Chapter Text
The next day, Jay went looking for Lloyd.
He had skipped every class so far, so he seemed to be really determined to avoid Jay.
At lunch time, Jay went to every place he could think of, from the janitors closet, to the drama stage, and even the empty classrooms.
And then it dawned on him.
The roof.
There was a window in a broom closet on the top floor that was right next to a pretty sturdy pipe on the wall. If you climbed up it, it would be easy to access the roof.
Not many people knew about it, seeing as no one besides the janitor would be going up there. But for social outcasts like Jay who often spent lunch alone before he had friends? It was a perfect place to eat in peace.
Jay figured that Lloyd would know about it seeing as the poor guy didn’t have much else to do at break time.
Jay climbed up silently. The rooftop was quite large, which had always been handy when he and his friends hung out together.
Jays chest tightened when he saw Lloyd curled up in a ball in the corner, shaking with silent sobs.
“Er, hello?”
Lloyd yelled and leapt up in surprise. His eyes darted from Jay to the pipe, probably wondering if he should make a run for it.
“Wait, wait, I want to talk.”
Lloyd looked like he was having an inner battle with himself. His distrustful eyes flickered to Jays desperate ones, and Lloyd slumped in defeat.
“Alright, you have 5 minutes.”
Jay perked up and immediately decided to take advantage of every single second.
“First of all, you know the thing with the notebook? I genuinely wasn’t trying to find any gossip, I was just curious about you.”
Lloyd opened his mouth to speak and Jay shushed him.
“Don’t interrupt me please, I just need to get my point across.”
“I’m sorry for reading it. I know that I had no right to read it, no matter how curious I was. It was a mistake, and a stupid one at that.”
“I really do like you, Lloyd. I never pretended to be your friend. I’m not going to lie, when we were first paired up I thought I was a goner, but then we actually talked. I realised you were actually a pleasant person to be around. I was confused, my friends thought you were trying to trick me, but I didn’t believe it. After a while, I realised how all this bullying was really affecting you, and that it wasn’t fair to blame you for your father’s actions.”
“ Lloyd, I’m so sorry. No one in this school has the right to treat you like they do, and I’m sorry for thinking they did. Can you forgive me?”
Jay had his eyes closed saying the last few sentences, unsure of how Lloyd would react.
Jay was suddenly enveloped in a crushing hug.
Jay opened his eyes in surprise, and saw a wide, disbelieving smile and tears on Lloyds face.
“Of course!” Lloyd mumbled, burying his head in Jays jacket.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, relishing in the fact that they were friends again. Lloyd stepped back and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“I guess I kinda owe you an apology too. I’m sorry for not letting you talk and just jumping to conclusions, I should’ve heard you out. I’m so-“
“You don’t need to apologise.” Jay interrupted “I would have thought the same thing, it did look kind of suspicious when I was holding that notebook.”
Lloyd blinked, then grinned at him. “I still can’t believe I’ve finally got a friend, it feels surreal to be honest.”
Jay laughed, but his smile faded as he thought about why he really needed to talk to Lloyd.
“Um…Lloyd? It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it…but are you okay? Some of the stuff you were saying about yourself was…concerning… to say the least.”
Lloyds smile disappeared, but he still nodded hesitantly. “I guess I owe you an explanation, huh?”
“You don’t owe me anything, I just want to help.”
Lloyd sighed, but he sat down anyway. He began to explain.
“I’ve always been taught to hate myself, y’know. It’s hard not to when every news station in the city reports on every single thing you’ve done since you were born. People in the streets either avoid me, throw stuff at me, or insult me. I’ve only talked to my dad a couple of times, I don’t even know if he remembers my name, to be honest.”
Jay blinks. “You weren’t raised by him?”
“Nah, my mom wanted to keep me as far away as possible from him. It unfortunately didn’t stop people from thinking that I was raised by him. Anyway, all the bullying really started to get to me when I was about 9. I began to really hate myself. It was only recently that I realised that it didn’t matter what people said about me, it wasn’t true, which has given me a little peace but not much.”
“Back then, I thought I was destined for nothing but evil. I didn’t want that future, but I thought it was inevitable. I started to think… that the world would be better off without me. I guess I wanted to…. punish myself… so I, um, I started….. cutting myself.”
Jay gasped as Lloyd gave a half laugh and half sobs.
“I was never brave enough to actually commit to it, every time that I tried, I would panic and start patching myself up. I, um, actually came too close one time, my vision began dimming and it sounded like I was underwater. I still to this day don’t know how I survived that.”
“I stopped doing that last year. I realised that it wasn’t going to help make this situation better… so yeah.” Lloyd gave a strangled laugh as he wiped his eyes. “Pathetic, huh?”
Jay slammed into him, tears in his eyes.
“Don’t you dare say that Lloyd. You didn’t deserve to go through any of that. I’m sorry, I, I,I, wish there was something I could do to help…”
Lloyd shook his head.
“Just being here is enough for me.” He said with a watery smile.
Jay met him with a watery smile of his own.
”Now your definitely sitting with us for lunch from now on!”
”Really?”
“Of course! They might need a while to adjust, but they’re going to love you, I can tell.”
And with that, they climbed down to go their next class.
Jay decided that he was extremely glad that he and Lloyd were partnered for that project. Speaking of the project… it was due tomorrow, and they hadn’t gotten any work done. Oh well, that was a problem for future Jay.