Follow The Rules

No way

"You sent an email home to my parents?" Oliver yelled as he slammed his books on Mr. Hughes's desk, not even bothering to wait for all the students to leave the room. Surprisingly, there was no startled reaction that Oliver was expecting. Instead, Mr. Hughes gently put his pen down on his desk and looked up to meet Oliver's eyes.

"Yes, I did." He said simply.

"What part of 'leave me alone' did you not understand?" Talking back to a teacher like this was practically unheard of, and he felt the few students left in the room tense at the tone he used when speaking to Mr. Hughes, but Oliver didn't care. He had had next to no sleep last night, up all night worrying about what this afternoon would entail.

"And what part of 'I'm not giving up on you' did you not understand?" His teacher replied easily as he packed up his things. "I'll see you and your parents at 3:30." And before Oliver had the chance to object, Mr. Hughes had picked up his bag and left the classroom, leaving Oliver no choice but to oblige.

The classroom was set up the way it usually is for parent teacher interviews, with three chairs taken from the students desks and set up to sit on the other side of Mr. Hughes desk. Oliver sat on the chair closest to the door, slouched down with his arms crossed over his chest and keeping his eyes cast down. He didn't want to see his father who looked both angry to have been called away from work and suspicious as to why. His mother just looked nervous, fidgeting with her purse in her lap while Mr. Hughes got comfortable behind his desk.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. And Mrs. Tyler." Mr. Hughes began and Oliver took a deep breath, knowing nothing could prepare him for what was coming. "I'm sure you're very busy so I'll just cut straight to the chase then. I asked you here today to discuss Oliver."

"What about Oliver?" His mother interrupted eagerly and Oliver shifted in his seat, not wanting to be there for the rest of the conversation.

"Well I was wondering whether you would be able to shed some light on what's going on with him recently." His mother eyed her son suspiciously, not quite understanding what his teacher meant, but having a pretty good, unspoken, idea.

"What do you mean? What's going on with him?"

"He's been struggling recently, and hasn't gone unnoticed by his other teachers either." His mother opened her mouth to enquire about what he meant but Mr. Hughes kept talking, blatantly shutting her up. "His grades have dropped dramatically, and while he's still passing every subject, when a straight A student like Ollie drops down to a C in every class, a D, even, in political science, we tend to not take it lightly."

His parents didn't say anything. Not that his father had even said anything at all yet, but even his mother said nothing. The lowest mark Oliver had ever received was a B- so getting a D in political science was certainly a shock to almost everyone.

"I was wondering whether he's been getting enough sleep at home." Mr Hughes continued after no one said anything. "Because he doesn't look like he's getting enough sleep and if the bags under his eyes weren't enough proof, he's been falling asleep in classes."

"Oliver?" His mother asked harshly, turning to face him, but Oliver knew it wasn't a warning to answer his question about his sleeping habits, it was a way to express how appalled she was that he'd even think about sleep through a class. Wasting money and all that crap. Oliver didn't answer. He kept his eyes trained to the edge of Mr. Hughes desk and crossed his arms even tighter around his chest.

"We have no idea why he would be tired." His mother continued when he didn't say anything. "To be honest I thought he was getting too much sleep. He'd often excuse himself to go up to bed early."

Oliver could feel all eyes on him, but what did they want from him? To turn around and say, yeah I try to sleep, but the nightmares of my kidnapper r****g me keep me awake at night? No. His parents wouldn't appreciate that.

"It also hasn't gone unnoticed that one of the best running back players on the football team has dropped out."

"What?" Oliver head had never moved quicker when his father's voice finally rang out, low and kind of soft, like he mustn't have heard what Mr. Hughes said quickly. Oliver was just shocked that his father was actually listening to the conversation at all.

"I spoke to his coach and Oliver hadn't gone to a practice for a week and a half. He had no choice but to kick him off the team since Ollie didn't appear to have an answer as to why."

"You've been kicked off the team?" His mother's voice was getting higher and higher the more surprised and confused she got.

"No." Oliver said shortly, courage from getting a reaction from his father to finally speak. "I dropped out. There's a difference."

"Oliver!" His mother exclaimed. "Why?" But Oliver just sighed. She knew why. Even if she didn't know the specifics, she knew. If she cared enough she could probably put the pieces together and work it all out for herself.

"Now," Mr. Hughes said, trying to defuse the rising tension in the room. "All these things could easily be summed up to the fact that he's sixteen. Just going through a random stage of rebellion that teens do." Even though Oliver could tell the man didn't believe a word he was saying, he was glad for the benefit of the doubt, but then he continued. "I mean, as far as I'm aware Oliver hadn't stepped a foot out of line until two Monday's ago and he could just be testing new waters. A different side of him. I heard from Mrs. Well's, the art teacher here, that you even tried art club last week and that you're very talented."

Oliver felt his parents stiffen beside him. His mother knew how his father felt about art. How it's a waste of time, and can do nothing to help him get into college or bring in any sort of income. Dropping grades and football was one thing, but directly disobeying his father and skipping practice for art was an entirely different story.

When no one said anything, Mr. Hughes seemed to understand that it was a touchy subject and promptly moved on.

"But there are other things that seem entirely out of character for Oliver." He continued. "Yesterday at lunch, Oliver got into a fight." His mother gasped, but everyone ignored it. "And surprisingly it was with John Phillips. Well, I shouldn't exactly call it a fight. What I should really say is that Oliver punched John in the face." His mother turned to him, a horrified look on her face, like she didn't even recognise her own son. Oliver simply rolled his eyes and stared at the door, praying for this meeting to end soon.

"You hit John?" His mother pretty much yelled at him. "Oliver what the hell's gotten into you?" Oliver only let the surprise of hearing his mother practically swear at him, over take him for a moment before he forced his detached, moody mask back on and slumped down further in his seat.

"He pushed me first." Oliver defended but only halfheartedly. He knew it was wrong. He didn't have to be told.

"Oliver!" His mother exclaimed again like simply saying his name would snap him back to his old self. "He's your best friend. What on earth happened?" What on earth happened. That was a good one. She knew exactly what happened. f*****g hell.

"I spoke to John after the incident, and he confided in me." Mr. Hughes continued, and Oliver's ears pricked up at the words. He straightened slightly so that he could concentrate on what his teacher said. "He said that Oliver had been pushing him and all of his other friends away. Avoiding them and hadn't spoken to any of them in a week. It was when he tried to talk to your son about why, that Oliver got defensive." Oliver rolled his eyes. His best friend had ratted on him and done the exact opposite of what he wanted from him. He had gone and stuck his nose into his business. Spoken to his teacher about him behind his back. Any regret he had about hitting John suddenly vanished.

"He's worried about you Ollie." Mr. Hughes continued. "He was practically in tears when I asked him about it. Said that he didn't know what he had done to make his best friend hate him so much."

"Maybe it was sticking his nose into my business." Oliver snapped, even though picturing his friend crying about him tore at his heart.

"That's what friends do, Oliver." Mr. Hughes said sternly. "He knows you're struggling and he wants to help you. He came to me because he wants his friend back."

"Well his friend is gone." Oliver said sternly, frustration and anger building up until it got too much to handle. "The sooner he accepts that the better." There was a stunned silence in the room. His mother had tears in her eyes and even his father looked over to him, but Oliver sunk back into his chair and crossed his arms over his chest defensively.

"Apparently," Mr. Hughes said softly, slowly. Like continuing the aggressive behaviour was going to push someone over the edge. "You've ditched him for someone else."

Someone else, meaning Daisy. His friend was jealous. How f*****g typical. All this time he was jealous of his friends for being, well, normal, while John was jealous because he confided in someone else.

"Daisy?" Oliver spat softly, like calling her 'someone else' was an insult.

"Who's Daisy?" His mother asked and they waited for Oliver to answer, but when he didn't, Mr. Hughes answered for him.

"Daisy Heart. A girl in the year bellow him." Heart. Isn't it bad that he didn't even know her last name until now? "I did some digging into her too." Oliver had to control his anger as his teacher continued. "Mrs. Wells said she was the one who... um... introduced him to art club." Oh, she was so much more than that.

"Are you aware, Oliver, that she was just as curious about you as the rest of us?" Mr. Hughes asked, and he lifted his head to look at his teacher, who had his hands folded neatly on his desk. When he saw he caught Oliver's attention, he smiled softly and picked a piece of A3 paper off the desk and passed it over to Oliver, who took it hesitantly.

He looked at the paper and studied it for a moment, while Mr. Hughes continued.

"This is an assignment she handed in the other day. It appears that Daisy's just as worried about you everyone else."

It was a drawing, beautiful, and definitely done by Daisy, but even though he wanted to appreciate it, he couldn't help but feel angry. On the paper was a boy who Oliver recognised as himself, but she had made the boy look lost, and alone, darkness surrounding him, unknown shadows lurking behind swirls of colour. Other people trying to get close to him, but these shadows were in the way. There was no mistaking what this was supposed to represent. This is what she had thought of him. That he was lost, that these shadows were the things, the memories, he was fighting inside his mind. Words at the bottom made his blood boil.

You can't figure someone out until they do it themselves.

His thoughts flickered back to when they had first met. She had been reading an art book. She had mentioned that she had an assignment due where she had to "figure something out". She had chosen him. She had used him for a f*****g art project and he saw that it was obviously successful by the small bit of paper, paper clipped to the top right corner with a large A+ on it. Everything she had done was to figure him out. To get a f*****g A+ on an art assignment. Everything was a lie. Her kindness, her help. The kiss.

The kiss.

She had kissed him.

He could have been falling for her, trusting her, and she used him. All for a god damn grade.

Oliver stood up abruptly and threw the paper back on the desk before he grabbed his bag that was lying on the ground next to him.

"Oliver-," Mr. Hughes started just as his mother also stood up and called his name. But Oliver ignored them, and instead marched out of the room, taking off in a run before anyone could stop him.

He wasn't surprised when he saw that his parents were already home when he got there. Although he was running, he took several long cuts to try and calm himself down and the sky had turned dark before he returned home. He secretly wished he ran into John on the way, wanting to relieve some of the anger bubbling inside of him. He was sure a punch to John's face would make him feel less betrayed by the people who he was supposed to trust the most. But no such luck. Eventually he just settled for running until he could breathe again. Going from practicing football everyday to doing no physical exercise really takes its toll, and he forgot how good the feeling of exercise can be.

He stood outside for a few minutes, debating whether or not he wanted to go inside and face the wrath of his parents, but eventually, he gave in and hesitantly made his way to the front door.

"Oliver." His mother bombarded him as soon as he closed the front door behind him, not even giving him a chance to escape to his room.

"What?" He snapped, making his impatience obvious. He noticed his mothers eyes were red and puffy like she had been crying and his father stood on the other side of the living room, looking slightly tired and dishevelled, his shirt untucked and tie loose. He had yet to look at him.

"Sit down, we want to talk to you." His mother asked, gesturing to the couch that she had first tried to get him to talk on. He shifted his weight to the other foot but didn't move to the couch.

"I don't want to talk to you." He shrugged. His mother looked taken aback for a moment before she collected herself again.

"Well then, we want you to see a psychologist." Now it was Oliver's turn to be taken aback. A psychologist? Was this a joke? He laughed out loud, but there was no humour in it, and he didn't care that his parents knew that.

"No way."

"Then, please sit down and talk to us, honey." His mother urged tears threatening to overflow again, but it did nothing to sway him to open up to her. They couldn't know. No one could. "Please honey. You're obviously not coping with what happened and we think that if you just talked to us, then-,"

"I don't want to talk to you." Oliver said sternly, his voice rising with anger. "What I want, is for people to just leave me alone." His eye's flicked to his father who was staring at his feet, looking unsure of how to deal with the situation with a glass of what looked like scotch in his hand. He did it the same way he always did. By ignoring it, apparently. His anger bubbled. "Dad seems to have got the hang of it, maybe you should talk to him."

"Oliver." His mother called angrily as he went to leave, and the mere mention of him name pushed him over the edge. Why couldn't they leave him alone? That's all he wanted. He wanted to crawl up in bed and stay there until he died, not having to see anyone ever again. People hurt you, that's what they did. No matter how nice they seemed to be, they'll always hurt you in the end.

"WHAT?" He screamed turning to face her and his mother visibly jumped back. He'd never yelled to his mother. Sure, he'd spoken back to her when he got angry, but yelled? Never. "What the hell do you want from me? I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to a psychologist. I don't want to talk about what happened, because it never happened, right? You paid them their money, you got me back and it all just goes away. Right? So why don't you just go back to pretending like nothing's wrong, Dad can go back to ignoring me, and I'll go back to my room." And he turned away from his balling mother, and tried to ignore his own tears that were falling down his face. He ignored the calls from his mother to come back as he ran up the stairs to his bedroom, making sure to slam his door.

Who the f**k did they think they were? They didn't know the first thing about him and now they were trying to fix something that was past broken. He was shattered into a million pieces and he couldn't be put together by talking to his parents or a psychologist. He couldn't talk to them because he wasn't allowed.

Our little secret.

The words echoed and repeated in his mind as the tears fell involuntarily and as he paced the room, trying to remember how to breathe.

Our little secret. Our little secret. Our little secret.

He listened as he heard his parent's raised voices and knew they were fighting. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he didn't have to hear them to know that it was about him. About how to deal with him. About all the crap he's pulled. About the fight, about the grades, about being kicked off the team, about going to art club, about yelling at his mother, about being kidn*pped, and he couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to scream, to rip out his hair, to punch something, but most of all, he just wanted it all to end. He wanted the yelling to stop. He wanted the guilt to stop. The humiliation. He wanted the pitying looks to stop. He wanted the questions to stop. He wanted answers.

That's what he needed. Answers. And he knew who to get them from. George and B would have been his number one choice, but since they were somewhere unknown to him – probably spending all the money they got for him – and that he would most like collapse into a shaking, crying, puddle, they were out. His parents weren't even close to making the list for obvious reasons. They didn't know anything. How could they help him when they didn't know the answers? John was the last person he wanted to see, because he'd surely receive a punch to the face as pay back if he didn't get in a punch first, and John was just as naive as his parents were. No, the person he had to talk to was Daisy. He knew she couldn't give him a lot of answers, but she could give him some.

The thought of seeing Daisy though, made him falter. Could he face her without screaming his guts out? He thought to his mother with her wine and his father with his scotch. Maybe that was how he was supposed to deal with it, how he was supposed to calm himself down. He rummaged through the bottom draw of his chest of draws and pulled out the bottle of vodka that he kept hidden in case he was invited to a party. He had swiped it from his father's office months ago when John had thrown a party while his parents were out of town visiting his brother at college. He had only drunk a quarter of it before he had had enough, so now there was still three quarters left in the bottle, and that sounded fine to him. He just needed a little liquid courage to get him going. He unscrewed the bottle top and took a large swig of it, cringing as the horrid stuff burned as it went down his throat, but almost instantly, he felt the liquid warming his stomach.

He went to take another swig when he heard the front door slam shut and the shouting stopped. He could still briefly hear his mother sobbing, and knew that his father had left. He was surprised that he had left entirely rather than just hiding away in his office. But then again, it wasn't that surprising that his father had left him. He half expected that someone – most likely his mother – would come and check on him, but no one came. His father didn't come home and soon the house grew completely quiet, the staff having left for the night, his mother gone to bed, and Oliver, sitting on his bed downing alcohol. What if Daisy couldn't give him the answers he wanted. What if she completely blew him off? She had got what she wanted from him after all. A f*****g grade. How was Oliver supposed to return to his empty shell of a house if he didn't get answers? How was he supposed to make it through another day of school? Another day of ignoring, and if he was particularly unlucky, facing his parents? Facing John? Facing Mr. Hughes? f**k. He needed a plan B, and perhaps it was the alcohol clouding his better judgment, or the alcohol bringing light to what he really wanted – drunk words, sober thoughts after all – he snuck down stairs, his bottle still gripped tightly in his hand and made his way to his father's office to find plan B. He had to rummage through a few draws before he found it, but eventually, he was sneaking out the front door.

The gun stashed in his back pocket.