Chapter Text
The school was large, concrete, and intimidating. It wasn’t his first year at this school, not by far. But it was the first year that he felt himself hesitate before entering the doors. George thought that by his senior year, he would finally ‘fit’ somewhere. Maybe he would find a clique or a club, anything that made him feel like he belonged. Despite these hopes, he found himself gripping the straps of his backpack and swallowing his anxiety on the steps of the same old school. Alone.
George had lived in the same small, cramped town for the most recent years of his life. After his father passed away when he was eleven years old, George’s family had packed up their things and head for America, his British accent too thick and strong by that point to go away. For a while, his classmates were fascinated with him. An artifact from across the sea. That curiosity quickly faded and George realized that they didn’t actually like him, they liked where he came from. He watched this same cycle of curiosity repeat when a boy named Wilbur transferred to his school the next year. Similar accent, similar origins, the same stubborn curiosity of his peers. While George waited for the others to lose interest just as they did to him, that moment never happened. Wilbur was a natural with people, and those that met him rarely wanted to leave his side. They liked him. All of him. Not just what resided in Europe. This realization was detrimental to twelve-year-old George.
“What’s up, Gogy?” Wilbur, now seventeen, slapped George on the back and cooed the same nickname that he had used for George since middle school.
“Hey, Wilbur…” George replied with a sigh, caught slightly off guard by the hit from behind. Although he’d hate to admit it, George had been jealous of him for as long as he could remember. His height, his charismatic grin, the way he was aloof to how much people loved him. He didn’t know whether or not they stood as friends or just good acquaintances, but Wilbur always greeted him in the mornings regardless. Before he could begin any type of conversation, Wilbur was already out of sight, saying hello to anyone he passed in the hallway. George slumped his shoulders and continued on. His first class of the day was biology. Luckily that class was fairly close to the entrance of the school so-
“Welcome back, short stuff,” a familiar voice echoed in George’s mind as he felt his shoulder ram into the metal lockers on his right. Gripping his injured shoulder, George slowly raised his head to come face to face with his daily torment. The same cruel smile that he was sure would rot in hell one day. The green eyes of ridicule. These features belonged to a person who had been known for years under the nickname ‘Dream’. That name. A name that gleamed with reputation and egoism. Gritting his teeth, George said nothing. He had learned to keep quiet after one too many encounters with him.
“Aw, did we scare him too much? He won’t even say anything,” mocked Nick, the one person who was always glued to Dream’s side. Call him an accomplice if you’d like. Nick had leaned down to be eye level with George under his crumpled posture.
“I just need to get to class,” George said, trying to stay as quiet as he could. Dream looked down at him with judgement practically glowing in his eyes. He clicked his tongue and put his hands in the pocket of his lime green hoodie.
“Just so you know, we spoke to the teacher early about the seating plan. We know you lo~ove it when we sit behind you, so we pulled some strings,” Dream gave George a cruel wink and nudged Nick to tell him that they were leaving.
“See ya in class, Georgy,” Nick sang as he ruffled George’s hair with a bit more force than was necessary. George watched the two walk down the hall, the crowd moving out of their path as they went. Eventually, he regained his posture and found refuge in the nearest washroom to fix the hair that Nick had ruined. He stared at himself in the mirror and gripped the counter of the sink.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ he thought. ‘In front of everyone. That was humiliating. And not to mention…’ George loosened his grip and his eyes fell to his feet. Premonitions of his life every morning for the next year began to roll into his mind. The two of them sitting behind him could only mean that the worst was yet to come. Spitballs in his hair, stabbing his neck with mechanical pencils, singeing his hair with a lighter, putting dry ice down the back of his shirt, you name it. No matter how outlandish the punishment, George had to expect it. The rules slacked for the seniors, and this year, that was him. There was no way of knowing what the two devils were planning.
Dream and Nick arrived in biology late, to no one’s surprise. They sauntered into the classroom, expelling a cocky kind of confidence. The teacher merely scoffed at them. George shut his eyes and held his breath as they relaxed into their desks, Nick behind and to the right and Dream directly behind him. Wilbur, who sat two rows ahead of George, turned around and gave an enthusiastic wave to the two. George heard Dream snicker with a mocking tone that Wilbur was sure to not pick up on. Throughout the whole class, his mind swarmed with what-ifs and possible ways to avoid seeing them. Who was he kidding? No one escaped Dream’s gaze if he was looking for them.
To George’s surprise, neither of them bothered him until the very end of class. As he was getting up from his seat, George was met with a terrible, spine-chilling feeling. His back arched and his eyes widened.
“Oops”. A red stain began to spread throughout the back of George’s grey hoodie, and an empty solo cup in Dream’s hand fell to the floor. With the goal of discomfort and public humiliation, Dream had taken the cup that was originally filled with red Kool-Aid and poured it down the back of George’s hoodie. “It must’ve slipped out of my hand,” Dream gave a sad shrug in response to the teacher’s suspicious gaze.
“You… You…” George struggled with trying to remove the cold fabric from his back. As Dream snickered to himself, feeling successful, he failed to notice George turn around. “YOU GREEN BASTARD!”
George lunged at Dream, grasping at anything he could hold. Dream, caught off-guard, grabbed George’s wrists and both of them were pulled to the ground, clawing at each other. George was filled with a type of rage had never experienced before. Normally, he would’ve ended up trying to wash out the stain in the washroom or simply gone home. George ran. That’s something everyone knew. George. Always. Ran. But this time was different. He’d be damned if some teenage boy ruined the very hoodie that George’s father gave him a week before he passed. Tears stang his eyes at that moment. While he clawed and punched and kicked, he was not thinking about Dream or Nick or the years of public embarrassment he had endured. He thought about his dad.
When George came back to a reasonable state of mind, he was sitting in an office chair. His stained hoodie was resting folded in his arms and he wore an old shirt with the logo of his school on the chest. Spare clothes. Three chairs down from his sat Dream, arms crossed and facing the wall farthest away. No one spoke until his mother arrived, a cross look on her face. When George began to explain the situation in the car, he found himself unable to phrase a sentence. Instead, he broke down. Tears fell as he hiccuped and sobbed, small droplets being absorbed by the hoodie in his lap. His mother rested a hand on his back and, after looking at the crimson stain on the hoodie that she knew he cherished, she understood.
“We can get the stain out. I know a thing or two about laundry,” his mother gave a silent and weary chuckle. “I’m not mad. Not at all. But you still have to go to detention with that boy”.
... Detention?