Chapter 8 - The Thing He Never Told Me
Two weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon, Ethan came down and sat across from me at the table. I was reading. He sat without a word, which meant he was building up to something. I put the book down.
"There's something I didn't tell you," he said. "About last year. It wasn't just the note. And it wasn't just Brandon."
I waited.
"There was a day in February. I was in the bathroom between classes. Three of them came in. Brandon and two others." He looked at the table. "They didn't touch me. I want to be really clear about that. But they stood around me, and Brandon said if I ever told anybody about any of it, they'd make sure the whole school heard things about me. Things that weren't true. He said they'd just make stuff up, and people would believe it, because it'd be three of them saying it and one of me."
My hands were in my lap. I kept them still.
"Ethan."
"I know," he said. "I should have told you."
"Why didn't you?"
He looked up. "Because I believed him. I thought if I said anything it would just get worse. And I thought —" He stopped, looked back down. "I thought maybe he was right. That nobody would take my word over three of theirs."
"I would have believed you," I said.
"I know that now." His voice was low. "I didn't know it then."
I got up, walked around the table, and sat down in the chair next to him. Not across from him. Next to him.
"I'm sorry," I said. "That you carried that by yourself for that long."
"It wasn't your fault."
"I know. I'm still sorry."
He nodded. We sat there a while.
"Does Mr. Delgado know about this?" I asked.
"I told Ms. Hartley last week. She said it changes how the whole thing gets classified. Something about the district's definition of intimidation." He paused. "Brandon has to do a formal mediation program now. Not optional."
"Good," I said.
"I'm not angry anymore," Ethan said. "I thought I'd be, saying it all out loud. But I'm just tired of it taking up space in my head."
"That's allowed."
He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "Caleb thinks I should try out for the swim team."
The turn was so sudden I almost laughed. "What do you think?"
"I think I'm actually pretty fast now." A small smile. "Apparently that's a thing that happened over the summer."
"Apparently," I said.
He glanced at me sideways. "Would you come to meets?"
"Ethan," I said. "I'd come to every practice if they'd let me in the building."
May you like
He laughed. A real one. The kind I hadn't heard in more than a year — loose and easy, like it didn't cost him anything.
I held onto that sound.
