August 16th 2020

Chapter 229
Their Visitors in Repairs

"Hey, how was your day?" Lucas stood from where he'd been kneeling on the ground, stripping the old tiles from his parents' kitchen floor, when he looked over and found Maya had come along. He'd come straight here after driving back from university, as she'd known he would, putting in a few hours with the repairs to the ravaged room. So, they'd made plans for her to come and join him, bringing dinner.

"Ridiculous good," Maya smiled as he pulled his arms around her and kissed her hello. "Better now," she added, her smile rising to a smirk, which made him laugh and kiss her again before stepping back to look at around. It was slowly coming together, though not so much that it didn't still look like something drastic had happened, especially not in his eyes. He felt silly for it, though he knew Maya would think it really wasn't, but part of him wanted to take some of those old tiles and hold on to them, a memory of what had been, for as long as he could remember. He could still look at those right now and recall sitting on the floor, under the table, playing pretend as a kid.

"Well I'm starving, so I'd love to hear about it while we have whatever's in that bag," he tipped his head to try and see what it was. All he could tell was that something in there smelled really good. They headed into the living room, setting up their dinner spread on the coffee table.

"Where's your dad?" Maya asked, noticing now that it was just the two of them.

"I gave him the night off," Lucas smiled. "He can't exactly do anything to help, you know?" he raised his hands to signify his father's hands. Thomas was often here, as Lucas and the others worked, but for all he'd been able to start doing again with his hands in recent days – which wasn't so much on the whole – the work here would just have been too much, all of it. So, he'd just have to stand and watch, sometimes give pointers. Lucas could tell it was frustrating him, and there was nothing they could do about it. "I suggested he might take Mom out for a movie date."

"You sneaky little good son," Maya laughed. "Good thing I'm here to help then, huh?"

"Always, always a good thing," he assured her, and she gave a humble half bow. "But I'm not going to be alone, Sam's on his way after eating at Cecilia's."

"Of course he is," she nodded.

"And August, too." Maya blinked at this one. "He's having dinner with his family and then he'll be here to help me with the floor."

"Right…" she slowly replied, telegraphing with ease how her thoughts had gone and drifted somewhere else.

"What are you thinking?" Lucas nudged her knee. She turned back to him.

"Well, it's just that I… Well, I really need to talk to him about…" she drifted again, her hands' empty gestures showing she lacked the words.

"You think he's ready?" Lucas asked, knowing enough of the situation to be able to cut to the chase with her.

"At this point, I don't think 'ready' is a thing, and the longer I let it go, knowing I might be able to help him, I… He's been walking around that place with a weight on his shoulders, not complaining, just going through it, but it's not right. And in a few months, he'll be done with that school, with that part of his life, and all he'll be able to do is look back on it like something bad. I'm not saying that I have the power to turn it all around, but… maybe I can help make the end of it be something a bit more positive for him, you know?"

"I think you can do that," Lucas spoke confidently, and Maya nodded, letting out a deep breath. "Do you know what you're going to say?"

"Not a clue," she shook her head at once, sighing. Lucas quietly pushed his fries toward her and she laughed, grabbing a few.

"Okay, alright, leave me some," he smirked, and she laughed harder.

Sam showed up first, which was probably for the best, as Maya was about to steal one of Lucas' helpers for that night. Depending on how the talk went, she might have had to step in to compensate for August if he ended up deciding he didn't want to help anymore once they were done.

"Hey, Maya," August greeted her when he arrived, and he was already so different from the boy who would greet her with a sort of forlorn 'hey, Mrs. Friar' at school. She wondered sometimes if he even realized his own mood flips.

"August, hey, hold on," she stopped him, as he was starting on his way toward the kitchen. "Can I talk to you for a bit?"

"Sure, about what?" he asked.

He wasn't even evasive here, when she knew that, if she'd said the same thing to him at school, he would have been looking for the door already. She tipped her head to the stairs, and they went up until they found themselves in Lucas' old room, which was still a very dedicated guest room, as in 'dedicated to our son and his wife.' Maya indicated for August to sit at the desk chair while she shut the door, giving him the first clue that this talk might have been something he didn't want to hear.

"Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush about this, alright? I need us to talk about what's going on with you and school," she told him, coming to stand across from him. His posture shifted, so slightly, like he'd reached a middling point between home-August and school-August. "Since day one, back in September, I've been wanting to talk to you, because I saw you out there and you were… off… You weren't yourself, not the August that I've known, not the one you are even right now, right here," she indicated him. "And I haven't said anything until now because… well, I guess a part of me hoped that everything would right itself, especially once I saw you and Tony making friends, and then when you got on the basketball team… But that's not what's happening, is it? You're still going around carrying what happened sophomore year."

He tried not to let anything show over his face, but it was too late. When she mentioned tenth grade, his eyes flickered with surprise for a moment before he could bow his head and lift it again.

"This is not the time for 'I don't know what you're talking about,' okay? I know it's awkward sometimes having to decide if you're talking to your sister's friend or your teacher, but right now we're both worried about you, and we both care about you, and we both know… This thing is just going to keep eating away at you until you let it out. You won't tell your parents, or Riley, but August you need to decide if maybe it's worth unburdening yourself, after all this time. You're such a good kid, and I get to see that all the time out here. Shouldn't the others see it, too?"

"No…" August mumbled, and Maya felt like that one little word had gone and spidered out like a crack on her heart. She came up and crouched and knelt in front of the chair, finding his eye line.

"Why not?" she asked. He wouldn't look at her. "August… Hey, Auggie… Look at me?" He did, just barely. "What happened in tenth grade?" she quietly asked.

He had spent the last two years pushing it all down, like maybe it couldn't touch him that way, and now that try and pull it out again felt almost like too much. He sat there, silently looking at his hands as his fingers twisted together, for near on a minute.

"First day of ninth grade, didn't take long before they all knew my dad was my dad and not just our teacher. Some of the others would tease me about it, but it wasn't… I expected it, didn't care that much," he shrugged. Some of them really wanted to try and make me care. I never let them, or… not so much that they could see. Made it through a year, and that was that. Then… the year after that, it became something else. There were two of them, they… they wanted me to…"

He grew quiet again here, though seeing into his eyes it felt like all the noise was happening in his head, barring the way for his words. Maya took hold of his hand, gave it a squeeze.

"They wanted me to get them answers… from my dad's tests." It was a hurdle he'd just jumped, and Maya contained her reaction as best she could. "I didn't want to, I knew it was wrong, but… but they would just follow me, wherever I went, they'd just be there, and every time I said no, it would get worse, and then one day…" His voice had been ramping up, growing, and growing, and then it took a dive, choked in his throat. His eyes looked frantic.

"August, what did they do?" Maya fought for the straightness in her voice.

"Cornered me at my locker one day. Said if I didn't do it this time, things would get bad, said they were going to give me a taste of it." He didn't say what happened exactly, but the way he sat now, she knew they'd definitely gotten some punches in. "If Milena hadn't shown up when she did, I…" he shook his head, and just as soon froze. He hadn't meant to say her name. Maya received this with a memory of the night she'd tried to ask her student about this, running into her at the movie theater. It had never dawned on her that the Janacek girl might have been this closely involved.

"Stays between us, okay?" she promised August. He still looked uncertain, but then he'd already started, so maybe it made it easier to continue.

"She wanted to know what had happened, after the guys ran off. I told her everything. I think I was just in shock. It didn't stop that day, the guys said they were going to make sure they didn't get interrupted next time. I-I was scared, and I was sick of it, so I…" He looked so ashamed now, and Maya closed her eyes.

"You did what they asked," she stated. He nodded, and she bowed her head. This was not what she had expected, and now she worried she might not have been able to keep her promise to him. "Just the one time or…"

"All that year, and last year," August confessed. "I was sure my dad would figure it out, but they always made sure not do too good, sneak some wrong answers in there. They were a year above me, they're gone now," he looked at her. "But they had friends in my class. I think they know what I did. Can't let it get out, I-I'll get expelled, maybe they'll arrest me or something. A-and my dad will lose his job, he'll be so humiliated, and Milena… She'll never speak to me again…" he mumbled after a beat.

There was one benefit of this conversation happening here, and between the two of them. Here she wasn't his teacher, and here no one would say a thing when she reached over and pulled the boy into a hug. He needed it, clung to her at once. His burden may not yet leave him, but now she bore some of the weight with him, as she was left to wonder where she was supposed to go from here, now that she knew what she knew.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners