After a long debate on the phone with his parents, Floyd went home with the biggest pout. He was not allowed to stay over. They wanted to hear from him what exactly was going on with me and Dylan, since he'd run away before he could properly explain it to them. I had a hard time determining whether they were just confused or angry. They seemed pretty against it when we'd left earlier.
Floyd didn't respond to any of my messages later that night, so I guessed they'd taken his phone. They did that from time to time, when they were of the opinion that Floyd had 'done something bad'. This usually meant he'd stolen cookies or something stupid like that, so I wasn't all that worried.
The next morning, he was standing by my locker with a similar pout as the day before.
"Did they take your phone?"
"Yeah. They were mad I'd run off."
"Not because of... us?" asked Dylan.
"They didn't really approve of it, but they're not going to stop us. Basically, it'll be our own fault if it goes downhill."
I nodded—I didn't expect any more nor any less from Floyd's parents, since they usually had this aloof kind of outlook on life—but Dylan shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. I followed his gaze, but I didn't really see anything or anyone that might catch his attention. "Dylan?"
His head snapped back around. "Huh, what?"
I fought off a frown. "Nothing. Let's go to class."
Olivia was back, sitting in her usual seat, two rows ahead of mine, and she was looking a lot better already—if only to keep up appearances. I heard her saying to her friends that she got sick yesterday and it didn't seem weird to anyone. Neither did anyone dare bring up Mr. Rosenberg and I hoped to God it'd stay that way.
When I sat down, Floyd slipping in the seat next to me, Riley suddenly turned in her chair and leaned over the edge of my desk. She glanced around and hissed, "Hugo, Floyd, I heard something you're not going to like."
Floyd's eyes went wide. "What is it?"
"People are saying that Dylan is cheating on Hugo with you."
"B-but..."
"I know."
"Shit."
In my mind, I was replaying my arrival at school and quickly realized that when Dylan had been staring off into the 'distance', it was because people had been staring at us. Not a lot. Just a few—more than usual. Enough to raise suspicion.
I frantically slapped Floyd's arm. "Text Dylan!"
"I can't! I don't have my phone!"
I held in a groan and got my own phone, while murmuring, "Why would they even say that? We've given them no clues whatsoever. Dylan and I haven't even been 'together' in school for weeks."
Ruby, who'd been listening alongside Riley in silence, shifted in her seat to get closer and murmured, "Maybe you weren't as secretive as you hoped."
"But we never—" I cut myself off and I'd turned to Floyd, who had a horrified expression on his face.
Oh, no...
"What did you do?"
"Gosh, where is Mrs. Reynolds?!" exclaimed some kid, followed by an exasperated sigh, which we all ignored. Who would complain about a teacher not being there anyway?
"He was upset yesterday!" Floyd squeaked. "I just... I... We were in an empty restroom— I thought it was empty!"
I gripped my pen in fear, feeling the air thinning around me.
It's okay. No one knew what was going on. No one should know. Dylan and I had walked around the school hand in hand ages ago, but that didn't mean we were still together. Sure, Floyd and Dylan had done whatever they'd done in the bathroom, but that didn't mean they were cheating on me. They were all just jumping to conclusions.
"Don't worry," I muttered, even if I was worrying so much myself I felt like my brain would explode. "They're just rumors."
"Just like Olivia and Mr. Rosenberg," Ruby whispered.
"Stop biting your nails, Floyd," I said. He only did it when he was nervous—just like I used to before my nails disappeared into oblivion—and normally, I'd grab his hands and hold them until the nerves went away, but I couldn't do that here. And the sound was getting on my nerves. He raised his shoulders with an apologetic smile.
"They're just rumors," I repeated. "There's no proof."
As the looks thrown Olivia's way decreased, the looks thrown my way (as well as Floyd and Dylan's) were rapidly increasing. It was pissing me off. Who were they to judge our lives? Who were they to even assume that they knew exactly what was going on? They were so wrong! I wished I could shout it all out. Nobody's cheating on anyone! We're in a relationship and we're happy together! And why should you care?!
But I couldn't.
Riley tried to distract me from the stares during our lunch break by telling me about her ex-girlfriend, who was still low-key stalking her, which I'd low-key forgotten about. Again. By now, I couldn't understand why Riley even still considered me a good friend. I constantly forgot about her.
"She keeps showing up to my house, asking for me," she complained. "So I ended up telling my parents to say I'm not home. I just don't want to get back with her, you know? The feelings are gone! Poof!"
"You should tell her that."
"You think I haven't tried that?" she huffed.
I shrugged in reply. "I dunno... I guess the only thing you can do is try to make it clear to her. Like, really clear. Why don't you meet up with her to have a proper talk?"
She put her hands over her face and groaned, "I don't want to."
"Sorry," I chuckled. "I think it's the only way."
"I could get a restraining order."
I almost choked on my food from laughing. "That's a little extreme, don't you think?"
"Pfft, not at all!" she laughed with me.
Once our laughter had died down, I glanced at Dylan beside me, hoping he was doing okay, but sadly, even if he appeared to be listening to Rafael, it seemed like... he wasn't really there. When Floyd laughed at Rafael's joke, Dylan barely smiled. And oh, how much I wished I could just pull him over and hug and kiss the sadness out of him, but the only thing I could do was nudge his arm and give him a smile when he looked up, hoping that that'd be enough to comfort him.
"Please tell me what's wrong," I whispered.
He shook his head. "Nothing."
I fought an exasperated sigh and pressed my lips together and nodded. It wouldn't be a good idea to get mad right now. I mean, I didn't even want to get mad, because I was just worried about him, but he was being so frustrating! How could I get him to—
"Really, Hugo, I'm fine," he insisted. "Officer Stokes is going over to my dad today. It will... It'll all be solved."
For some reason, it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than me.
"Hugo!"
I turned around with a scowl and pushed my sister away from me. "I don't appreciate you blowing spit in my ear, Eve."
"You've heard the rumor, right?" she asked quickly, her eyes shooting from me to Dylan.
I nodded slowly.
"Since people know that DukeCockroach goes to this school, I've been getting messages on Twitter about it all day! They all want to know if the rumor is true."
"Ugh," I groaned, "what's it to them?!"
"I'm not going to respond to questions about our school!"
"Then don't," said Dylan.
"Yeah, just tell them you won't do that," I said and she immediately started reaching for her phone.
"No, not right now! Don't draw attention to yourself while you're here with us." I gave her some money, pressing it into her hand with a take-it-and-don't-ask-questions look. "Here."
She nodded, immediately understanding. "Wow, thanks for this money I totally just asked for, dear brother. I'll make sure to return it."
"There's two dollars missing."
"You give me money, I use it," Eve replied with a shrug as she put her seatbelt on.
"Can I interest you in cutting Hugo's hair for a fiver?" Dylan asked.
"I want at least a tenner."
"Hey, nobody is cutting my hair!"
"You need a haircut, though, Hugo," Dad told me from the front of the car, meeting my gaze in the rearview mirror.
"Okay, nobody is cutting my hair, except the lady at the hairdresser's with the soft hands."
"Oh, I know which one you're talking about," Eve said. "She's nice. She once gave me free shampoo."
"Aw, I want free shampoo from Shirley, too!"
Eve grinned and the only thing keeping me from starting a fight with her was my phone, which made a noise to notify me that Floyd had sent a message. I tapped my father's shoulder and asked him, "Dad, can you set us off at Floyd's?"
"Sure."
"What for?" asked Dylan.
"Check you phone for once and find out yourself."
"Oh." A quick glance at his phone. "His parents want us to come? I don't like the sound of that."
I shrugged. "Probably just the don't-have-sex-with-our-son talk."
My father snorted.
"Or the safe sex talk," Eve added.
"Yes, don't get each other pregnant," he said.
"You're not funny, Dad," I said.
"Do you want me to kick you out the car and make you walk the rest, son? I'm sure that would make you laugh."
I faked a laugh—full of delicious sarcasm—and he instantly stepped on the breaks.
"No, no, no!" I shrieked. "You're the funniest dad ever! I swear!"
I was pleased to hear Dylan was laughing too.
"I'll take that," he huffed and brought me and Dylan to Floyd's home, where we were received by two... surprisingly neutral-looking parents. It wasn't easy for me to gauge their mood. Really. I had no fucking clue what was going to happen. I'll admit I was as nervous as a kid getting called to the principal's office without knowing what he'd done wrong.
Surprisingly, they barely even talked to us. They said hello and went back to doing whatever parents did. I don't know—watch instructional videos on how to bully children or something probably.
When Floyd took us to his room, he said they just wanted to keep an eye on us, and I asked, "Let me guess, they want you to keep the door open too?"
Floyd nodded. "Yes, so let's have sex with the door open!" he yelled loud enough for the whole house to hear and Dylan rolled his eyes, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Jason appeared by the door to glare at his little brother. "Please don't."
"Don't worry, Jase, I won't stoop so low."
He narrowed his eyes at Floyd's 'sweet' smile. "Touché."
I felt like there was a story behind that one, but no one indulged me to tell it. So we attempted to do our homework and started watching a movie—a really, really bad one that gave us a headache, the giggles, and more than enough to talk about. When we were nearing the end of the movie (all of us considering to shut it off), Dylan's phone rang. I immediately thought it'd be Officer Stokes, since she would be visiting his father today. Yet Dylan frowned at his screen, surprise splayed across his face, before picking up with, "Dad?"
I glanced at Floyd, who looked just as baffled as me, and I held my breath as I listened to Dylan, but listening didn't clear things up at all, since he only said, "No. With Hugo. Okay. Bye."
And without explaining anything, he told us he was going home and left. Standing on Floyd's doorstep, I watched him go round the corner of the street and was left staring at the spot for what felt like hours, just imagining him walking home and going back inside of that asshole's house—right back into hell.
Suddenly, Floyd was holding onto my hand. "Hugo, let's go back inside."
I didn't respond.
"Or do you wanna go home?"
"No," I said, shaking my head.
Instead, I tugged on his hand and pulled him into his house, where we spent the rest of the day together, albeit nervously, until I returned to my own home somewhere around bedtime.
Not that I did much sleeping. The lack of messages from Dylan made it impossible for my brain to shut down. My mind was racing all night and I fell asleep about two hours before my alarm went off, resulting in a killer headache and a nauseous feeling when I woke up again the next morning. Dylan hadn't replied to any of Floyd's questions or mine.
Yet he was back at school, wearing his own clothes again, and he... didn't look any worse or better than he normally did either, I guess. So I assumed he must have had a somewhat peaceful night at home, and for the rest of the entire day, he pretended like nothing had happened. He smiled, joked around, had fun with Rafael, talked to us as if we were still the friends we were a months ago—or the boyfriends we were a few days ago. The lines were so blurry when we were at school. I just didn't understand. I was so, so confused.
Then... it happened. I should have seen it coming, really.
The avalanche of shitty events was not over yet. It had seemed like it was, but this was like that moment in the movie when it looked like things were finally looking up, but something just had to happen that made it even harder for the main character to fix their problems. The superhero managed to save everyone and the villain was on the verge of getting his ass beat, but then... someone the superhero cared about died and left everyone a sobbing mess. Similarly, somewhere on earth, an insignificant, blond, teenage boy named Hugo managed to help get rid of his sister's blackmailing stalker, offered advice to all of his friends, and gave one of his boyfriends a place to stay (and emotional support) while the police gave his father a stern talking to.
But then...
Dylan asked me and Floyd to walk with him after school. Floyd's hands were twitching. I eyed our confusing boyfriend, who stared ahead with not a single emotion on his face. What's he thinking? He stopped us at the abandoned park behind his street. Why are we here? Then he looked away. What is going on?
"We need to break up."