I stay silent, thinking it over.
"Maybe that’s not a bad idea, for next year, but for now we just have to get through the second semester. And I have to survive going back to school after what the whole audience saw."
Alex takes a deeper breath. "Bay… as you said yourself, people will understand, stupid pranks happen, it’s just how it is, I think most people have experienced something like this. A lot of them are jealous of your popularity, of your spot as the lead vocalist in the band."
He is right. There are more reasons to bully someone than just knowing their unpleasant past. I feel grateful for his words, another drop that fills me with strength.
"Fortunately it’s the holidays now, and for two weeks you won’t have to see anyone from school, the emotions will die down a bit in that time," he adds hopefully.
"Thanks, Alex, you’re right, maybe by then people will forget or it won’t feel so sensational anymore. I have to go…"
"Wait, can I come over tomorrow?"
"Maybe the day after, okay?"
"Sure."
He wants to say something else, but I hang up.
I stand in the supermarket parking lot, feeling the strong wind hitting my body, a storm must be forming, literally and metaphorically.
I let my anger scatter, let it shift into other forms, let it crystallize, transform, change. I will come out of this a winner, I make that decision deep inside myself.
The problem is… winning takes time. And that is what I am learning.
The school really does launch an investigation with the help of the police, and it’s confirmed that the two Hansons, Rob and Vin, were behind it, and both of them are expelled.
It happens by the principal’s decision, there is no private lawsuit involved, so when it comes to explaining themselves totheir parents, Rob and Vin have to take the full hit, because they were the ones who decided to pull something so public in the first place. I find out along the way that they did it pretty cleverly, that tracking them down wasn’t easy, but eventually they managed, and Prosecutor Strada pulled some strings and the police actually put real effort into it.
I spend the holidays in a not-so-great state of mind, the aftershock of the whole situation holding me in its grip, because the real upset isn’t that some students made a joke out of me, but why they did it, because they know what happened to me.
Their brothers told them about what happened on Halloween.
Throughout the holidays Alex spends practically every day at my place.
He does everything he can to keep me in a better mood, he keeps building small, clumsy nests around me, we watch funny shorts together, Alex reads me random positive comments under my videos, and he even encourages me to record a few holiday songs that I upload to my channel, and my version of Let it Snow breaks the record with fifty five thousand views for the first time.
As I sit next to Alex I realize that even though two months ago I thought I wouldn’t be able to live with what happened, I somehow am living, I really am pushing myself forward step by step, just like Ennio said, one step at a time and somehow it works. I manage to get up every day and not think about what happened a year and a half ago or what happened two months earlier.
Alex is tireless, loyal, steady beside me, his big amethyst eyes constantly searching my face, his mouth smiling at me, and I feel this energy coming from him, bright and uplifting, giving me strength.
Thanks to Alex there are moments when I truly forget for hours about everything, when we laugh together and record videos…
Yet at the same time I notice that while Alex used to sometimes seek my closeness, like when we watched something on the tablet and he would slide closer until our shoulders touched, now Alex is very careful not to touch me at all, not with a single hand motion, not even a fleeting brush.
Sometimes I think about it, wondering why. Does he believe I can’t handle any touch? Or maybe he’s disgusted by a broken alpha like me…
Broken?
For the first time those words don’t fully stick to me, I feel that I will mend, I will rebuild myself, I just need patience, and patience is the thing I can… grow.
After the holidays I return to school, and I won’t lie, the first day isn’t easy, even though Vin and Rob are no longer there. From what rumor says they transferred to another high school in a pretty distant area.
Their empty chairs also serve as a reminder to other students that jokes like that come with consequences.
And yet Alex and I, together with our parents, decide that for the next two years we will transfer to a high school closer to the center, called Franklin High.
It is also supposed to help my music career, because that school has a very strong profile and reputation when it comes to musically gifted students who later make it in music.
