’s lack of reaction it was not very effective.

“She’ll love it. It’s not fair to leave her at home alone. I’ll tell Edgar it’s an opportunity for bonding with my new friends and he won’t say no.”

“It could be fun, I guess…” Olivia said, looking at me in a weird way.

“Cool, so most of us agree!” Jean beamed, jumping out of our table at the canteen. “Let me see if I can get more people to join us! The more, the merrier!”

We only understood what the blond had in mind after he crossed the canteen and we realised he was heading straight to Henry’s table in the furthest corner. The brunet was sitting alone, paying attention to his food and nothing else. Hannah, Olivia and I stood up to follow Jean as soon as his plan became apparent.

“Hey, Henry, how are you doing?” Jean asked, bear-hugging him from behind. Henry almost let his food drop in surprise, but he did not say anything. “Miss me already?” Jean started to kiss his neck. Henry at first seemed like he was going to enjoy it, but after a few seconds it was as if he remembered who was doing it to him and tried to get Jean off his body.

“No. What do you want?” The brunet was trying his hardest not to look at Jean, keeping his head low and using his hands to keep the blond as far away as possible.

“We’re going out camping this weekend. Wanna join? We can share a tent and I’ll let you fuck me all day long. How does that sound?”

“No, thanks, I’m busy.” Henry answered as resolutely as he could manage, though his cheeks became slightly flushed.

“You sure? What a shame… I want to ride your cock so much! Actually, I want to ride yours and Edward’s; preferably at the same time. And then suck Oscar’s. Oscar’s cock tastes very good. I wonder if it’s because of the stuff he eats…”

I did not look at any of my friends, even though I felt their eyes on me. Henry became definitely mortified, and most of the people in the surrounding area turned to us to see what was going on.

“Shut up. I don’t need to know this.” Henry said, his face much redder than it used to be.

“Are you sure? I bet you dream about it every night. You wank yourself to sleep thinking of me and the hot sex we could be having right now if you weren’t such a sissy about commitment and all that boring shit.” Jean answered with the scary and yet sexy smirk that seemed to be a constant feature of his face.

“No, I don’t! Stop it!” Henry almost shouted, getting up and looking frantically for a way out. I noticed his distress and tried to do something to help, but I soon realised that Henry was effectively trapped between the walls and a sea of students who were watching his every single movement. This would only be over when Jean decided it was over.

“Yes, you do. Otherwise why would your trousers be so bulgy right now?” Jean pointed out. There was some laughter coming from the closer tables, the people who could see more clearly what Jean was talking about. Henry’s face became so red he could have let steam out of his ears, but he was incapable of saying anything. Noticing his lack of verbal reaction, Jean carried on speaking. “You want me right now, don’t you? Why don’t you come, I’m ready and waiting anxiously for you and your cock…” Jean leaned on Henry’s table with one of his sexiest faces. There were some cat-calls from our undesired audience, prompting Jean to turn away from Henry to wave and smirk at them.

“Jean, that’s enough.” Fortunately Hannah sprung to action when she thought the blond had gone too far. She marched up to Jean and took him away by the collar of his shirt. The students protested at having their lunch entertainment cut short, but she made scary faces at them and they stopped immediately. “I’m taking you to Mr Smith right now.”

“Please, don’t! I don’t want to have to ask him about the trip now!” The blond protested, though he did not object to being dragged around.

“There will be no trip once he knows what you were doing to try coercing Henry to come.” Hannah answered sharply. Olivia and I exchanges glances and I decided to follow Jean and Hannah while Olivia stayed behind trying to console Henry and stopping the laughing crowd.

“Wanna bet?” Jean asked, raising his eyebrows. This made Hannah stop in her tracks and look meaningfully into the blonde’s eyes, as if she was deep in thought and actually considering the question seriously.

“Don’t try to bribe me with money. I don’t bet with you anymore.” She finally answered, after what seemed a rather surprising internal struggle.

“Fine. But I’m saying this trip is going ahead, and so it will!”

Hannah and Jean disappeared from the canteen soon afterwards. Henry disappeared too, and I did not see him for the rest of the day.