He stays on the ground a few seconds longer than he might have, not because he's hurt but rather because he's baffled by her intervention. It's wholly unexpected — actually, when he saw her in his class he figured she'd probably ignore him like she does at the tree, and he wouldn't blame her. He's doomed to be a social pariah. Between arriving a few weeks late into the school year, being too skinny, sporting a cast, and being weirdly too quiet to talk to anybody it was never in the stars for him to have a good first month here. Eventually he'll fade into the background and he won't even be remarkable enough to bully, but for right now he's an unfortunate novelty.
But there she is anyway — he recognizes her shoes before he recognizes her voice, and it takes another second for him to wrap his head around the fact that she's actually standing up for him. He's filled up with equal parts gratitude and embarrassment. Not, as one might suspect, because she's a girl, but rather because he's in a situation like this in the first place.
"It's okay," he says, pushing himself slowly to his feet. Foot, mostly, because three toes on his right side still twinge and ache when they're aggravated like this. "He can't read it anyway, he doesn't know how."
It's an unintentionally sick burn. Beau is in remedial language arts with a handful of other people officially-unofficially dubbed slow kids. Beau's face heats up to a furious shade of scarlet, and he bites out an enraged, "You stupid queer!"
Unfortunate timing; it's just loud enough and offensive enough to ping the radar of a nearby teacher, who storms over positively incensed by the language. That's all it really takes to get his groupies to scatter; they were already tentative allies after Blue's promise of a wrathful curse. Probably not true, but she has just enough of a reputation to leave them doubting. In his rage, Beau throws Jack's notebook at her... poorly, ineffectually. The covers flap open along the way, pages fanning out, slowing the momentum so it bounces harmlessly off her belly and lands pages-down, open, on the ground at her feet.
no subject
But there she is anyway — he recognizes her shoes before he recognizes her voice, and it takes another second for him to wrap his head around the fact that she's actually standing up for him. He's filled up with equal parts gratitude and embarrassment. Not, as one might suspect, because she's a girl, but rather because he's in a situation like this in the first place.
"It's okay," he says, pushing himself slowly to his feet. Foot, mostly, because three toes on his right side still twinge and ache when they're aggravated like this. "He can't read it anyway, he doesn't know how."
It's an unintentionally sick burn. Beau is in remedial language arts with a handful of other people officially-unofficially dubbed slow kids. Beau's face heats up to a furious shade of scarlet, and he bites out an enraged, "You stupid queer!"
Unfortunate timing; it's just loud enough and offensive enough to ping the radar of a nearby teacher, who storms over positively incensed by the language. That's all it really takes to get his groupies to scatter; they were already tentative allies after Blue's promise of a wrathful curse. Probably not true, but she has just enough of a reputation to leave them doubting. In his rage, Beau throws Jack's notebook at her... poorly, ineffectually. The covers flap open along the way, pages fanning out, slowing the momentum so it bounces harmlessly off her belly and lands pages-down, open, on the ground at her feet.