When Zachary left school, he had gone straight to Jordan's where he told Nolan to take him. There was no one there, and he wasn't going to risk going to his own home because of the rocky relationship with his dad. As soon as he went inside, he found Nolan standing in front of Jordan, who was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. Tristan was there, too, but he didn't waste any time in wondering why or how he had gotten the information that brought him there in the first place. Zachary's stumbling and squeaking shoes across the linoleum gave him away before he could say anything. Tristan turned, an accusing brow raised, and Nolan only stared before backing up. He ignored them both and went straight to where Jordan was. If he had been looking up before, Zachary didn't know. Jordan's gaze was trained on the floor.
Zachary tried to tilt his chin up when he was close, but Jordan snatched away. The glasses that were usually perched on his face were gone. "Don't," he said, voice low as Zach reached towards him.
"What did you do to him now?" A hard shove came from behind, but Zachary knew it was from Tristan. "You hit him and leave him in the bathroom for someone else to find?" Tristan took hold of the back of Zachary's shirt and pulled him.
Zachary shouldered his hand off and turned around with an indignant look blazing in his eyes. "Keep your fucking hands off me. I did not do this." He stared at Tristan for a second before turning towards the hand that now tapped his shoulder. It was Nolan, holding out a warm rag to him. Nolan's features shifted to a surprised expression now that he could see his friend's beaten face up close. He took it with as thankful of a look as he could manage and turned back to Jordan. The hair on his hung towards the floor, following in the direction of one of the tiles he had to have been staring at. Zachary tried again. "Jordan, sweetheart," he said quietly, resting his free hand on the other's knee. "Look at me." There was resistance, but he was able to get Jordan's face up enough to see the pained expression in his eyes.
What he saw in the picture wasn't what he saw now. The blood that stained Jordan's nose and mouth had been wiped clean. Fuck, Nolan, thank you. Jordan's glasses were gone, but there was a small cut on the corner of his eye where the frame had been attached to the tiny hinge. Zachary dabbed at the cut. It no longer bled, and he wiped along the places he knew had already been cleaned. Jordan looked everywhere but him. "Look at me," he urged again, resting the rag on Jordan's lower lip where it had been torn.
It felt like another minute passed before Jordan looked up. His eyes widened, but it didn't surprise Zachary. "What happened to you?" Jordan whispered, reaching out with a trembling hand. Zachary shook his head and caught the hand in his other.
"Doesn't matter what happened to me," he said. Zachary lowered Jordan's hand and laid it palm down on his knee. "I'm so sorry, Jordan, I had no idea." There was nothing, no indication that Shawn had been lurking or watching. What had he heard? What had he seen? And how had he slipped in behind Zachary unnoticed? Shawn lumbered around like a clumsy bear, it was impossible not to hear him.
"Zach..."
The timid voice made him turn around. It was Nolan. Zachary only looked at him. "What, um, happened?" Nolan looked between him and Jordan, a questioning look on his face. "I ran from class as soon as I got your message and..." He trailed off and looked away from Zachary's unblinking stare. The bowl of red tinted water was still next to him.
"Shawn got to him." There was no point in lying or trying to come up with some excuse that would explain Jordan's swelling features. Zachary dug his phone from his pocket. The picture from Shane was still pulled up when he unlocked it and pushed it into Nolan's hand. "This is when I text you." The other looked at the phone and glanced back at Zachary before he turned it around. Whatever reaction he felt inside was hidden because Nolan's face remained stoic. His cheeks, red and flustered, remained just as they were. He moved to pass it back to Zachary, but the phone was snatched from his hand before he could move. Tristan now held it.
"Let me get this straight." Tristan's attention dated between the phone and Zachary. "You drive him to school. He ends up in the bathroom. Shawn attacks him. And then you get this picture. That doesn't add up and I think you put Shawn up this—"
"You're poking holes where holes are meant to be poked, Tristan." Jordan cut him off with a sigh. "If you really think Zach had a hand in this, you're fucking stupid. And if you believe with all your heart that he meant for this to happen, then you can take your happy little ass and walk right out of the damn house." He paused when Nolan returned the sodden, dripping rag to clean a bit of blood from his lip, but looked back at his friend when he was done. "And don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Tristan shot Zachary a sulphurous look. He wasted no time in throwing the phone onto the counter and leaving.
—
Zachary was still thinking about the encounter the next morning in his microbiology class. The seat in front of him where Jordan should have been was empty. He spent the night but had chosen to skip school for the day. A few people caught wind of what happened, they questioned him on the incident and what went on in the locker room, and they asked questions too specific about Jordan and himself, but Zachary blew them off. If they continued to press, he'd give them a venomous look from his bruised face.
Halfway through the first class of the day, the classrooms and lessons were interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Mr. Byers looked over with a sour look on his face as one of the administrative staff came into the room. They exchanged a few quiet words before the teacher cleared his throat. "Blaylock," he called out in a tone that was more than irritated, "go to the principal's office."
This didn't surprise Zachary at all. Stuffing his things into his backpack, he pushed up from his seat and followed the staff member out of the room. He expected a chorus of ooo's to follow in his wake, but only his teacher's dry tone picked up from where he was interrupted. The door clicked closed and the only sound between the two of them was the scraping of his backpack on the ass of his jeans and the staff members heels on the polished tiles beneath.
The principal's office was joined with his secretaries, the counselors, and a few others. It made no sense to Zachary why they would want to be so close to one another, it was bad enough that they were in the positions they were in- Zachary saw no appeal in what any of them did -but he kept his opinions to himself as he was herded through a set of double glass doors and through a second heavy door that opened to the principal's office. When he walked through, he was dismayed to find he wasn't the only one in the room.
Principal Cole, a kind, portly woman with beady eyes smiled at him. Red lipstick stained her teeth, and he hid his grimace with a smile when she swiped her tongue across them. "Please take a seat, Zachary," she instructed and waved her hand to the one empty chair in front of her desk. There were three others, all of which were occupied. Shawn and who Zachary assumed as the guy's father were in the two chairs left and his own mother was in the remaining seat.
Zachary took the last seat and immediately felt his mother's hand on his forearm.
"You should have told me what happened," Kaye hissed.
He had refused to tell her anything that happened upon his returning home. Zachary brought Jordan and a bag of his things to his house, telling his mother nothing other than that Jordan was staying with them and everything was fine when she touched his face. Kaye was smart and hadn't pressed. She knew Zachary would tell her when he was ready, but she had not anticipated receiving a call from the school that would have her leaving a quiet breakfast with Jordan and running to her car.
"Is Jordan okay?" Zachary pushed her statement off the same way he pushed her hand from his arm.
"He's fine, Zachary, I want to know what happened—"
"That is why you're all here, Mrs. Blaylock." Principal Cole interrupted the two with a wry smile. "It seems these two got into a bit of a scuffle yesterday and I've called you here to get to the bottom of things. So, who wants to go first?"
"He attacked me for no reason in the locker room!" Shawn's shrill voice chimed out first, startling Kaye on the other side of Zachary. "I was talking to my friends and he burst in and hit me! I didn't do anything wrong! He pushed me into the lockers and threw me down! He kicked me in the mouth and chipped my tooth, look!" Shawn pulled his lips back to reveal a set of teeth. The right canine was chipped.
Interesting Zachary thought as he listened to the way the shaggy blond spun a tale that differed from the one in his head. He said not a word, but merely watched as Shawn's eyes darted warily back and forth between his father and the principal. Zachary could see gray sprouting up in places in the man's beard. It didn't hide the deep frown lines on the side of his mouth nor the muscle that grew out of his jaw. Anger burned in his eyes, but the man's gaze was on his son. Something clicked in Zach's mind, and he had an inkling of why Shawn was the way he was, but none of that was his problem, and when Principal Cole asked for his version of the story, Zach was ready.
He tugged his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. "I was in class when my phone vibrated. I pulled it out and saw that Shawn had sent me this," Zachary explained and passed the device across to the woman. "He did that... to Jordan. So yeah, I went and found him in the locker room and gave him what he deserved. And no, I did not kick him in the face. He chipped his tooth last year at lacrosse practice. Coach made him go to the nurse, so she has proof that it was not me." It wouldn't appear that way from the looks of his face, but Zachary had held his own and he was pretty damn proud of that.
Principal Cole looked down at the picture of a bloodied student on the floor in front of the stalls before asking Zachary's permission to look further. When he nodded, she began tapping the screen. "There is a simple way to prove if Shawn was indeed the sender. Mr. Strak, can you confirm that this is your son's phone number?" When she turned the phone, Zachary was surprised to see she had been able to pull up the number belonging to the sender of the picture message.
Shawn's father squinted at the phone and it looked like the muscle was going to jump straight out of his face when he looked at his son. "That is his phone number."
"And could you take his phone and see if anything was sent to Zachary, please. Messages, pictures. Please check them." She would have done it herself, but it would have required a court order.
Mr. Strak held his hand out without a word. He didn't need to speak to tell his son to hand the phone over because it was unlocked and in his open palm without hesitation. Zachary strained his eyes to see the screen as he watched the man filter through the different message threads before finding his way into the pictures. He didn't need to look any longer when he got a glimpse of Jordan's face popping up on the screen. Zachary looked away quickly and swallowed. He was too stupid to even delete it.
When the man passed the phone back, he was nodding. His lips pressed into an impossibly thin line. "Shawn sent it. The picture is still on his phone."
"You understand how serious this is. For both of you." Principal Cole handed Zachary his phone back. "The assault of a student and an attack of retaliation on another. I get what you were trying to do, Zachary, but two wrongs don't make a right. And Shawn, I can only ask you why. What did this other student do to you? Is he a bully? We have the resources to handle that."
For the second time since Zachary had known him, Shawn looked uncomfortable, almost as if he were sitting on a pile of brittle twigs. "He, um, he just—"
"Jordan is pansexual. But to make it simple, I'll just say he's gay." Zachary cut in before another lie could be told. "And Jordan likes me. That's why. Ask anyone who knows Shawn and they'll tell you some of the things he says about Jordan. Jordan has never done or said anything out of the way to him. The only reason Shawn did this was because of Jordan's sexuality and the fact that he wants me. He wants me and Shawn doesn't like it." Or maybe Shawn was mad that Zach didn't want him.
Someone could have taken a bat and hit the surprise right off Shawn's forehead. It would have taken two hits to knock the surprise that was quickly turning to anger from his father's face. "Th-that is not true!" Shawn stammered and took a tighter hold on the armrests of the chair. "I-I did not do it because of that!"
"Then why did you do it?" Principal Cole said again. Shawn was unable to answer with anything other than a quiet gurgle and a few stuttered words, and the woman nodded. "I see. Both of you are suspended for the rest of the semester. There isn't much I could do in terms of punishment considering winter break begins tomorrow, but Zachary, you need to take this time to reflect on better ways to deal with your anger and reactions. You and your mother may go."
Zachary took his mother's hand and pulled her quickly from the room, but he didn't miss a few more words from his principal. "And Shawn, I have no choice but to make a report to the police department. You attacked a student without being provoked because of their sexual preference..." The rest was lost on him as they neared the front doors. They hurried hand in hand across the courtyard and the main road separating the building from where Zachary was parked. His mother was by the sidewalk and he broke her hold there. "I'll see you at home," he said and made a beeline for his car before she could get a word out. Only when he was in his car did he look back. Seeing that was pulling her door closed, Zachary shoved his key into the ignition and turned it.
The drive home was quick. Zachary beat his mother and was just going inside when she pulled up beside him. He was already upstairs by the time he caught the familiar sound of her dropping her keys into the small bowl they kept on a stand by the door.
His bedroom door was locked when he grabbed the knob. "Jordan!" Zachary said anxiously, jiggling the doorknob. "Jordan, let me in." There was a soft squeak of his bed from the other side, and he took a step back when the door was unlocked and pulled open.
Jordan peered around the backside of the door. "I'm sorry. I-I locked it when your mom left, in case your dad came home, you know?" He came around the side. "I didn't want him to know I was here alone..."
"No, I get it." Zachary shook his head and brushed Jordan when he passed. He collapsed onto his bed. The springs beneath him protested loudly.
"Where did your mom go?" Jordan left the open door and took a place above Zachary on the bed where he had built a mound of pillows to support himself. He leaned into it now and waited patiently while Zachary slid up the covers and rested his head on his chest. He was heavy, but it was a welcome pressure and Jordan threaded his fingers through his thick hair. He caught a few snags and whispered a soft apology when Zachary winced.
"She got a call from the principal. Shawn and I are suspended," Zachary began. "But it's the day before break, so it's not a big deal. She said I need to find a better way of handling my anger. But Shawn... When we were leaving, I heard Principal Cole say she had no choice but to file a report with the cops because it was an attack because of your sexuality. A hate crime, I guess. She said nothing about pressing charges, I doubt it'll go that far unless you want it to, but from the looks of his father..." He trailed off and pushed an arm under and around Jordan's waist to hold himself closer. "I don't know. I feel like the guy is gonna do more damage than any report will." Zachary went on to tell Jordan of the lies Shawn had spewed out under pressure and his own discomfort at the looks that twisted his father's face.
Jordan remained quiet, only nodding every now and then. It came as no surprise when he learned Shawn tried to weasel his way out of any punishment. It did come as a shock when Zachary told of the way Shawn had stumbled and stuttered when he was called out. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that sounds like he likes me, doesn't it?" Jordan tugged a lock of hair atop Zachary's head. "Looks like you've got some competition."
"The devil is alive and well if I do," Zachary laughed and pulled his head free from Jordan's hold. It made a lot of sense when he thought back on things. From the moment Shawn had lain eyes on Jordan the previous year it had been an instant dislike. Who is that over there? It was the first question Shawn asked him when he spotted the raven-haired boy down the hall. At the time he and Jordan were acquaintances and Zachary only replied with his name. That's Jordan. We have a class together. A seed of hatred was planted deep in Shawn's bowels that afternoon and it was sprouting and growing every day.
Zachary went on. "He can throw one helluva punch though. My head still hurts."
"So does mine." Jordan pushed Zachary's hair from his temple and traced a finger along the mottled skin and spreading yellowish-purple marks. Zachary winced when he touched the swollen lump beside his eye. "Damn, baby, he got you good," he sighed. "I'm sorry."
"I told you that if he and I ever got into it he would kick my ass. And he did, but I got a few good licks in. Don't even start blaming yourself." Zachary adjusted himself so he could lay his head on the front of Jordan's shoulder. He did his best to keep his elbow from Jordan's ribs while he did. "It was bound to happen eventually. I knew it the day we started talking in Mr. Byers class."
"I was thinking about that when I woke up." Jordan placed his hand in Zachary's hair again. "Since that day you haven't denied your feelings for me once. At least not that I know of. Not to Shawn, your dad or mom, even the principal." People at school were talking. Jordan caught things as he passed; he didn't miss the glances people sent their way, the hushed whispers, but not all of them were unwelcome. A few looked delighted. Others didn't seem to care. That was fine, too. "Tristan still says you're no good for me."
"I don't give a damn what Tristan says. He can kiss my ass. I'll even bend over." Zachary wasn't fond of him either. "And I know I haven't denied anything. You showed me how wonderful you were that day in class. What reason do I have to deny the way I feel? I care for you."
"How much?"
Zachary lifted a brow. "Just a little," he smirked. "Sometimes I enjoy kissing you on the mouth."
For a split-second Jordan was hurt, but the look on Zachary's face washed that away. "That's funny, especially when you consider where that mouth of yours has been," Jordan grinned. Zachary's features twisted as he tried to find the words to say, but nothing other than a deep crimson color was flooding his cheeks. He could have had a little more fun with Zachary, but they were interrupted by the quiet clearing of a throat from the doorway. When he turned, Jordan was mildly horrified to see Zachary's mother standing there.
The woman smiled. "I'll knock next time because I could have gone the rest of my life without hearing that." Kaye watched their faces contorting into similar looks of panic. "Anyway, Jordan, your mom called. She wants to talk to you about not coming home yesterday or calling her. You should tell her what happened with Shawn but make it clear that it's been handled, and a report is being filed. She sounded... panicked. I told her we were having dinner later and I picked up a movie, so if you'd like to use that as a reason to stay over, then you can. I don't mind. I know it's still early in the day, but my husband has to come home eventually." William had been scarce since finding Jordan in their home and it wasn't a relief. Every time she spoke to him the scent of alcohol made her gag. When he came home and passed out on the bed, Kaye would slip off into the spare room to escape his throaty snores. "He's been drunk lately, I don't think he'd bother you two, but be on the lookout. Zachary, I never thought I'd tell you this, but lock your door if Jordan does decide to stay."
"I think I'll just head home," Jordan replied. "I need to talk to my parents, and I think Zach and I have been hit enough for two days. We don't need anymore." William Blaylock hadn't gotten hold of them good, not yet, but he didn't want to hang around and find out. From where he rested against his shoulder, Zachary wore a frown that soon turned into a pout. "But he knows I'll keep him up on the phone all night," Jordan added, lightly tugging his partner's hair again. If the man of the house wasn't coming, he'd have been more than happy to stay, but that wasn't something he had the strength to deal with.