ch34 | ch35 | ch36 | ch37 | ch38
Paige’s head is hazy for the rest of the beginning of school. No matter what, he can’t get his mind off of all the stuff that was plastered all over his locker. What did it say? Why was it so horrible? Why did the whole school seem to be in on a joke he wasn’t?
When Paige leaves his fourth period class, he doesn’t even think twice about it as he heads to his locker. His head is so full of whys that he just lets himself follow his natural route to the lunchroom, where he always passes by his locker.
It’s not until he’s at it proper does he notice something.
All of the notes that were taped to the locker earlier have been replaced by one single neat note. It says, “I cleaned up that atrocious mess for you.” In a small circle under it is a smiley face. At the bottom, it’s signed S.S..
Paige plucks the note off of his locker to see it’s actually folded. He flips it over to read:
“P.S. If you have even the slightest inkling of who may have done this, please report them to the principal immediately.”
Paige blinks.
“Always need someone to clean up after you, huh Paige?” Leaf snickers., causing Paige to frown again.
“Can you please be nice to me?” he pleads. “Things are kind of scary for me right now!”
Leaf blows a small raspberry. “I’m sorry, do you want somebody to hold your hand?”
“Ugh!” Paige stomps his foot and whines. “I don’t know what your issue is, but I can’t deal with it and everything else right now!”
“Whatever,” Leaf says, rolling their eyes. “I’ll go and die then, I guess.”
“What?” Paige gasps.
…There’s no response.
“Leaf?”
Nothing.
Paige sighs. Leaf just kind of talked like that, didn’t they? He was sure they were okay.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
+++
“Paige,” Sue says as the teen approaches the lunch table he shared with his friends. There’s an urgent tone in their voice. “We know who committed the crime.”
“Crime?” he asks, sitting down and looking around. “Also, where’s Brandon?”
“He-he’s at th-e Dean’s,” Bro answers.
“What!?” Paige gasps. “Why!?”
“He’s reporting what happened to you.” Sue lifts an eyebrow. “You know. The crime.”
Paige squints. “...You mean the notes on my locker earlier?”
“Yeah,” Bro nods. “It was… i-it was…” They shake their head. “I—I’m just glad you d-didn’t see any of th-at.”
“Could it really have been that bad?” Paige asks with a small laugh in his voice as he opens his milk box.
Sue and Bro stare very seriously at Paige.
“...I guess it could have,” he frowns, taking a sip.
“Hey guys!” says a voice Paige is happy to hear. “Ya boy’s back!”
“Brandon!” Paige smiles, turning to the other as he approaches. “Hi!”
“Hey man,” Brandon grins, giving the other a Brotherly Pat On The Back. Paige only coughs a little bit. “You doin’ alright?”
“Yeah, I’m okay!” he nods. “My locker was cleaned up by someone!”
“Oh for real?” Brandon blinks. “Who?”
Paige shuffles around and pulls the note out of his pocket. “Here, look. They left this.”
The whole Crew looks at the note, passing it around. Sue holds onto it and stares at it hard. “I recognize this handwriting too.”
“Too?” Paige blinks.
“Ah, that’s right, you weren’t here,” Sue mumbles. “Brandon reported the notes because I was able to parse the handwriting of a couple of them.” They frown deeply. “It was PB and his lackeys again.”
“Again?” Paige laments. “What did I ever do to that guy to deserve this?”
“I-I th-ink he’s just like that,” Bro sighs.
“I guess…” Paige mumbles dejectedly. But then, he gasps suddenly. “Oh no! I never got to read O—” He coughs. “I-I never got to read my note from yesterday!”
“You also never gave me a new one, so I don’t have one for you today,” Brandon informs. “Might as well pretend like yesterday’s was today’s, I guess.”
Paige nods and digs out the note from where he had haphazardly shoved it into his bag the day before. He smooths it out once he’s got it.
Yesterday’s note reads:
“Perhaps a meet up should happen sooner than later then, hm? I tend to be a lot more verbose in the flesh, but I’m always happy to talk to you, should you be willing to listen. Though, something tells me I might already know how you feel on the matter. ♥
(P.S.
I’m glad you had a fun time recently! I can only imagine what going on those rides with your friend was like, but I hope to experience the same with you at some point… maybe even next year? Heehee!)”
Paige’s day has been pretty bad so far, but the note makes his heart swell. OJ could pretend like they didn’t both know for as long as he wanted. Paige was more than happy to play this game with him!
+++
When Paige gets home, his mom is absent as usual. Her job kept her busy during the week, and sometimes during the weekends.
But honestly? Today was for the best. Because Paige tosses his bag down and sits down angrily on his bed, crossing his arms. “Okay,” he frowns. “Leaf, what’s happening with you right now? You’ve been so mean to me recently, and I don’t get it!”
Leaf does not respond.
“Leaf!”
“God, what? What?” they growl. “What the hell do you want?”
“I want you to stop being so distant!” Paige shouts, curling up. “You said you came here to protect me… but you’ve been nothing but mean for like the past couple of weeks now!”
“Hmph.” Leaf huffs. “You don’t actually care.”
“Why in the world would you think that?” Paige pouts. “I’m literally trying to get you to open up to me right now!”
“......”
“Leaf,” Paige pleads. “Please.”
Leaf sighs heavily. “Look, me and Brandon had an… argument.”
“What? When?”
“That Sunday after we watched those movies.”
“Oh…” Paige frowns. “I was asleep for most of that day…”
“Yeah.” Leaf frowns. “So I said something fucking stupid. And he left.”
“Okay?” Paige says. “But you apologized right?”
Leaf is silent.
“Leaf,” Paige despairs. “You didn’t apologize?”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Leaf laughs. “You’ve been sooooo busy with your little boytoy I don’t think I ever found the time!”
“Boyt—” Paige flushes. “Do you have something against OJ or something too?”
“I don’t care about that nerd.” Leaf says, rolling their eyes.
“Hey!”
“Oh, be quiet. You’ve literally called him a nerd before.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But nothing.”
Paige groans. “Look, this doesn’t matter right now! You’ve gotta apologize to Brandon right now!”
“Are you out of your mind?” Leaf frowns. “He’ll probably just tell me he wants me to die and then I’ll do something stupid again and you’ll be even more mad at me and I’ll just have to kill myself—”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Paige says, waving his hands in front of him. “None of that is gonna happen! You just have to say sorry and everything will be okay!”
“It won’t,” Leaf says sternly. “And I’ll show you.”
Paige opens his mouth to ask what Leaf means, but then he’s suddenly not in control of his body. He watches as an angry Leaf finds his phone on the bed and dials Brandon’s number.
“Ayo!” Brandon greets as he picks up. “What’s up, dude?”
“I’m sorry,” Leaf says roughly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Brandon is quiet for a moment before laughing. “Dude, what’re you talking about? Said what?”
“Last week,” Leaf continues. Their voice hasn’t gotten any less scratchier. It’s like they’re purposefully pushing it to be like that.
“...Paige?” Brandon asks warily.
“Leaf,” the teen sighs.
Brandon immediately scoffs. “You sure have some fucking nerve.” His tone has changed viscerally. “What, Paige ‘asleep’ again or something? You gonna try and get more info out of me? Huh?”
Leaf opens his mouth and makes noises, but they’re definitely not words. Paige can feel how hurt Leaf feels. It’s almost overwhelming.
“Oh, speechless, are we?” Brandon huffs with a laugh. “Cat got your goddamned tongue? ‘Cause it didn’t seem to have anything when you pulled that cheap trick.”
“I said I was sorry!” Leaf shouts.
“Over the phone?” Brandon asks. “Out of nowhere? Probably without Paige’s permission? Over a week later?” He laughs, but it doesn’t sound quite right. “Leaf, you’re a goddamned piece of work.”
“I—”
“Heyyyy.” Brandon’s voice has lost all emotion, becoming bland. “Do me a favor?”
“O-okay?”
Brandon’s voice is sharp when he speaks again. “Don’t fucking call me again. In fact, don’t even talk to me. I don’t ever wanna hear your voice again.”
And with that, the line goes dead.
Leaf listens as the line beeps, signifying the end of the call. Their head is filled with static of all kinds. Thick, thick layers upon layers of static.
Something comes over them. Some want. Some need.
“L-Leaf?” Paige asks, worry in his voice. “Are… are you okay?”
They can’t help it. Leaf laughs. And laughs. And laughs.
“What the FUCK do you think?” they finally spit. “What the fuck do you really and truly think I feel like right now?”
“Um.”
“Yeah. Um.”
Leaf breathes heavily, clutching their head. “Why the fuck did I say anything,” they mumble. “I should’ve kept my fucking mouth shut like I was doing. But no!” Leaf laughs. “I had to hurry up and apologize or some shit, right? Because that would fix everything?”
“Leaf…” Paige warbles. “That’s not fair…”
“Oh, shut the fuck up!” Leaf stomps their foot to punctuate it. “I’m sick of this shit! I come back just to help you and I’m treated like a fucking villain because, what? I expect people to act like how I know they do?”
“You didn’t come back for me,” Paige says, a little mad. “You came back for Kevin.”
“Because your ass wouldn’t have done anything!” Leaf shouts back. “I had to do it!”
“Why? Kevin didn’t ask you for help.”
“Ugh!!!” Leaf pulls their hands out of their hair and holds themself, clawing at their arms. It doesn’t do any damage through the hoodie they're still wearing, but it makes them feel better anyways. “You’re the worst! I do something that you’d never do! I get revenge for one of our best friends! I try to learn one thing and I piss off our other best friend so much he wants me dead!” They fall down on their bed and push their hands into their eyes. “It’s not fucking fair!!”
“Leaf…” Paige mumbles.
“And now!” Leaf shouts, sniffling, “Now, I have you all mad at me! What the fuck am I then? What good am I?” They laugh humorlessly. “Nothing. Fucking garbage.” They fall down sideways on the bed. “I need to be thrown away.”
“No you don’t!” Paige cries. “You just… you just need to calm down a bit…”
“Calm down?” Leaf laughs, blubbery. “You want—you want me to calm down?” They sniff. “I’ll show you what makes me fucking calm.”
The teen rises, vitriol and rage and just plain anger flowing throughout their bloodstream. It was like they could physically feel themself heating up.
Blood boiling, they stomp into Quinn’s room and then her bathroom, an odd smile pulling at their face.
“Leaf?” Paige asks quietly. “What are we doing here?”
“Oh?” Leaf says kindly. “Did I not tell you?” Their voice gains its natural edge again as they spit, “I’m showing you what makes me calm!”
Leaf laughs maniacally as they open the cabinet where their mom kept her razors to shave with.
“Leaf!” Paige shouts. “What are you doing!?”
Leaf pulls out a box of brand new razors and takes one out. “You know exactly what I’m doing,” he scoffs.
He goes to roll up his sleeve, but suddenly, he can’t seem to move.
“You’re not—I’m not gonna let you do that!!” Paige shouts, dropping the thing along with the rest of the box into the sink. He’s making the both of them tremble. “Leaf! Wh-what the heck!!”
“Whatever,” Leaf huffs, angry. “What the fuck ever.”
“No, not what the eff ever!” Paige yells, scrambling back into his room. “Leaf, you were about to—you—” He breathes heavily. “You—!”
“Get over it,” Leaf says, rolling their eyes. They use all their power to hide how mad and upset and hurt and pained they feel. If Paige wanted to be mad at them, then he could be mad at a husk.
“I—No!” Paige curls into a ball on the floor, back against his bed. “I can’t let you do this anymore, Leaf!”
“Do what? Protect you and our friends?”
“You haven’t done any ‘protecting’ in ages! You just tried to hurt us!!”
“It wouldn’t have hurt you,” Leaf says nonchalantly. “Big baby. Unlike you, I know how to take a bit of pain.” They snort. “Not like I didn’t suffer the worst from Mack or anything.”
Paige’s whole body becomes limp as he sighs. “I’m not going to take this from you,” he says quietly. “You can’t come in here out of nowhere, hurt my friends and family and me and expect me to just deal with you.”
Leaf laughs. “Oh, I’m something to deal with now, huh?” Their tone becomes like steel, but there’s still a challenging smile in it. “Then deal with me.”
Leaf knows they have nothing to worry about. Paige is too scared to do anything. Ever. Even if he could do something, there was no way—
“F-fine…” Paige says pensively. “Fine. You… you asked for this.”
The teen clasps his hands together and strains for a moment. Leaf doesn’t know what that’s supposed to do, but it’s obviously not doing anythi—
…was that the sound of something cartoonishly falling?
Leaf looks up just in time to see a bottomless red cage fall overtop of them, bars plentiful and tight together. They blink.
“...What.”
“I—I can’t trust you!” Paige cries as Leaf grabs at a bar and begins to shake with rage. “What if I fall asleep and I wake up in the hospital again because of you!? I—I can’t—!”
“Oh so what, you’re gonna cage me? Cage me for forever or until you need me again or some shit?” Leaf laughs. They laugh and laugh and laugh. “Okay. Fine. Cage me.” They sit and turn away from Paige, crossing their arms. “See if I fucking care.”
“...I’m sorry,” Paige says quietly.
Leaf does not respond.
“Honey…? Honey, wake up…!”
Paige yawns as he’s gently rocked awake feeling completely drained. “Mm… hi?” he asks, rubbing an eye.
He’s then suddenly being held in a crushing hug by none other than his mom. “Oh my god, you’re alright,” they breathe. “Oh, I was so worried…” They run a hand down the back of his head and keep it there, holding Paige impossibly tighter. “Oh, sweetie…”
“M-Mom…?” Paige struggles out. “What’s—what’s wrong…?”
Quinn loosens their grip a bit, enough for Paige to be able to breathe again. “Baby,” they warble, tears in their eyes. “Promise me you’ll never do anything like this again, okay? Please.”
“Mom, what are you talking about?” Paige questions, worried. “You’re starting to scare me…”
“You?” Quinn gasps, pulling back and looking their son in the eyes. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!” They rub at their eyes. “I come home and my brand new box of razors is open and all over the sink. Then I come into your room to check on you, and you’re passed out on the floor!”
Paige furrows his eyebrows, trying to remember what he was doing on the floor in the first place. And why his mom was worried over a box of razors that he didn’t even—
Oh.
It all comes flooding back.
Everything that happened after he had come home, everything that was said since he had come home. And…
He looks within himself to see Leaf still caged, on the floor and breathing evenly, asleep.
Paige remembers everything that had been done after he came home.
“Baby?” Quinn asks, moving a hand to hold his cheek. “Promise me if things ever get that bad again, you’ll tell me first, okay? You’ll tell me and we’ll work it out, okay?” They hold him close again. “You never have to do anything like that again.”
“Mom, Mom, calm down…” He pushes away from them lightly. “I’m okay, I’m okay. I didn’t—I didn’t do anything.” He pulls away enough to take his hoodie off and roll up his sleeves. “Look, see? I didn’t—I wouldn’t…”
“Then… why were all my razors scattered everywhere in my bathroom? And why were you on the floor in a heap?”
“I…” Paige bites his lip. How the heck was he supposed to explain his way out of this one? “I-I….”
“Paige, honey,” Quinn smiles, water still in their eyes, “If you even have ideas of doing that, you come and tell me first. Okay? You can tell me anything.”
“But…” That’s not…
“No but’s!” Quinn swallows their child in another hug. “Please, baby. I don’t know what I’d do if I came home and I had lost you.”
“I…” Paige sighs. Maybe he ought to just let this go for now. He could try and explain properly another time. “Okay, Mom. I-I’m sorry I…”
“No, it’s okay honey,” Quinn is quick to shush. “It’s okay. I’ll clean them up and then we can have dinner together and you can get to sleep on your actual bed, alright?”
“Alright…”
Quinn nods and smiles a watery smile before lifting up and holding out a hand for Paige. He grabs it and his mom lifts him up as well. “I’ll start making something,” his mom starts. “And you can do your nightly routine. By the time you’re done, maybe there’ll still be some stuff to do and we can cook together, okay?”
Paige nods sullenly. “Okay.”
+++
The only word Paige can think of to describe his current situation is despondent. Everything seems far, far away as he moves like a ghost from one room to the next, class after class. Even when he gets to lunch, he stares down blandly at his food, uninterested in eating.
“Paige?” Bro asks suddenly, surprising the teen.
“Huh?” he blinks slowly.
“Y-you alright?” Bro frowns sadly. “Y-ou’ve kind of j-just been staring at y-our food th-is whole time. A-and you h-aven’t said anything s-ince you—since you got here.” He puts a hand on Paige’s shoulder. “I-is there something—something you want t-to talk about…?”
Paige hums slowly, looking off to the side. Sue and Brandon are still in the middle of an animated conversation, talking about who knows what. They’re going so fast, Paige can barely keep up.
“I’m… I’m alright,” Paige lies. “I’m just… tired.”
Bro doesn’t look convinced, but Brandon asks him something and he gets distracted, answering before turning back to Paige. “L-look… I know—I know that—that the past couple of days haven’t—-haven’t been…” Bro bites his lip. “They’ve kind—they’ve kind of been shit for you, huh?”
Despite himself, Paige lets out a small laugh. Bro rarely swore, so it was always a bit funny to hear them do it. “It… has,” he agrees. “But really, I’m fine.”
Bro stares at Paige for what feels like forever. And then they say, “I-if you’re sure, Paige.” They then return to the conversation at hand, but Paige can feel their gaze on him for the rest of the lunch period.
+++
Thursday and Friday are a repeat of Wednesday, Paige blearily walking through his life. But on Friday, lunch is a bit different.
While he had spent the other two days “resting his eyes” until the bell rung, this time when he sits down at the table, everyone is pensive in one way or another, all twitchy.
“Hi…?” he greets warily. “What’s um… what’s up guys?”
“Dude,” Brandon says stiffly, “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing,” Paige answers for what must be the umpeenth time in the past couple of days.”I’m fine. Just tired.”
Brandon stares long and hard at Paige. Then, with a certain tone in his voice quietly goes, “You are Paige, right?”
“What?” Paige blinks. “Of course I am,” he waves off, putting his head down and huffing humourlessly. “Heh… who else would I be?”
He can’t help it. After just a second of silence, he giggles. He giggles and giggles, tickled so deeply. Who else would I be? he asked, as if everyone currently here wouldn’t know the answer to that question.
Of course, there’s no way they’d know what had happened, but maybe that was for the best.
“Mm…” Brandon hums, but he doesn’t press. “Well, you know… you uh…” He mumbles to himself a bit before continuing, “You haven’t given me a note in a while!” He gently ribs Paige. “Don’t you wanna write up another one so I can go back to delivering them? I don’t wanna lose my job, haha!”
Paige stares blandly at Brandon, blinking slowly. “Maybe,” is all he says.
“Paige,” Sue speaks up, sounding serious as they thump the table a bit. “You have to tell us what’s wrong if we’re to help.”
“Nothing’s wrong!” Paige snaps, only to gasp at himself. He never yells at his friends like that…
Maybe there was something wrong.
It’s not like you deserve the help, though, laughs some voice in his head. The worst part? It sounds like his own voice and not Leaf’s, which is extremely distressing.
Suddenly, Paige stands up. “I don’t feel well,” he says tightly. “I’m going to see Ms. Tiseu.”
“Paige, wait—” Sue tries.
Paige ignores them. “Bye, guys.” He takes his untouched food tray and pushes it in front of Brandon, a silent offering. He then turns and leaves off to the nurse’s office.
+++
Paige makes up a story about him slipping and hitting his head in the hallway,citing it as the reason he needed to go home as soon as possible. Ms. Tiseu knows about how fragile Paige can be, so it’s a good enough lie to get his aunt to come pick him up and take him home.
“Mijo…” Carmen frowns as he buckles the teen in. “You’ve got to be more careful… We don’t want to see you in the hospital again anytime soon, okay?”
“Okay, Aunt Carmen,” Paige nods slowly. “Can we go home now?”
“Of course, sweetie.” He kisses the top of Paige’s head and goes to the front of the car, getting in and pulling off soon after.
Paige dozes as they drive, head swimming. He feels nauseous, but he can’t place the exact reason why.
This was awful.
Ping!
Paige blinks up at his bedroom’s ceiling as his phone’s text tone goes off. At first, he decides not to answer it, but then it goes off again.
Ping!
And again.
Ping! Ping!
And finally, Paige just gets frustrated enough to check the thing.
There’s several different texts. One is from Brandon, a simple “here for u” having been sent. Another is from Sue, a gif that says “GWS” is in bright, light up letters. Next to it is a small drawing of a plain faced Sue with a thumbs up.
That one, admittedly, makes Paige smile a bit.
Then there are two from OJ.
They read, “Paige, I was informed earlier today that you aren’t having the best of times recently. Is that why you haven’t texted in a bit? I of course have no issue with texting less, but if it’s because you’re not feeling well, I’d like to know so maybe I could help?”
The second one goes on to say, “I don’t mean to pry, of course, but I worry about you. You’re one of my dear friends and you mean a lot to me. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, alright? Anything at all. I’ll text you later to check in, but feel free to tell me if you’d rather be left alone for right now. I will absolutely respect your wishes.”
Ugh. Now even OJ knew something was wrong. At this point, the whole school would know something was wrong with him. And then it’d get out that he had another person in his head. And he’d be treated like some sort of roadside attraction, people coming up to him and begging to see Leaf, telling him they’d pay him and everything to just do it once! Just do it once!...
…Paige realizes he’s shaking. When did that happen?
+++
The next day, Quinn stays home. “I thought we could make pancakes and watch your favorite movie today!” she grins after he wakes up around 2 in the afternoon. “I did think you would’ve gotten up sooner, but that’s alright. We can have pancakes whenever!”
Paige actually smiles a bit, his mom’s happiness being infectious. “Alright,” he yawns. “Let’s make pancakes.”
Quinn jumps up off of the couch and claps her hands, rubbing them together. “Alright! Mother-son bonding time a-go-go!”
She’s so full of life and vigor, it restores some of Paige’s. He’s smiling passively, happy at the thought he and his mom get the chance to do something together for the first time in what feels like forever.
But then, once they get to the kitchen, all of the wind in Quinn’s sails dry up. “Um,” she giggles. “Paige, sweetie?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“We don’t have any pancake mix.”
Paige can’t help it. He bursts out into a laugh. “Mom!” he giggles, “How long have you been up?”
“Since around 10…” she answers shyly.
“And you didn’t think to check if we had mix this whole time?” He’s honestly laughing the hardest he’s laughed in a hot minute now. “Silly!”
“Oh, c’mon!” she laughs along with him. “Give you Mama a break, will ya? I just got so, so—” she ruffles her kid’s hair, “—soooo excited to make some pancakes with my little man I forgot!”
Paige swats her hand away weakly, big grin on his face. “Mooom!” he giggles.
Quinn giggles back, and then she sighs. “It’s good to see you happy again, kiddo.” Her smile turns sad. “You were really starting to worry me there.”
Paige sobers a bit, looking away. “I’m alright, Mom,” he assures. “It’s just been a rough couple of days.”
Quinn’s expression grows knowing for a second, and then she sighs. “Yeah. I know, buddy. We can talk about it after the pancakes, alright?”
Paige is a bit confused, but nods anyways. He’s not entirely sure what Quinn means, but he’s very curious to find out.
“Okay then!” Quinn claps. “I’m gonna go run to Family Dollar and get us some pancake mix!” She exits the kitchen and calls behind her. “I’ll be back in like, two shimmies of a dog’s tail or whatever!”
Paige laughs quietly. “Okay!” he calls back.
The door closes and locks a second later, and Paige sighs, slumping. What was he supposed to do about all this? It looked like he was gonna have to tell his mom about Leaf before he was ready and he didn’t even have a single person to talk about it with. Brandon was furious with Leaf, Sue was great and all, but they weren’t the best when it came to emotions, there’s no way he was going to tell OJ, and Bro—
Wait! Bro! That was it!
Paige rushes upstairs for his phone and almost calls Bro straight away, but catches himself. Bro didn’t like it when you called without texting, so he quickly shoots him a, “Can we call? It’s important”.
It only takes a moment before, “ya” shows up on his screen, and then it’s being lit up with the call interface. Paige picks up immediately.
“Bro,” Paige breathes, “I-I need help.”
“O-okay,” Bro says “With what?”
“You—you know… u-um…” How did Paige even begin to describe what was happening with him? “You know how—how there’s—You know Leaf, right?”
“Y-yeah,” Bro confirms. “We t-talked to them that—that one time, r-remember?”
“Oh, right,” Paige sighs. “Sorry, I—It’s—Something happened. With Leaf.”
“S-something… bad?” Bro asks.
“Something bad,” Paige nods.
“...Is it—is it okay if s-someone else talks for m-me?”
“Of course, Bro. Just let me know who it is.
“A-alright. G-give me a second.”
A couple of moments pass before the person on the other end of the line clears their throat. “Hii Paige!” they greet. “It’s Maxine.”
“Hello, Maxine,” Paige greets back. “U-um… Bro said you could help?”
“Tell me what’s poppin’, girly-pop,” Maxine says, playful tone in his voice.
“Um… okay…” Paige bites his lip. “So Leaf did something… something dangerous. With my body.”
“Dangerous how?” Maxine asks.
“H-he was going to hurt us.”
“Oh shit,” Maxine gasps. “Paige, buddy, you alright?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I-it was a couple days ago now.”
“Is that why you’ve been all down in the dumps?”
Paige’s mouth becomes a flat line. “Y-yeah. I guess so.”
“Okay,” Maxine sighs, “Okay. So, he did something dangerous. What did you do about that?”
“I… kind of… locked him up…?”
“What.”
Paige groans. “What else was I supposed to do!? I—I don’t know what he would’ve done when I wasn’t looking! And he’s been hurting people physically and emotionally, and—”
“Okay, okay, buddy.” Maxine cuts off, sounding a bit overwhelmed.
“Sorry,” Paige mumbles.
“No, look, it’s okay.” Maxine pauses and then hums. “Well, no. It’s not okay. You shouldn’t just be locking Leaf away. That’s never gonna solve nothing!”
“But—!”
“Look, Paiges. You wanted our advice, right?”
“Um… yes…?”
“Well, the council has decided. You gotta find some way to make everything livable in there for the both of you.” Maxine sighs. “I mean, if you’re like, scared for your life, maybe try to find some way to let him out without letting him take control?”
“I don’t know if I can do that…”
“Well, okay. How about this: you let Leaf out with the caveat that if he tries something again he’s grounded or whatever.”
“Grounded?”
“You’ll… have to lock him up for a bit more, I guess.” Maxine doesn’t sound very happy about his suggestion, but it also sounds like he doesn’t have any other ideas either. “Look, we can workshop the grounding. Let’s just get him out for right now, okay?”
“Okay,” Paige nods.
“You gonna do it right now? You want us to stay on the line?”
Paige is about to say yes, but the sound of the front door opening catches him off guard. “Oh, Mom’s home actually. But I won’t forget about Leaf. Mom wanted to talk to me about something, so I’ll let him out after that?”
“Sounds like a plan, nerd.”
“Nerd…?”
“Call back if you need help, ‘kay?”
“Um… okay.”
“Ciao!” The phone beeps, signifying the call’s end.
Paige sighs before lightly slapping his cheeks, pepping himself up.
Make and have pancakes with his mom, watch Finding Nemo, talk about something, let Leaf out.
Alright. He could do this.
+++
“Okay, kiddo,” Quinn says, turning the TV down. They had finished their pancakes some time ago and Finding Nemo just finished playing in full. “It’s time we get down to brass tax.”
“Brass tax?” Paige asks.
Quinn sighs. “You know the school calls me if something happens with you, right?”
“Okay?” Paige says, furrowing his brows. “But nothing’s happened.”
“Paige,” Quinn says, putting a hand on his shoulder, “Baby, what happened to you is no joke.”
“No, seriously Mom,” Paige frowns. “Nothing happened?”
Quinn looks really upset. “You got hatecrimed, Paige!”
Paige blinks a couple times and hard. “I… What?”
Hatecrimed…?
What in the world—
“Mom, what in the world are you talking about?”
“Paige, do you not remember seeing your locker covered in those horrible notes a couple of days ago?”
“N—oh!” Paige jolts. “The notes on my locker! I… I never got to read them. Everyone told me to stay away from them. By the time I was able to see them, they were gone.”
Quinn sighs in relief. “You never even saw them?” Paige shakes his head and Quinn lets out a laugh. “Oh my god, you never even saw them!”
“Mom?”
Quinn moves over and hugs her son, only to noogie him gently. “You’re something else, Paige. Even when bad things happen to you, good people are always around to help you, aren't they?” She looks at Paige with love. “My lucky book of Paiges.”
Paige thinks of all the many, many things that were going on in his life right now, and chuckles awkwardly. He wouldn’t exactly call himself lucky but… No need to upset his mom with that right now.
“I love you too, Mom,” he says with a small smile. “But… if I never saw them, was it really a hatecrime?”
Quinn frowns. “Of course it is!” she says loudly. “Paige, it was a targeted attack against you!”
“Yeah, but…”
“No but’s!” Quinn says, shaking her head. “You know what, we should sue. Teach the little so-and-so who did this to you to take responsibility for his actions.”
“Sue?” Paige repeats, confused. “Mom, we don’t have to sue anybody over this, really.”
“But we should! It’s despicable what they did to you. Even if you didn’t see the notes, they still affected you, didn’t they?”
Paige opens his mouth but then pauses, thinking. There was the fact he was anxiety ridden the whole rest of that day. And how awful it felt to have people laughing at him. And how alienated he’d felt after the fact.
“...Yeah,” he finally says. “It did.”
“Then they shouldn’t get away with hurting you like that,” Quinn frowns.
“But, Mom, think about it. The amount of money, the amount of time, the amount of police and reporters and everything…” Paige shivers. “I don’t wanna go through that anymore than you would.”
Quinn tries and fails to come up with some sort of rebuttal, but ultimately gives up. “You’re right,” she sighs. “And I don’t wanna do anything that would upset you.” She pats his head. “I’m sorry, buddy.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Paige reassures, leaning into the touch. “I’ll be okay.”
“I know you’ll be,” Quinn smiles. “I know you’ll be.”
+++
After that, Paige goes to school on Monday feeling… not happy, per say, but not freaking out either. He’s able to pay attention to his classes a bit and actually answers some questions correctly. And best of all, lunch would be returning to normal.
Why? Well, because Paige had written a note to be ferried off to OJ last night. He’d given it to Brandon this morning before they split up and now he was almost guaranteed to be getting one back.
So, when he sits down at the Bro Crew’s usual table, he’s pretty excited. “Hey guys!” he greets.
“You got well soon,” Sue smiles.
Paige laughs. “Something like that,” he says. “Oh, but!” He turns to his brother. “Brandon! Did I get a note? Did I get a note?”
Brandon laughs. “You did, king! Calm down!” He digs through his bag before pulling out the note, handing it over to Paige, who reads it with a dumb look on his face.
Things continue on for about two weeks like this. Knowing notes fly back and forth as Paige and OJ play a silly game neither of them really needed to. Because of this, there’s a calm throughout the entire Bro Crew, Paige included. Things were finally starting to go well for him again.
It’s not until Paige’s mind wanders to Leaf one night does he realize—
He had never let Leaf out!
“Oh, shoot!” he swears, closing his eyes and looking inside himself. What he sees makes him gasp hard and start shivering.
Leaf is curled up and trembling in the cage, but it’s not how Paige left it. Instead, it’s shrunk down on them, leaving barely enough space to get up. Inside of it is a cold snowstorm, heavy snow covering the ground and Leaf’s tattered clothing.
Paige doesn’t know how or why that happened to it, but he shakes his head. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on it, now was the time for action.
Again, Paige clasps his hands together and thinks and wills really hard for something to happen. It takes a moment of straining, but the sound of the storm soon clears up. When Paige looks again, Leaf is still on the ground and covered in snow, but the cage and clouds are all gone.
“Leaf!” Paige cries, running over to him. He pushes away the snow on top of him. “Leaf, wake up!”
Leaf’s eyes are shut tight as they shiver and shake. “C-c-c-old…” they chitter.
“Um! Um!” Paige thinks hard about a green blanket covering Leaf, and when the other moves under him, he looks to find they’re now starting to clutch at that exact blanket.
“H-h-hel-p…” Leaf all but begs. Paige nods and takes the blanket, wrapping it around the other. “Th-anks…” they cough once the deed is done.
“Leaf, what happened here while I was gone?”
Leaf chuckles a bit, but it devolves into a cough. “I started—I started th-inking. A-about everything I’d done.” They cuddle up closer to their blanket. “A-and I thought, ‘wow, I-I d-eserve to go to h-ell, h-huh?’”
“But? Th-the snowstorm…?”
“Your hell m-might be hot, b-but not mine,” Leaf laughs a bit painfully, looking away. “It’s s-so cold…”
“Leaf…” Paige is so distraught. He didn’t know ignoring Leaf like this, by accident or not, would make something like this happen.
“Can you—c-can you do that m-magic shit w-with like, a-a space heater or s-something?”
“Oh!” Paige gasps. “Y-yeah!”
Paige does his magic thing as requested, popping a fireplace into the dark room. It lights it up a bit, but not enough to see any sort of walls yet.
“Yess…” Leaf hisses, pushing out his hands. “F-fuck yes.”
Paige sits there quietly as Leaf warms up steadily, thinking hard. This was all his fault. He was supposed to have let Leaf out weeks ago. He can’t believe he forgot!
“H-hey,” Leaf grins. “Shut th-e fuck up w-ith that.”
“What?” Paige blinks.
“Y-you forgot,” he sighs, “So what? I—I deserved th-at, I think.” Paige opens his mouth, but Leaf shushes him. “I-I did!” he asserts. “I did—I did you s-so bad.”
Paige is quiet. They’re right, they were pretty awful to Paige for a while there. But stil…
“Maybe you deserved something, but not this.”
“S-sure, man,” Leaf says, tossing an arm up. “Wh-whatever you say. C-an you get in bed and get under the covers n-now?”
“Oh!” Paige jolts up in reality, shivering. Oh, he didn’t like that he was a bit cold.
He slips under his bedsheets and holds on to Teds, warming up immediately. “Is this better?” he asks.
“Y-yeah,” Leaf nods.
Paige sighs. “We’re gonna have to talk about this.”
“...Yeah,” Leaf says again. “Just… g-give me a bit.”
Paige nods back, and does just that.