the other Son

1999

She shared her French class on Wednesday morning with Peter – Peter Olsen, as Elise had readily supplied when she'd asked her as casually as possible during a short break between classes the other day.

The good thing about French was that Creon – or any of his other goons – wasn't there which meant an extended period of time of not having to watch her back for any of his malice.

She couldn't fathom how a single person – a child truly, he was just as much of a child as she was – could possibly harbour so much evil, so much energy to destroy and hurt and cause suffering. As if his body wasn't made up of cells but of pure malevolence, biology failing on the most basic level.

Peter on the other hand was nice. And she hated him for it.

He'd gotten into the habit of greeting her whilst walking past her desk, a nod, a smile, an unceremonious 'Morning' uttered in passing, like a secret, something only between the two of them. In that single word his foreign accent already came through and each morning she tried to pinpoint exactly what made it sound so different.

She'd watch the door for his entrance, wetting her lips to reciprocate his salutation. Sometimes during class, they even shared looks or an eye-roll across the room.

Did she trust him?

No, she told herself, sitting on her bed with a book they were supposed to read for English class though the letters evaded her, sentences meaningless.

Whenever Creon mocked her, shoved her or anything else, Peter merely turned his head, maybe his shoelaces needed to be retied or he was suddenly very interested in something down the hall. She believed she recognized shame in his eyes.

Inaction was just as bad as actively participating.

But wasn't he a man – well, boy, but still – and supposed to be strong and courageous, standing up for what was right?

When she herself – a girl – wasn't allowed to speak up, expected to be quiet and demure then wasn't it his responsibility to call out wrong-doings? Whose job was it to protect her from evil like Creon?

This was proof girls weren't meant to be quiet when their hair was pulled, wasn't it?

With a sigh, she closed the book and set it down on her night stand. The world wasn't as black and white as most stories presented it and Peter was certainly gray, neither good nor bad, no knight in shining armour nor the villain. Obviously, he didn't approve of Creon's bullying but neither did he have the courage to commit social suicide and stand up against it. To some degree, she perfectly understood his hesitance to secede himself from the other boy who held so much power and could make his life a living hell with the snap of a finger.

Nevertheless there was a funny little jump in her belly whenever Peter entered the classroom and his gaze sought out hers.

She liked him, admittedly. Liked him similar to all those doomed lovers in books - Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe, Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, Gatsby and Daisy. Surely, some of them got their happy end but what for? So many trials, so many misunderstandings and hurt feelings and they only had to care about their own volatile hearts, not the evil in the form of a pale, blue-eyed, black-haired boy.

It didn't keep her from daydreaming about Peter. Perhaps they could go into town together, drink hot cocoa at one of the cafés and browse the book store. Perhaps they would even hold hands on the bus. And she'd get plenty more of his small, shy smiles.

She bit her lip. Should she ask him? Tomorrow was Wednesday, she would see him in the morning and it would be so easy to say 'hey, wait, would you like to go into town together next weekend?' after he'd uttered his usual endearing 'Morning'. And he would pause and his smile would broaden and he'd nod – 'Yes, yes, I'd like to'.

For now, she smiled to herself. Perhaps she wasn't able to stand up to Creon yet but that didn't mean she wasn't strong and courageous – her heart beat so much faster thinking about tomorrow than it had ever done all those times Creon had picked on her.