A Good Enough Reason (5 page)

“What about your girlfriend? Doesn’t she want to eat with you?”

“Nah. We’re going out tonight anyway. It’s not like we’re joined at the hip or anything.”

Ellis saw Stephanie at the table she and Dale normally shared, talking with her group of friends. She looked up and her eyes locked with Ellis’s. He suddenly felt uncomfortable, but she just smiled at him before turning back to her conversation.

Dale smiled smugly. “See? Told you she doesn’t care.”

Ellis looked up again, but this time it was Mark’s eyes he met. Ellis immediately lowered his gaze, not waiting for Mark to make his usual silent threat. He’d seen the guy crack his knuckles too many times to want to see it again. It did work as a threat, though, and Ellis had to admit he was tempted to run away as fast as he could, but he kept himself in check like always. Never show a bully you’re scared of him.

Ellis gave his attention back to Dale instead. “So what? You want us to be friends?”

“Exactly! I knew you’d get it.”

“Damn, you’re irritating.”

“But you like me anyway.”

Ellis wouldn’t have admitted it even under torture. Okay, maybe he would have under torture, but he wasn’t about to tell Dale he found his chatter nice. It filled a hole Matt had left when he’d moved, a hole Ellis hadn’t been able to fill in any other way. Not that he expected Dale to replace Matt—no one would be up to that. But it’d be nice to have a new friend, if Dale even stuck with Ellis once their project was done.

He liked Dale. The guy was smart, even if a little too mouthy, but no one could be perfect. “I tolerate you.”

“That’s good enough for me, at least for now. You’ll see, you’ll love me soon enough.”

Ellis scoffed. “As if.”

LUNCH HAD
gone better than Ellis thought it would when it became clear Dale was there to stay. Ellis could admit, at least to himself, that he didn’t mind Dale’s company—most of the time.

He stopped in front of his locker and leaned closer to enter the combination, but an unpleasant smell stopped him. He sniffed. It smelled like sweaty bodies and locker rooms, and it wasn’t something Ellis particularly enjoyed. He couldn’t pinpoint where the smell came from, though, and when he looked around, no one else in the hallway seemed bothered by it, so he opened his locker.

An avalanche of white hit him in the face, and Ellis gagged at the smell surrounding him. It was ten times worse than before, and when he opened his eyes to see what had hit him in the face, he understood why and gagged again.

He turned around and tried to keep the nausea under control, but the movement made him notice how the rest of the people in the hallway were reacting to what had just happened. Ellis blushed.

People were pointing at him and laughing. It stung, but he could do nothing about it.

He spotted Mark a little farther down. He was leaning against the wall and laughing his ass off along with his friends, and Ellis knew he’d found who had stuffed his locker with dirty jockstraps.

He should have expected it. It was exactly Mark’s style—funny for Mark and humiliating for Ellis.

Ellis looked at his feet and tried to keep the tears from falling. Crying would only embarrass him even more, and Mark would jump on the opportunity to torture him. He took a deep breath and waited until his eyes had stopped stinging before looking up again. He realized the entire content of the locker, everything—his books, his jacket—stank as much as the jockstraps.

“Mr. Aylmer! What happened here?”

Ellis looked at Mr. Snyder, the European History teacher. “Uh, a prank, Mr. Snyder.” He glanced in Mark’s direction and sure enough, he was laughing even harder than before and pointing at Ellis.

“A prank?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you better clean it up, and as fast as you can. Next class starts in ten minutes.”

Ellis cringed at the thought of having to touch the straps, but there was no way out of it. Even i
f
he were willing to give Mark’s name to Mr. Snyder, Ellis had no proof it had been Mark. Besides, Mr. Snyder wouldn’t give Mark detention. It was routine for him to ignore Mark’s—or anyone’s—bullying.

“What do I do with those, sir?”

“Throw everything away. That’ll teach your friends to pull more intelligent pranks.”

Mr. Snyder gave the straps one last disgusted glance and walked away, leaving Ellis alone with the pile of dirty underwear. At least most of the students were on their way to class and not looking at him anymore.

Ellis knew he was going to be on everyone’s lips by the end of the next period. He sighed in resignation and trudged toward the bin in the corner of the hallway. Trying to touch it as little as possible, Ellis pushed it toward his locker.

The last thing Ellis wanted was to touch the jockstraps, but he had to be quick if he didn’t want to miss his class. Giving one last glance around to make sure he was alone, he took a tissue out of the packet he kept in his bag and opened it. He used it as a barrier between his fingers and the dirty fabric and tried as hard as he could to avoid thinking about where the straps had recently been.

The last football practice had taken place the day before, and almost every member of the team had obviously participated in the prank—not that Ellis was counting the straps. He wondered how they’d managed to get them in his locker, but he couldn’t come up with a solution that didn’t include Mark finding out his combination. He wouldn’t put it past him to spy on Ellis to find out. It wasn’t like Anna or Rick would have given it up, and nobody else was close enough to Ellis to know it.

“Fuck!”

There was someone else who might have been close enough to Ellis when he’d opened his locker recently. Dale was not a close friend like Anna, but he could’ve found out somehow.

Ellis shook his head and threw another strap in the bin. Dale wouldn’t have done it. It wasn’t his style. They were growing closer only because Mr. Shea’s project had put them together and not because of some weird plan Dale had to humiliate Ellis.

But what if Dale was just making the most of the situation Mr. Shea had put him in? Dale didn’t seem to spend a lot of time with Mark, but he obviously knew him well enough to know something was wrong in Mark’s life. Maybe Dale and Mark had planned it together. Maybe Dale was laughing along with Mark right now, wishing he could have been there to see Ellis’s face when he’d opened his locker.

Ellis dropped another strap in the bin and resisted the urge to kick it away. He should’ve known Dale wasn’t serious. Ellis was a nerd, a geek. Someone with a lot of friends, someone who was on the soccer team, wouldn’t want to be his friend.

Something crunched under Ellis’s fingers and jolted him out of his thoughts. He looked down and blanched when he saw it was a note. His mind went to the one Mark had sent him during French class. He knew it would be better for him to throw it away along with the rest and ignore it, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

Ellis unfolded the small piece of paper with trembling fingers and bit his lower lip at the sight. It was exactly what he’d expected.

I bet you love this, cock-breath.

Ellis crumbled the note in his palm and threw it in the bin. He hurriedly grabbed what remained of the jockstraps on the floor, still making sure not to touch them. When the last one was finally in the bin, Ellis let himself lean against the locker next to his and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. He folded his legs against his chest and crossed arms on his knees, then pressed his forehead on them and closed his eyes, unable to stop the tear that escaped and rolled down his cheek.

THE LAST
thing Ellis wanted was to step out of his house—no, make that his room—that night. He’d had a very bad day, and he didn’t want to see anyone, be it from school or his family. He didn’t want to see the smirks and the laughter in the first case, or the worry in the second. At least both Connor and Damien had already graduated and wouldn’t find out about the jockstrap episode.

Ellis knew he was being childish as he hid under his comforter and hoped it would be enough to keep the world away. He’d promised Anna he’d go out with her and Rick, and even if he’d left her a message to tell her he wasn’t feeling well, he wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d actually stay away. She was probably coming over to pick him up right now.

Sure enough, Ellis’s bedroom door swung open about fifteen minutes later. “Ellis! What do you think you’re doing?”

Ellis heard the door close and the soft thuds of Anna’s footsteps getting closer. The duvet was yanked away from his body, and he scrambled to get it back, without success.

“Hey!”

“El, I know you’re not really sick, so you better have a good reason why you’re hiding in your bed instead of getting ready to go out.”

Ellis hugged his pillow and turned to face the wall. “I do.”

“And? What happened?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know about it yet. I would’ve thought it’d be all over the school as soon as it happened.”

“You mean you’re like this because of the prank someone played on you? Come on, El. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

Ellis rolled onto his back and sat up. “Couldn’t have—Anna! I got hit in the face by about fifty dirty, smelly jockstraps, and I had to pick them up. One. By. One. And throw them away in front of other students. You tell me, does it sound so nice to you?”

Anna’s mouth was distorted in a disgusted grimace, but Ellis wasn’t fooled. He knew she would agree with him, then pounce again and continue trying to convince him to go to the movies. “Okay, maybe it was that bad.”

“Maybe?”

“It was awful, but El, you have to show them you’re stronger than they think! If you hide in your room, everyone will think you’re ashamed.”

“I
am
ashamed, Anna, and humiliated.”

“El… I know. I know you hate being the center of attention, and I understand you, I swear, but wouldn’t it be better to do this on your terms?”

Ellis sighed tiredly. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll have to face the school on Monday anyway. I know you want to hide in here for the next two days, but you’ll have to come out in the end. Show those who did this you don’t care how much they laugh and talk.”

“But I’m tired, Anna. Why can’t Mark leave me alone? What have I done to him to… to earn this?”

Anna sat on the edge of the mattress and pressed a hand against Ellis’s leg. “It was Mark?” Ellis nodded. “El, why don’t you tell someone?”

“I can’t be sure it was him. I saw him laughing and looking at me, but then so were at least another ten students.”

“Why do you think it was him, then?”

Ellis rolled his eyes. “Really? Who else could it be? I might not be popular, but I never had problems with anyone else apart from a few insults.”

“Let’s forget about who did it. Are you coming?”

“Anna, you know most of the people from school will be on Main Street tonight. There’s literally nothing else to do in Fairview. I’m not sure I’m up to facing everyone right this second.”

Ellis could already see it. With his luck not only would every single student in Miller High know about what had happened earlier, but he’d probably run into both Mark
and
Dale.

Ellis groaned and slumped sideways on the bed. He buried his face into his pillow. “Please, kill me now.”

“Stop being so overly dramatic.”

Ellis rolled onto his back again and faced his friend. “But it
is
a drama, Anna. I had to wash my face no less than four times before I managed to finally get the smell off it, and I don’t even want to know what I’ll have to do to free my books of it.” Ellis shuddered. “I’m going to have to burn them!”

Anna slapped Ellis’s thigh, and he yelped. “Look, I’m all for drama usually, but today I’m done hearing your poor-me impression, and I’m not going to allow you to wallow in self-pity. You’re going to come with me and Rick, you’re going to have fun, and you’re going to show Mark and his friends just how little you care about them.”

“Is there a way for me to get rid of you?” Ellis muttered.

“Sure. You’ll get rid of me in about… five hours, give or take. After you come out with us and after we see the movie. Oh, and after you buy me one of those chocolate-caramel milkshakes.”

“Shouldn’t Rick be the one to buy it? He’s your boyfriend, not me.”

“It’s not only part of the boyfriend duties but also of the best friend ones.”

“You sure?”

“Yup. Now, up you go. There’s a shower waiting for you.”

Once Ellis finally gave in, it didn’t take long for him to get ready. He showered and put on jeans and a black T-shirt with a green snake on the front. Anna tsked and looked at him from head to toes, which were clad in battered old sneakers.

“No wonder we can’t find you a boyfriend.”

“Anna, I don’t want a boyfriend. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Just think, Ellis. Instead of pouting all alone in your room, you could’ve been comforted by your handsome boyfriend. If you’d had one.”

Ellis rolled his eyes. He knew there was no stopping Anna when she started on Ellis’s lack of boyfriend.

“And it’s not good for you to spend so much time alone.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. Really, maybe if you shucked the nerdy T-shirts no one understands or cares for, you’d find someone.”

“Hey, Dale understood the one I had on the other day!”

Ellis clamped his lips together as soon as he was done talking. It hurt to think Dale had been faking their tentative friendship, and it shouldn’t have. “Can we go, please?”

Anna gave him a curious look, but for once she didn’t pry, and Ellis was glad for the—no doubt, short—reprieve. “Sure. Let’s go.”

“SO, DID
you hear what Mark did today?”

Dale looked sideways at his girlfriend. “Nope. Who’s he terrorizing now?”

“Your friend.”

Dale frowned. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific.”

“The one you sat with at lunch.”

“Ellis.”

“Yeah, him.”