Be Myself! - 35. Guilt and Punishment

The day after the attack on Oliver, his parents drove us to school and took us to the headmistress’s office. Oliver had been too scared and distraught to go to the police the day before (a decision Ms Savage and Mr Viñas did not entirely agree with, but they considered Oliver mature enough to make his own decisions, and thus respected his wishes), but we thought we could at least get Arthur McKay punished at school.

“Oliver, what happened to you?” the headmistress asked as soon as we came into her office and she laid eyes on my boyfriend.

“This is the reason we are here, Ms Stellori,” Ms Savage answered. She made Oliver sit in one of the two chairs in front of the headmistress’s desk and she took the other one. Mr Viñas and I stood behind our respective partners. “Yesterday, on the way back from school, Oliver was attacked by someone we believe is a student here. We also know that it is the same student who attacked Henry Watson a while ago.”

“I see. May I ask which student you are talking about?”

“His name is Arthur McKay. Your daughter said he is in her English class,” Ms Savage answered again. Oliver and Mr Viñas seemed happy to let her do all the taking, so I concentrated on listening and gently massaging Oliver’s shoulders to help him relax.

“Ah, Arthur.” The headmistress spoke like she was not at all surprised that this name had come up. “I am really sorry for what happened to you, Oliver. I will make sure Arthur is punished accordingly. Unfortunately, I cannot do anything about the attack on Henry, unless Henry himself comes forward about it. Is he scared?”

“Yes.” This time, it was Oliver who answered. “We met Arthur in a pizzeria some two weeks ago. Henry was absolutely terrified. Arthur ended up punching Jean and hitting Ariadne by accident.”

“So that’s where she got that black eye. I see…” The headmistress took a deep breath. She seemed worried, or maybe disappointed that her daughter was hiding things from her. At the pizzeria Ariadne had been adamant that she was hit by accident and did not want to do anything about it. She had refused Helena’s attempts at examining the damage, and refused to let anyone close to her afterwards. “I will do what I can to ensure Arthur stays away from you.”

“Is he going to be expelled?” Ms Savage asked.

The headmistress sighed. “Unfortunately I cannot do that, but he will definitely be suspended, and consequently made to attend special classes and therapy session aimed at improving his behaviour.”

“Why can’t you expel him? He’s hurt four of your students, including your daughter!” Ms Savage’s voice rose a little, but the headmistress did not seem to mind. She probably expected this reaction.

“I have my reasons. I’m sorry, but I cannot explain them in detail, because it would mean sharing private information about my students. I understand your anger, and in your place I would be feeling the same way.” The headmistress turned to Oliver. “While I cannot take Arthur away from this school, I can still find other ways to protect you and Henry. As soon as you leave this room, I will call for Arthur and have him suspended, so you don’t have to be afraid of going back to school today.”

“This is better than nothing, I guess.” Ms Savage did not seem happy, but at least she did not seem too angry either.

“The way I see it is that, if I expel Arthur, he will just do the same thing in another school, or worse, will leave school all together and do this to people in the street.” The headmistress turned to Ms Savage again. “But if I keep Arthur under my care, I at least have a chance of making him learn that what he is doing is wrong.”

Ms Savage sighed and took Oliver’s hand in hers. “I think I can see your point. I too believe that it’s easier to change people while they are still children. In any other situation I would be all for making Arthur a better person, but now…” She paused, looking at Oliver briefly before turning to the headmistress again. “This boy hurt my child. All I want is for him to never be near my Oliver again.”

“I know, and I understand that. I’m a parent too.” The headmistress smiled sympathetically. “It’s a lot harder to trust someone when they have already hurt you. But Arthur has been with us for less than a year; we have barely started working with him. Please trust me and be patient, Ms Savage. I will do all I can to keep Oliver and other students safe, but I will also teach Arthur that his behaviour is unacceptable. I’m a teacher, after all. This is what I chose to do for a living.”

Instead of answering the headmistress, Ms Savage turned to Oliver. “What do you think? Do you feel safe going back to classes today? Or do you want to wait until tomorrow?”

Oliver looked at his mother, the headmistress, and finally at me. “Can Oscar walk me to my class? After that I think I’ll be ok.”

“Er…” I looked at the headmistress, not sure if she would let me do this, or say that I had my own classes to attend to.

“Of course he can, Oliver.” The headmistress smiled gently to my boyfriend and turned to me. “Oscar, do you mind taking Oliver to his class? I will write a note to both your teachers explaining the situation.”

“Yes, yes, of course!” I squeezed Oliver’s shoulders as a form of moral support. “I would be happy to!”

“Then that’s settled. As I said before, I will speak to Arthur once you leave. He will not be coming to school for the next two weeks.”

“Thank you, headmistress,” Oliver said. His parents also thanked her, and soon after that we left her office. Oliver’s parents wished him good luck and told him to call if he needed them. They kissed Oliver goodbye and left.

“What is your first class?” I asked my boyfriend.

“Geography.” Oliver sighed. “Mr Smith won’t be happy to see me like this. I hope he doesn’t ask too many questions.”

“He might know about this already, from Jean…”

“That’s true. I really hope he does. I hate to make him worried.” Oliver and I started walking towards the Geography classroom. The corridors were mostly empty because lessons had already started. “He’s like… the one teacher who cares about us. I feel bad about making him feel bad.”

“I know the feeling.” I had felt that way back in March when I was sitting in Mr Smith’s office while he called my father to tell him about my first ‘meeting’ with Jean. It was hard to believe that it all had happened less than four months ago. Four months was such a short amount of time, and yet my life had changed so much since.

Fortunately, Mr Smith seemed to know what to expect when Oliver entered his classroom. He smiled to Oliver and told him to take a seat, without asking for the headmistress’s note. I saw with some relief that his classmates seemed appalled by Oliver’s state. Hopefully this meant they cared about him, and would want to help.

(...)

“Oh, sweet goddess, what happened to you?” Luce cried as she saw Oliver for the first time during our morning break.

“He was attacked by a dickhead after school yesterday,” Jean answered. He sounded surprisingly angry. Maybe it was because he had witnessed the whole thing and played an active part in ending it. Hopefully this was a good thing. Back when Henry was the victim, Jean had acted with such cold indifference it hurt to be around him and Henry.

“Oh, no! Does it still hurt?” Luce carefully approached Oliver to examine his injuries. Along with the fifteen stiches, his face was still purple and swollen in places.

“Not too much,” Oliver sheepishly answered. “But it’s much better now.”

“Ah, I can’t believe someone would want to hurt you!” Luce hugged Oliver, carefully avoiding his bruised face. “If I wasn’t such a proper lady I would offer to break the dickhead’s body in half…”

“That won’t be necessary. I took care of it already.” Jean smiled innocently, like he had barely told the guy off instead of threaten his existence, like Arthur had not been scared for his life after Jean was done with him. “Hopefully he learned his lesson and won’t try to attack another one of my friends.”

“Another one? So it was the same guy…” Henry said, looking pointedly at his arms instead of finishing his sentence.

“Yep. The one and only.” Jean nodded. “But if he has any brains, he’ll have learned his lesson by now.”

“What did you do to him?” Henry asked, horrified.

“I just showed him who is the boss and that he doesn’t scare me one bit. I’ve dealt with people a lot worse than him. He’s really just a brat trying to play tough.” Jean smiled cheerfully as he spoke. Somehow this made his words sound all the more sinister.

“If you say so…” Henry’s eyes had grown to twice their size. He seemed too shocked to say anything else.

“Thanks for helping me yesterday, by the way. I don’t think I had the chance to thank you properly,” Oliver said to Jean.

“My pleasure!” Jean’s smile gained epically creepy proportions. “Though I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was more luck than anything.”

“Still, I’m glad you were there.” Oliver probably did not mean it that way, but his thanks to Jean kind of made it sound like he blamed me for being completely useless when the confusion started. I was standing right next to him when Arthur attacked, but my body had been paralysed by fear. I did nothing to help Oliver. I could not intervene to save my boyfriend from the brutal attack of a vicious kid. It was indeed lucky that Jean was there, otherwise who knows how much worse it would have been.

I looked away from Oliver and Jean. I felt useless and weak, undeserving to be with my friends. If I had not been able to step up to save my boyfriend, how likely was it that I would act on behalf those who were just my friends? How could they trust me if I was going to let them down when it mattered the most?

In a way, it was my fault that Oliver had gotten so badly hurt. If I had acted like a proper boyfriend, like a proper man even, things might have turned out differently.