SAY MY NAME - [J. DESCAMPS]

TWELVE

JOSEPH

"Hi honey," my mom greeted me. "How was it ?"

"School or detention ?" I told her, taking off my shoes in a lazy manner.

"Well... I prefer you telling me about school but if you wanna talk about your detention, let's talk about it," she said in response, her pretty smile never leaving her face.

"School was like usual. Boring. Detention was..." weird, special, unexpectedly good ? "awful," I finally let out after I've hung my jacket on the door.

She took my hand in hers, drawing my gaze on them. "You have to make more efforts, Joseph. One or two detention in a year is nothing, but it's your third in a semester. You'll never get to do what you want if you still behave like this. You'll never get the bachot—"

"But I didn't do anything !" I snapped at her, feeling immediately stupid for having done it when I saw my mother startle, as if she was afraid I'd hit her.

"I mean... It wasn't me," I repeated in a more soft voice, gently stroking the back of her hand with my thumb. "A girl cried in the supervisor's office. She said I was the responsible and he just believed her over me."

My mom frowned. "Who's that girl ? Is she in your class ?"

"It's... a girl, I don't know her name. She's not even in my class," I lied without knowing why.

"You don't know her ? Wait, I might call Bellanger—"

"Just forget about it, mom," I interrupted her with a reassuring smile. "We both stayed one more hour at school and that didn't kill neither of us. Where's Paul ?"

She motioned her head upstairs. "Sleeping."

I nodded. "Good. I'm gonna shower."

"Fine, but... weren't you supposed to meet with Charles after your detention ?"

Fuck, I've completely forgot about it. And after what happened... I wasn't in the mood to see anyone.

"I don't know, maybe."

***

I was lazily drying my hair with a towel in front of my mirror, trying to think about anything else but that last hour I've spent at Voltaire High. Charles' complaints about the bad grade Guiraud gave him earlier in the day, Jean's fight with Applebaum during gym, even my father, who I was going to see in a few days...

Anything but dark blue eyes staring into my soul, pretty pink lips parted open waiting for a kiss or her soft leg rubbing against mine.

I should be rewarded for the amount of self control I have.

"Joseph !" my mom's voice yelled from downstairs. "There's someone for you !"

I frowned. Someone ? Charles and I weren't supposed to meet until another hour and Jean was busy doing something with his dad...

I hastened to put on a t-shirt, before I quickly went down the stairs and walked up to the door. My whole body froze in place when I saw her.

Rose was standing at my doorstep, a pleasing smile on her face while she was talking to my mother, who seemed absolutely delighted. I could easily guess why.

My mom had never met any girl I've frequented before, mostly because... well, mostly because I didn't care. The day I will introduce someone to my mom would be the day I would marry, I think. Introducing her to some random girls I was only fucking with wasn't really necessary. And I'm not sure she would love to meet them anyway.