Chapter Seventy-Three

John stepped into his class, lifting his head high as he walked to his desk, forcing himself to appear unashamed of what had happened. He could hear the whispers going through the class, his temper rising with each one, until he cracked. "I didn't fucking relapse." He barked, making the last girl to lean over to whisper in her friend's ear freeze.

The blond kid who sat behind John rolled his eyes noticing the tea in his water bottle. "Is that beer?" He asked, nodding to the brownish-yellow liquid.

John shook his head, opening the cap and letting the peppermint scent float through the classroom. "It's tea." He stated. "I don't drink."

Miss Hernandez curled her lip at him, knowing that peppermint tea was a way to help with detoxing. "Alright, let's begin." She stated, watching John taking a long drink of his tea. "Johnathan, do you know how to say 'sexual assault is wrong?'"

John coughed as he choked on his drink, letting Dominic hit him on the back a few times to help clear his airway. "The fuck do you want me to say that for?" He asked, not caring that his language would probably get him detention.

She raised her eyebrow, staring him down until his eyes seemed to change. "I want you to know that what you did is wrong."

John stood, marching up to the front of the class. "Eres un idiota si crees esa sirena." He stated, leaning forward on her desk. "She's the one that drugged me, and gave me a hand job. I thought she was my girlfriend touching me and kissing me." He picked up a pencil, writing something down on the paper. "I swear this is the truth." He straightened his back, wincing as the motion pulled at the bones and cartilages in his chest.

Dominic smiled at his cousin, knowing what was on the paper and knowing that John had told her off. "Awesome." He smirked, watching as John leaned back in his chair and sipped on his tea.

John nodded, settling in for the rest of the lesson.

Claire rubbed John's back as he slid into his seat next to her at lunch, pressing a kiss to his lips. "How were your classes?" She asked, not noticing the bandage on his right hand.

He held his hand up, flinching as she grabbed it. "It's just a little burn." He stated, letting her unwrap it to see what he'd done. "I zoned out in shop and ended up touching a warm bead."

She looked at the long blister on his palm, looking up at him with shock. "You zoned out?" She asked, knowing that he'd been struggling with that for the last few days.

He nodded, picking up the plastic knife on his food tray. "Yeah… it wasn't a long one though." He ran the short teeth over the swollen skin of the blister, letting it ooze fluid into his palm. "Sam said it was only a couple seconds."

She handed him a napkin, knowing that he was trying to get the blister to drain so it would heal faster. "What about gym?" She watched as he wiped the fluid up with the napkin, happy that the liquid was clear and not yellow. "And Spanish?"

John shrugged, rewrapping his hand as he let it finish draining on its own. "They were okay." He lifted his fork as if to take a bite of his food, put stopped when his eyes landed on the smaller kid by himself in the corner of the cafeteria. "I'll be back in a few." He stated, slowly standing and picking up his food tray as he walked over to the kid.

Cooper looked up, quickly closing his notebook as John sat down across from him.

John pushed the food toward the kid, nodding at the look of hunger in his eyes. "Go ahead." He chuckled, watching as Cooper dug into the meal. "Cooper, right?" He asked, wondering exactly how clear his mind had been at the time they'd met.

Cooper nodded, taking a drink of the milk. "Yeah. You're Bender?"

John smiled, watching as Coopers sleeves got pushed up. "Old man?" He asked, noticing that there were some new wounds on his skin.

Cooper jumped, moving to pull his sleeve down until he noticed the worst of John's old ones. "Yeah." He sighed, pointing to John's. "Yours too, huh?"

"My bitch of a mother played her hand in it."

Cooped ducked his head, taking a bite of the cookie on the plate John had given him. "My Mom's dead."

"That sucks." John stated, taking a drink from his tea bottle in hopes of helping his detox move along faster. "Is he a drunk?"

Cooper shook his head, taking another drink of milk. "He's a college football coach."

"Hot headed?"

"No." He flipped his note book open, showing John the sketches. "He's thinks I'm a sissy because I don't play sports."

John smirked at the art work, looking up at Cooper with approval. "Dude, these are awesome." He grinned at the one of a little boy and girl huddled up together on the couch. "Siblings?" He asked, watching as he nodded. "How old?"

Cooper smiled, thinking of his brother's blue eyes and his sister's black hair. "Ricky is ten, and Amy is nine." He looked up at John remembering the kid in gym who looked so similar. "Are you and Dominic brothers?" He asked, wondering why John seemed to have more Mediterranean features that Dominic.

John shook his head, so used to the question that the answer came automatically. "No, our dads were twins. My Mom's family immigrated from Greece before she was born, and Dominic's mom is from Mexico."

Cooper nodded, understanding now why John's beard was thicker and his eyes were larger. "That's cool."

John shrugged, taking a French fry from the plate. "My girlfriend hates it." He chuckled, pointing at the redhead. "She sunburns real easy, but since I'm half Greek I tan really well."

Cooper looked at John's skin tone, wondering if he was tan or his normal skin tone. "You still look kinda pale to me."

John chuckled, looking back to Cooper. "That's what drugs will do to you." He pulled a photo from his own notebook showing it to Cooper. "That was my junior prom. I was actually healthy then." He remembered how his bones hadn't stuck out from under his skin, and how his hair had been even thicker than it was now. "I weighed almost 180 then. Now I'm in the 150 range."

Cooper noticed how John seemed to be a little heavier in the photo, and that he did seem to look healthier. "What happened?" He asked, watching as pain seemed to show in John's eyes.

"Shit hit the fan." He leaned his elbows on the table. "I was six weeks sober in that. While we were at the prom, I got drunk on vodka and spiked punch. Two weeks later, my little sister was kidnapped by my best friend's murderous parents." He ran a hand over the scar running through his eyebrow. "I was the only one who knew where she would be. I took a beating while I waited for help to come, the whole time trying to keep Amelia from getting beaten, raped, or killed. When they realized that I wasn't going to let them close to her, Rachel melted some meth and injected it into my back. Put me in the hospital for a week, and I didn't hit the worst of the detox until six days later. After the fifth seizure of that day hit, my foster parents had to rush me to the hospital just to keep me from giving up." He watched as Coopers eyes widened, knowing that the kid didn't know the whole story but only what the media had told. "I had enough meth in my system to kill me. I'm not sure how I survived that, but the other day, when I was hauled out of here in the ambulance, I was in the middle of an overdose from being roofied."

"You were roofied?" He asked, watching as John nodded. "How?"

"Jessica Jenkins put the shit in my water bottle." He stated, unbuttoning his flannel that he'd cut the sleeves off of just far enough to show the wraps on his chest. "She dragged me into the bathroom and tried to rape me. The whole time I thought she was my girlfriend because of the hallucinations." He tapped his finger over the wraps. "I had to have CPR done to keep me alive long enough to get to the hospital, and the compressions separated the cartilages in my ribcage from my sternum."

"Wow…" Cooper looked down at his measly cuts and bruises from his dad pushing him into walls or making him fall into something sharp. "You must be pretty tough."

John shrugged, buttoning his shirt again. "It helps to have friends." He nodded toward the Breakfast Club smirking as Jim gave Sam a noogie. "You're always welcome with us. And if you ever need a safe place to stay, here's our address." He handed a scrap of paper to him, standing as the bell rang. "Our phone numbers on the back. And if you need a way out, my foster dad's a lawyer."

Cooper nodded, looking up to see that John was already walking back to his group, his limp showing a little more than it had been. "Thanks…"