Our group projects came to an end, with presentation just around the corner. Literally — the second the teacher came in, we’d have to present our projects! I was perfectly prepared, my group had done great, and I was ready to get it over with. 

Another group, however, was set to struggle relatively soon. 

“Hey, Finn,” Paola approached me — one of Oliver’s team members. I looked up from my notes, only to have her smile at me rather awkwardly. “Do you know where Oliver is? We wanted to go over all our notes.” 

Beside me, Oliver was nowhere to be seen. Not even his backpack was anywhere nearby. “No, I don’t,” I mumbled. 

Paola sighed immediately, dropping a stack of flimsy papers onto my desk. “Is he serious? Last time we saw him, he gave us his notes, and didn’t explain anything! We can’t even read this, and besides, is that really all he did?” 

Usually, Paola was nice, kind, calm. But she could be rather mean when it came to her grades, which Oliver was clearly putting on the line just now. 

I stared at Oliver’s notes, his small, ugly handwriting, and didn’t know what to say. Just yesterday, he’d gotten into that fight. 

Don’t tell anyone, please, he had plead, with a please so soft, I had no choice but to keep quiet. The rest of the day, he’d been absent, and I had told every teacher that he had gotten sick and gone home. Now, of course, our classmates assumed I knew more about his whereabouts.

But I genuinely didn’t know anything. 

My few messages, wondering how he was doing and if his face hurt, had gone unanswered. 

Paola left, all the more frustrated, and I was left pondering about Oliver. I reached for my phone within my pocket, and decided to text him one more time. 

[7:52: Finn: hi, oliver! Are you coming to class, or are you sick? Paola and the others are stressed because of your presentation. Hope you feel better! (:]

In barely eight minutes, class was to start. 

Oliver neither responded, nor did he come to class in time, leaving Paola and the rest of his group perplexed and in a panicked shuffle, trying to decipher Oliver’s notes or making the most of the few bullet points his part had on the presentation. 

Their presentation went well — until Oliver’s part turned up and everyone looked at each other, unsure of what to do. 

“This was Oliver’s part,” Paola came to throw blame rather quickly. “But he’s not here.” 

Our teacher sighed. “Well, you should have seen that coming. It’s Oliver, after all.”

“But—“ 

“You should have prepared for the worst case. A quarter of your presentation is missing, what do you want me to do?” Accordingly, points were deducted off their final grade, making Paola fume at the mouth. 

More than once did I check my phone, but nothing ever reached me. 

Until Oliver was stupid enough to enter the classroom right after social studies, making everyone wonder whether he’d purposefully skipped class. With a black baseball cap pulled deep into his face, hiding most his bruises, he stomped into the room, and Paola was quick to throw her disapproval right at his face, together with his ugly, illegible notes. 

Pressing the papers against his chest, she exploded, and stopped him in his tracks on his way to his seat. “Are you kidding me, Oliver?!” 

“…”

“If you don’t care about graduating, so be it, but don’t drag your group members down with you! Because of you, we got a horrible grade!” 

Oliver had kept his gaze low until now, rather staring at his ill-written notes, but now he lifted his head, looking at Paola. Immediately, she flinched, his bruised face surely revealed to her behind the shadows of his hat. 

“Sorry,” he said. To have this big guy, who was known to be angry all the time, apologize to her with such a quiet peep, left everyone in the room speechless. 

Paola, with her mouth wide agape, stumbled backwards. “I-It’s okay,” she stuttered. “Just … Let us know beforehand, next time, if you can’t make it. And m-maybe write your notes on a laptop, or something.” 

“Okay. My bad.” 

Once more, Oliver lowered his gaze, walked around Paola and pushed his hat deeper into his face. Sitting down beside me, all gazes stuck to his back, even my own, he didn’t say much. 

“Does it hurt?” I asked, observing the bruises on his face. His cheek had changed in color, and so had his swollen eye. His lower lip’s cut had grown and swollen, and I’m sure his entire face felt uncomfortable. 

Oliver kept his hand pressed onto his hat, and shook his head. Another obvious lie. 

“I was worried. I messaged you, but you didn’t respond.” My disappointment resonated too loud within my voice, and it embarrassed me. 

“Sorry.” Again, that one, powerful, adorable word. “I don’t have my phone with me.” 

“Oh.” It’s all I could say, and once more, he noticed how disappointed I was. 

“My mom took it.” 

“Oh. Because of yesterday?”

Oliver nodded. 

“Your mom is kind of strict, isn’t she?” I chuckled, awkwardly, trying to lighten the mood just a bit, but it kind of did the exact opposite. 

“I can’t blame her,” he buzzed, keeping his head low and turned away from me. 

I leaned in, my curiosity sparking, as always. “Why didn’t you come for your presentation? Everyone thinks you skipped on purpose.”

“Let them think what they want. I don’t care.” 

“I care, though.” Oliver’s body tensed up beside me, and I turned all the redder. “As I said, I was worried.” 

Blushing ears, impossible to hide even with the hat he wore. He cleared his throat more than twice, took a deep breath, and finally responded: “My mom made me come with her to the hospital, to check on my nose.”

“Because it was bleeding?”

Oliver nodded.

“Is—Is it broken? Did I do a bad job cleaning it? It’s not getting infected or something, is it?”

“No … I’m all good.” 

In snail speed, his face turned towards me, his hat almost hitting my forehead. If it wasn’t for his baseball cap keeping us at a distance, we would have perhaps come even closer to each other. Ever so slightly, he smiled, a fleeting moment that made my heart flutter. 

“Thanks,” he whispered. “For helping me.”

My smile grew into oblivion when I heard those words. I grinned from ear to ear, only to wonder: “Why don’t you tell Paola you didn’t skip? And the teachers?” 

“My mom called the school, but I guess the teachers didn’t get the memo. It’s whatever.” Whatever — as if he was used to being treated this way. 

He couldn’t even be sick for a single day without everyone thinking he was a troublemaker skipping school. Did everyone think there was no hope for him to graduate, that he was a lost cause? As a teacher, shouldn’t they have put more effort into him? 

When the next teacher entered the room and class was just about to begin, I was able to help Oliver out once more, thanks to being so popular with the teachers. 

“Oliver, take the hat off. You know the rules.” 

Oliver hesitated, his gaze flickering back and forth. He didn’t want to reveal that ruined face he got, the black eye and the swollen lip. The cap was a means to hide himself and now, he was about to be forced to take it off. 

“Tsk.” His fingers tugged at the cap, ready to lift it off his head.

My body acted all on its own. Before he could take it off, my hand landed atop his head, pushing his baseball cap back into his face, deeper and deeper. 

“He’s got a terrible headache, teach. Migraine, maybe, with all the lights. Can’t he leave it on, just this once?”

I couldn’t see Oliver’s eyes, but I knew he stared. His mouth was half-opened as he took one deep breath after the next, shuddering all over. My hand remained atop his head, forcing him to keep it down, but he didn’t resist at all, and instead, chewed on his wounded lower lip, and let me take the lead in an effort to help him. 

“Is that so?” the teacher sighed, rather skeptical. But it was me who made the plead, and the discussion was over relatively quick. “Alright, then. I’ll make an exception.” 

The rest of the day, he was left alone, but Oliver seemed incredibly bored and helpless without his phone. His leg jittered upwards throughout all the classes, vibrating the entire table, and his hands held onto his cap as if he was too scared to lose it. In the breaks, he didn’t even go to the library, and instead, remained seated at our desk, though barely sitting still. 

“Why won’t you tell me why you fought?” I asked in a whisper, when the class already turned loud and unbearable through the short ten minute break we had until the next class. 

Oliver’s shoulders twitched upwards. “Can’t you let it go?” 

“What if it happens again?”

“It won’t.” 

“How can you be so sure, if your friends are like that?” 

Beaten by his own logic, Oliver turned quiet, but a sudden guilt overcame me.

Forcing him to speak did neither of us any good, did it? Why did I want to know so bad? I was sure Oliver had his reasons for keeping quiet, for hiding the reasons of his fight.

“You don’t want to talk about it?” I asked, watching Oliver slouch deeper and deeper into his chair, dropping his chin onto his arms rested atop the table. 

“Yeah, I don’t.” 

And with that, I didn’t dare ask about it any more.