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3864 Words
Like every morning, I walked through the school doors and was mobbed by my friends. It was always like that and I didn't complain about it. I was the most popular guy in the school.
By responding kindly to a few winks from girls I didn't even know, I already knew they would be talking about it all week.
What do you want ? It wasn't every day that Kyle Morgane deigned to embarrass himself. My little attentions were usually only reserved for those who really pleased me. The others, nothing to do. So these idiots were making films for nothing.
Whatever… “You never know,” they say. When they approach later (which they never failed to do), I might come across a good specimen. I might not look it, but I wasn't the type of guy who wanted to get all the local girls. Half of it worked just fine for me. Thus I retained an inaccessible side for others who found me surrounded by mystery. To maintain the myth, there was no better tactic.
Looking around a bit, I quickly spotted my most intimate group of friends. There were around ten of them. It was a lot, but what could I do if everyone wanted to be friends with Kyle Morgan? I waved at them to allow them to notice me in turn and waited for them to come towards me but at the same time, another little star of the place made his entrance and I stopped to watch him pass.
Unlike me, he tried to make himself as small as possible, but in reality, he would have needed a magic wand to pull off such a trick.
The poor. I mentally laugh about it.
In my high school there were VIPs and then Loosers. The last category included the weirdos, the ugly ones, the bespectacled ones, the fat ones, etc. But when all his latecomers came together in one single person, he was called the king of losers and his name was Eric Portman.
To be fair, he was far from crazy. But for the rest…
Well, I didn't really know. I never really paid attention to it. But if he had one characteristic that couldn't go unnoticed, it was his weight. Yes, even a blind person wouldn't miss it.
When he passed like that, you had to make room for him if you didn't want to end up flattened like a pancake.
Find out why he felt obliged to walk to class almost every day. It made him sweat like crazy and covered in sweat as he was, no one wanted to go near him.
Did he at least know about public transport? But hey, with him in it, I couldn't imagine the machine moving. Haha.
Yes, that’s how unfair life is. There were people in his category, those who had nothing going for them, and then there were people like me. Those who had everything.
After all, no one had forced him to stuff himself to this extent either.
Just as I was thinking this, he came up to me. Our eyes met for a moment but he quickly lowered his. It was the first time I saw him so ready. He looked even bigger than usual.
But, I noticed something else. Something I couldn't have seen from afar.
He had beautiful eyes. Beautiful emerald eyes with sometimes dark and sometimes bright reflections...
I despaired of ever finding something for him. This is done.
At least the next time the girls made fun of him, I could tell them he had irresistible eyes. It wasn't likely to change much, but sometimes, when I heard others criticize him, I felt a little like defending him. A tiny bit.
Yes, I have a heart of Gold, I know.
As soon as my friends were in front of me, I as suddenly forgot the insignificant Eric Portman as I had found myself paying attention to him.
My day was in no way different from the ones I usually spent between my classes and the little mental breaks I took from time to time, when the inexhaustible flow of words coming out of the teachers' mouths began to get on my nerves. .
In these cases, I would simply lay my head on my table and escape for a bit.
During a break, while a lively debate was taking place within my group of friends about the new pair of t**s of a girl I had my eye on recently, my gaze fell on him. Eric Portman. Without really knowing why. He wasn't even next to me and normally I wouldn't have lingered there, but an idea had just sprouted in my big genius head and I smiled.
As soon as the bell rang announcing the end of classes, I told my best friend, Franck, that I wouldn't be able to drop him off at his place but that he could take my car which I would pick up the next day. From the funny look he gave me, I guessed that the questions were going to rain down and I ran away.
He must have thought that it had to be a girl thing and that was fine.
I then waited patiently at the exit for Portman to pass. I ended up completely losing track of time while quietly playing on my smartphone when he finally passed by me without even noticing me.
Mechanically, I checked the time.
Casually, it had been almost an hour since I had been waiting. What a waste of time ! But hey… I was a little prepared for it. He always waited for the school to empty out a little (especially those in our class) to get moving. I guessed it was to avoid being noticed. Others weren't always kind to him.
I waited until he was a few meters away from me and then hurried to catch up.
Once at his height I said to him:
- hello Portman!
He must not have expected it because he jumped as if the devil himself had just spoken to him and his surprise grew even more when he realized that it was me.
Yeah. I could understand that even the devil couldn't compete with me.
- s… s… sa… read… he stammered.
Hmm, I impressed him. I liked doing that effect.
- So, how are you? I say, I sometimes pass by there but I have never met you. I wonder why.
- uh… I…
Did this fat guy want to make my job easier? These stutters were almost annoying.
- okay, well it doesn't matter. I continued anyway in a tone that was meant to be pleasant. We could walk together sometimes. You want ?
It’s Kyle Morgane himself who suggested it to you, I thought without saying it.
-…
-…
-…
At this rate we had it for years...
Was he so stupid that he couldn't form a complete sentence?
" Yes yes. Of course I want to… "
Oh well there you go…
This is how a beautiful story of friendship was born between the one who was at the top and the one who was at the bottom. Finally, it was especially him who believed in this friendship. Because after the execution of the magnificent plan that I had hatched, it was no longer of much use to me.
My plan? It was very simple. Simple but beautiful. The two biggest celebrities of the school being “buddy-buddy”, it inevitably caused a stir. Especially since everyone understood that it was my big, sensitive heart that had pushed me to make this heroic gesture. Flying to the aid of a poor, martyred kid. What greatness of heart all the same! It took courage to endure the company of Eric Portman.
The fairer s*x had literally melted in front of a soul as pure as mine. My rating had skyrocketed. Even the completely stuck-up people who thought I was just a braggart now said I was a good person.
Eric was not to be pitied either. It was a win-win because everyone got what they wanted. He was no longer the beast that everyone observed curiously or verbally attacked. He was allowed to live since he became Kyle Morgane's friend and the latter had publicly defended him as such.
But hey, two weeks had passed and already it was no longer of any use to me so I tried to make it less useless.
As he followed me everywhere, I made him carry my things. He picked up my balls when I was practicing tennis and since I brought him home, because I knew that it would impress my mother as much as my friends, I made him do the little tasks that my mother burdened me with. despite the number of servants we had, supposedly so that I wouldn't become a lazy person.
It was good for his health. It was a bit of a sport for him. He washed my crate, cleaned my room. Was doing my shopping. Thanks to him, I could finally be a rich kid as lazy as the others.
Plus I didn't have to feel guilty because he did all this with the greatest happiness. He knew his place and I liked that.
Time passed and I got to know him a little better. I was getting used to him. I realized while talking with him that he was far from stupid. He certainly hadn't been made to skip two grades for nothing. We talked about his weight a few times too. He was trying to lose some but it wasn't easy. He tried to eat well and exercise. Like jogging every morning. Walk too. To go to class for example. Fortunately he didn't live more than a forty minute walk away.
Portman was also a very understanding person. At least with me. In any case he had been when I hadn't invited him to the party I gave for my 16th birthday even though I had invited almost the whole class. But I didn't want my cousins to stumble upon it. If they found out I was making cheap friends, I might have to put up with stupid jokes for the rest of my life.
In fact, outside of school, I was always a little ashamed to hang out with him.
During the holidays that year, while all my friends had traveled to some dream destinations, I had been deprived of my summer on the beaches of Brazil that my old people had promised me and all because I didn't didn't bring back the grades they wanted. I was a good student and that was already more than enough. I didn't feel the need to be among the best. It was my life after all and they could go to hell if they weren't happy.
I had decided to have a good summer anyway with the only other person I knew who had nowhere to go in the summer.
This was the period during which we became closest because we spent a lot of time together. He was so helpful that I almost became dependent on him.
The big surprise, however, was the arrival of his sister who lived in New York. His one-year-old big sister.
In any case, they really had nothing in common...
I must have picked my jaw up off the airport floor when I took him to pick her up. The bomb! She had the same blond hair as him, a star figure, without a single extra kilo. Lips that made you want to kiss him. But his eyes, especially his eyes, they were the same green as Eric's but on her it gave a completely different result.
Obviously, we quickly hit it off. Her name was Brook and she was to die for. Eric quickly became an accessory even though the three of us had seen each other practically every day since his sister was here. I no longer really paid attention to him and sometimes I really wanted him to disappear but I had the strange impression that he was determined not to let himself be ousted.
I will always remember his reaction one day when I took him to watch a movie to fulfill a promise I had made to him a month earlier and, noticing that he had shown up alone, I sent a message to Brook to join us in front of the cinema, which she did.
Eric got angry. He had protested. I was so surprised that I didn't catch anything he said before almost running away.
After all, I had never seen him break out of his gongs before. I didn't even imagine that this could happen.
His sister reassured me immediately. She said he would come back. That it wasn't like him. It must have been out of character and he will probably apologize.
She was right. He came back a few minutes later, sheepish and did exactly everything she had planned so we quickly moved on.
Nothing ended up happening between Brook and me because she hadn't stayed long enough (two weeks) and her brother had been omnipresent throughout.
However, I recovered very quickly from this failure because with the start of the school year approaching, I knew that I would not lack the company of beautiful young ladies.
My first day of senior year, when I showed up with my new 4X4 at the school gates, it was not so much to change cars for the umpteenth time but for more convenient transport for my new friend. When I told him that I had asked my parents for this gift, just because of him, his reaction was far beyond what I could have imagined. I'd never seen him so happy since I'd known him, even though he was smiling almost all the time.
…
…
Then came this famous day.
It was winter, it was December and it was almost the holidays.
I had some suspicions since Brook's episode and by paying a little more attention to his reactions when I brushed against him without doing it on purpose, to the blush that rose to his face when I smiled at him... I told myself that something was obviously wrong.
Despite everything, it's still a shock to hear a guy say that he's in love with you.
My first reaction was a burst of laughter. I couldn't help it. Let's face it, it was pretty funny. The big i***t who declared, like that, to the coolest guy in school that he was crazy about him. Not to mention that without being homophobic, I had ABSOLUTELY NO homosexual inclinations. How could I when girls like his own sister existed on our planet?
I was so stunned that I started by asking him how he could have imagined this for a single second? Someone like him who was a ton when it came to weight and who really, frankly, had no physical assets. What did he expect? What did he think I would say to him?
He replied that he didn't know, that he was sorry.
He could be yes, it was not because I hung out with him when I really had nothing else to do that he could allow himself to imagine this kind of thing. Besides, he already imagined enough. Like our so-called friendship. He was stupid not to have noticed that he was serving me more than anything else. I only kept it by my side because it was useful to me. I would have forgotten about it by the end of the year anyway because our friendship meant nothing to me.
I didn't hesitate to tell him all this and when at the end, I ironically asked him if it was because no girl wanted him that he had decided to try the guy side?
He couldn't stand it anymore and he ran away, cold tears escaping from his green eyes...
I didn't really feel remorse at the time. He had looked for it. Throw something like that in my face without warning.
But he didn't come back to class after that. Neither the next day, nor the day after that. I waited until the weekend to go see what he had. What was his problem? He wasn't going to tell me that this was the first time in his life that he had been thrown away?
It was only when I went to his deserted apartment and the concierge, whom I knew well, told me the events of the week leading up to his move, that I felt guilty.
Horribly guilty.
Kyle Morgane, 23 years old.
I was moving. I was going to work in one of my father's companies, just to have enough experience to run it in a few years.
Before definitively leaving this apartment which had sheltered me for 3 years, I took one last look at the huge mirror fixed to the wall which reflected back to me the image of what others called "a very attractive young man".
I smile as I remember that this very pronounced brown hair and these blue eyes were a misfortune in my adolescence.
What hadn't I done to make sure I kept the place my physique gave me?
Who knew I wouldn't care at all today?
Suddenly his image flashed through my mind. Like every time my memories focus on my high school years, I see those green eyes again, his smile remaining innocent despite all the bullying he had to endure.
I sighed and reached into my pocket to take out a small piece of yellowed paper which I stared at blankly.
I remembered well that day when I went to his apartment to see why he wasn't coming back to class. It was the concierge who had scribbled on this sheet the address of his aunt who had come to take him away. And today I was going to live in the same city where he left so long ago.
Was he still there? He had to grow up. Like me. Had he changed? I asked myself so many questions and I dreaded the moment when I would ring his doorbell and he might come to open it without knowing who it was...
What would his reaction be? He must have been mad at me at the time. Was he still mad at me? In any case one thing was certain, I will find him. I had to do it. For him, but also for me, because if I didn't succeed, this guilt that had been eating away at me for so long and preventing me from living would continue to devour me until the end of my days.
So, I had to get there. I had to apologize to him. May I ask him for forgiveness for these cruel words that I threw in his face that winter day...
I took one last look at the empty rooms of my apartment and closed the door for good.
At the wheel of my car, While the landscape passed before my eyes without me paying much attention to it, my mind sailed towards it again...
When I learned that he had left, I immediately felt very guilty, especially when the person in charge told me about the depression he had experienced, his state of health which he saw was deteriorating so quickly. and to a point where he felt compelled to contact his family.
At first I didn't think that this guilt would follow me like this. Even Franck was surprised when, unable to bear it any longer, I confided in him. He told me that ultimately I had more heart than it seemed. Frankly, I would have done without it. I would have liked to forget this story very quickly and be able to think today that it was a simple mistake like all teenagers made at that age.
Instead, I had completely changed and knew that I would only feel like myself again when I managed to gain his forgiveness.
…
Quite exhausted, I finally arrived at my destination in the evening around 6 p.m. My new apartment was in a building where there were no more than two per floor. What I was looking for was as much privacy as possible. I had initially sought to occupy an entire floor but was told that all rentals of this type were already occupied. In a small town like this, it wasn't that surprising.
The people there generally had a fairly high standard of living with a conservative mentality, like their rather well-maintained buildings which all mostly dated from the time of my great, great, grandparents.
I parked my car and took the elevator up to the fourth floor where my new home was located.
The elevator opened into the hallway that separated me from the only other apartment on the floor.
I saw a young man, quite frail in appearance, come out with unsteady steps before sliding against the closed door. For a moment I wondered if he had a problem. Then I saw him slip his hand into the pocket of his faded jeans to take out a pack of cigarettes which he lit and began to smoke quietly.
Shit! It's forbidden in this building!
I hated smokers. The smoke bothered me. Plus it was bad for your health...
But hey, it's my first day, so I wasn't going to argue with my neighbor over nothing.
I then advanced towards my entrance but when I reached it, something forced me to stop. Quite simply, I started looking at him.
His eyes were closed and his face relaxed as he quietly enjoyed his cigarette. The strands of her light brown hair fell unevenly over her eyes.
He threw his head back slightly then let out a slight sigh, spitting out some smoke. At that moment, I couldn't help but think that he was devilishly handsome.
Well... if he had been in the same high school as me when I was a teenager, I would have had some serious competition. However, at first glance, we were very different. While I was almost always in a suit and tie and my hair was always well done, he had a much more… casual style?
He was dressed in faded jeans torn at the knees, I noticed the "f**k u" written clearly in large letters on his shirt, a black as deep as my hair. He also walked around barefoot. Obviously, he must have been the kind of person who couldn't care less about anything.
He couldn't have had much muscle. He is very thin, which gave him a rather frail or even fragile appearance without giving him anything feminine. Even his thin face couldn't do it.
I looked at his long, still closed eyelashes and found myself wishing he would take them off.
However, I was very surprised, that at the very moment I realized my thoughts, his eyes slowly opened to a green with dark reflections,
This same green that I knew so well and of which only the light had disappeared...
- Writer
