Floating Face Down (boyxboy)

Chapter Eleven

[A/N] I haven't finished writing the chapter for the book that's supposed to go before this one but I wanted to post on time. 

Trigger warning for the violence guys... – =͟͟͞͞ =͟͟͞͞ ﾍ( ˉ 0ˉ)ﾉ

My father got back soon after and I ate dinner in silence. He stared at me for some of it, but then grunted and turned back to his food and ultimately said nothing.

In the morning I got up and went to the printer to print out the lost posters for Milk, and Irene was startled seeing me in the office so early.

"You're going to school today okay?"

I looked up at her from where I was crouching next to the printer, watching the warm sheets buckle over the edge as they were produced.

"Not to attend classes but to speak to the school about what happened. They want to make sure you're okay. And they need to know who exactly was involved in what happened..."

I didn't say anything but pulled out more sheets and put them on the stack.

"So get dressed soon, I'll come with you. Don't make your brother wait..."

I was up so early Colby was probably still asleep.

I dressed, put my school things together, and stuffed the thick stack of papers with Milk's face, information and my number on them into my backpack.

We drove to school and I was sat in the headmasters room with the large oval table set up, a few of my teachers there, a few teachers I didn't recognise, the headmaster, the school therapist, and Irene. That made about eight of them around the large table.

I barely answered their questions but acquiesced and wrote out a list of names. Of the group of eight or so boys that had beat me and thrown me into the lake I could only remember about four. If I passed them in the hallway or met them in class I'd know it was them but I wasn't close enough to know everyone's names and I didn't care.

I cared so little that I was yawning by the time they slowly exited the room and had me move to sit with Miss Polwarth in a separate room.

It was already morning break by this time, so when I left the Headmaster's room there were students moving throughout the hallways that stared at me, some of them even stopping to look at me as I moved past.

I went to sit in her little closet like office and she smiled at me with her red lipstick and blue eyeshadow and asked me how writing my diary was going, and if I'd written a new entry about what had happened.

I told her not yet, and she asked me to do so, because it would help, and asked me if I wanted to read any of my diary to her. I shook my head. She asked if I could write and leave the diary there. I said I would not. She looked a little perplexed.

It wasn't that I was meek before, but I was quiet in a different way, and usually did what everyone wanted.

It was so strange to think about it now, as though I'd aged twenty years in an hour, because in the past I'd always thought that I was constantly letting people down, not doing what they wanted. I wondered how I'd gotten to that conclusion.

Still I stayed in her room and wrote the diary entry, an explanation more than the emotional bantering I'd ended up doing before.

She brought me lunch and stayed with me, and I realised slowly that they intended for me to stay the entire school day and Irene had probably left.