Chapter Text
Forest Hill Private Academy attains fifteen acres on which it supports five thousand students. The property is split according to the three primary education levels (elementary, middle, and high school) with five acres to each and roughly 1,650 students apiece. The property was maintained well; green grasses manicured consistently and deeper into the property, around a clear lake that was deep blue in color, tall wild grasses blew in the warm summer breezes. Now, in the winter, the lawns were yellowed and damp in the late afternoons when it rained, and the rolling hills of the academy’s high-seated estate continued on until it ended almost abruptly into the forests beyond it.
Worick had come to love this place; he arrived at seven thirty in the morning and, depending on the season, or the club, and the semester, he would leave between six or seven in the evening. Often times his foster mother would poke fun at him, “You might as well work there,” she would giggle as she tossed her shoes across the living room floor. He would smile though, he smiled because he loved her and he smiled because he loved this place that she brought him to.
He was smiling now.
It was getting late and cold, and above him the sky swirled with blues, indigos, and pinks. Oddly enough, today Worick had nothing scheduled after classes—no club activities, no kickbacks, no sneaky rendezvous with upperclassmen. He had seated himself in one of the woven loungers on the rooftop of the high school building (the Old School is what it had been dubbed by students), by now he assumed that most of the staff who would nag him had already clocked out and so he reached for the inner pocket of his blazer and poked at a box of cigarettes. He was watching his breath around the stick of tobacco as he rummaged for his lighter, moving his muffler from around his face as he did so. The wind was biting at his cheeks by the time he inhaled, he sighed into the next drag, thinking about nothing, and watching the colors in the sky fade away with the day. He was fine there, entertained by nothing and slightly chilly when he felt the vibrations of his phone through his pant pocket,
need you in the gym uno, got something for you to do
Worick sighed again. He stubbed the cigarette and kicked it underneath the bearings of the rooftop walls. Inside was warm and toasty, the feeling of warmth only lasted for a few minutes though; he had to cross through the parking lot from the easternmost part of the Old School building to get to the gym. Once he was there, a few of his peers, underclassmen, and a teacher or two greeted him. Forest Hill Private Academy’s gym had a staggered appearance like the rest of the school; the walls were painted white, with a single maroon and navy blue stripe around the whole vicinity, and a large golden retriever stood proud and painted beautifully against the wall of the home goal. The bleachers were plastic but had a laminate look to them, as if they were dark hardwoods and not synthetic. Worick took his time heading down the wide stairs of the bleachers; he was searching for one of the basketball coaches, Coach Adkins. Naturally, of course, he wasn’t hard to find,
“Listen up!” he screamed, “If you have time to walk up the court, then you have time to sit on the bench!”
Adkins was midcourt, watching a scrimmage—or rather screaming at the players participating in it. Worick whistled as he stepped onto the court from the baseline,
“Wow, well, y’know isn’t it kind of impossible to walk up court if they’re only playing half court?”
“Worick you can hush up. You know full well you could’ve made a varsity spot, yet here we are,” the old man said to him, red in the face,
“Yeah,” Worick smiled, “yeah, that would’ve been a mighty warm seat with all the play time I would get on the bench.”
Chad Adkins cut his eyes at the longhaired junior; Worick Arcangelo was an endlessly gifted student, he excelled academically, as well as physically yet he chose to invest himself in culinary studies and such.
“Well, anyway, I want to talk to you about another opportunity for you. It’ll look good on a resume or college application.”
“Oh~,” Worick cooed, “More goodies, I’m listening.”
“The season is starting in two weeks. I want you to manage the teams okay? You can ride on the bus with the team and I’ll give you all the basketball gear excluding the jerseys.”
“Okay yeah, so, manage; define that—you want me to just show up?”
“For the varsity I want you to take stats, JV and freshman teams have a stat man but he’s not willing to drive between home and away games. Also, for games that we have to travel more than thirty minutes for you have to organize a meal for the team to eat—HEY DYLAN I SWEAR TO GOD MAKE ANOTHER STUPID PASS,”
Worick grinned, “I can make a good meal for them alright.”
“No Worick, this isn’t Chopped, its high school basketball, just make sandwiches or some shit.” Adkins rolled his eyes, “Anyways, you’ll make sure the guys all have a way to the games, clothes get washed, you know, I’ll send you an email outlining the rest.”
Worick looked from his position at the half court line to the players, some in shirts and some without, “Yeah that’s fine, I’m only in three clubs this semester.”
“Only three clubs you say,” Coach Adkins gestured for Worick to follow him as he made his way towards the double doors under the bleachers, “I have no idea what’s wrong with you.”
“Whaddya mean Coach A; I think I’m doing high school right.”
“Sure man, whatever you say.”
The locker room was neat and clean, Adkins handed Worick a stack of clothes folded neat with the tags sticking out the sides,
“You wear a large right?”
“Yup.”
“That’s the warm-ups, shooting shirt, and a dri-fit long sleeve.”
Worick smiled; free stuff was great and he was a sucker for it too, he looked around the locker room in exaggerated wonder when Coach Adkins wiggled his eyebrows.
He had never noticed there was another person in the locker room with them.
The boy was short, maybe five six at the most, darker than Worick, darker than most actually, Worick noted; he was almost tan. His hair was shaggy and sloppily cut, nothing too horrendous, but definitely cut by an inexperienced person. He was in the process of changing out of his school uniform, his jersey shorts were already on, but his t-shirt wasn’t.
“Ah,” Adkins had followed Worick’s line of sight, “That’s Nicolas Brown,”
“What the hell happened to his back?”
Worick's eyes switched from Chad Adkins to Nicolas Brown when the coach took too long to answer his inquiry. Nicolas’s back was a good mix of his tan skin, and black or purple bruises,
“Is he a delinquent of some sort? What kind of fight did he get into? Who even fights to the extent,” Worick thought of himself then asked again, “Well, I mean who fights a guy that small?”
“I don’t think it was a fight… I’ve only known him since conditioning started so it’s been about a month, he’s not dumb even though his grades aren’t the best. He’s been coming in with colorful bruises of all sorts since I’ve seen him.”
Worick’s brow creased.
“Wait a second—,”
“He’s deaf don’t worry about it.”
Worick was silent.
“Who the fuck beats a deaf kid?”
“Watch your mouth Uno.”
“No seriously—did you say anything, we should take him to one of the social workers Coach, he—,”
“Worick. I’m not an idiot; I know you’re extra sensitive about this kind of stuff but he won’t budge. He never says, or signs, anything extensive about the bruises, he just says ‘well I fell’ and that’s the end of it. If we try to get in touch with his father we just hit a brick wall. Guys never home, he’s military and is always traveling back and fourth between bases. He just leaves his kid in some run down house with a broken front door.”
Nicolas had pulled on the t-shirt and was turning around as Adkins was finishing the last of his sentence; he nodded at them and jogged out onto the basketball court.
“Worick,” Coach Adkins began again, “I’ll tell you what: you can go ahead and try to get close to him if you want, there's an ongoing investigation about it with his class councilor and one of the social workers already. I’m sure this is as straightforward as it seems.”
Worick spun around, “Why haven’t you tried?” he spat, “He doesn’t answer your first few questions and you leave him out to dry?”
“No kid,” Adkins put his hands up, “the last thing we wanted was for him to stop answering us altogether; he won’t speak to Officer Chamblee since he started doing routines by where he lives.” Adkins placed a hand onto Worick’s shoulder as he walked out of the locker room. Once the door closed behind him, Worick took a seat at one of the bleachers.
Worick knew from experience that abuse was a nasty thing.
He suffered alone for years before anyone decided that it was bad enough to intervene. He let his hair lose from its bind and pawed at his eye patch as his blond tresses fell about his shoulders. He had lost an eye attempting to defend himself, he received bruise after bruise for simply existing, he was denied food and even shelter at times. Worick understood. He knew that being a child in a situation with any sort of abuse was absolute hell. He grit his teeth. The worst of it all was knowing that most of the kids who were abused don’t even know how to speak up for themselves and willingly walk back to their desperate situations even when they’re given the most openhanded opportunities to escape. By the time Worick had calmed down enough to exit the locker room without the biting need to put out in front of the whole team, they had started their warm ups. Nicolas Brown was quiet and focused, he received a pass from a boy about the same size as himself and was down the court quickly. His feet carried him weightlessly into the air and he rolled the basketball from the palm of his hand and into the basket, and he stared at the floor as he jogged back into the layup line. Worick took a seat next to Coach Adkins and began to stuff the clothing that was given to him into his backpack.
"Can you send me a list of all the players that y'all have considered for the teams this year."
"Yeah," muttered the coach, "you want freshman too?"
"Sure, why not."
"Worick."
“What.”
“It’s not your job to save everyone.”
Worick sighed, glanced at Nicolas again, and then left the gym.
[L A Z Y C AT W I T H C O F F E E]
Alarm clocks were something that were never quite necessary to Worick, he woke up at the same time every morning no matter what the day was or the time he had gone to sleep the night before. He had woken up on the edge of his bed with a good portion of his hair stuck in his mouth. It was six thirty, and by the time he had gotten out of the shower and was dressed it was six fifty. He fried an egg inside a piece of toast and grabbed an apple on the way out. It was crisp and chilly outside the apartment and as he approached his car a horrendous wind blew past him. Worick shuddered, poking at the lock to the car door with newfound haste, once inside he thumbed a message to his foster mom:
Mom its cold as hell out here, I didn’t check the weather either
She replied quickly, as usual, saying “Yes you fool, it’s only going to be forty degrees today. Not even, really since it’ll be overcast all day too.”
im glad i layered up
“What are you wearing?”
that bomber you got me, thick cardigan and a sweater underneath it
“Jeans?”
nope, joggers and some boots
“So fancy.”
Worick smiled, he had started the car and was waiting for his front windshield to defrost. Their house was a good twenty minutes from Forest Hill and about five from the city; since his foster mother was a resident at the hospital it made more sense for her to live closer to it. Worick took a bite from the granny smith and put the Mustang in reverse, the car was nice and toasty now, and it was getting light outside.
He arrived at the academy at seven fifteen.
Instinctively, after parking his car he advanced towards the student center wincing at the winds in the dim light of sky.
“Worick!”
Ah, the junior thinks, I’ve been discovered.
“Hey, how are you?!”
Worick smiles, he doesn’t turn around to see the person who has called out to him, by voice he knows it’s a female, “I’m peachy, it’s just cold.”
“It’s freezing,” the wind tears past the two students and red hair whips at Worick's face, “It’s supposed to pour all day tomorrow.”
“Yeah my mom said its gonna be overcast all day today so that sounds right.” Red hair, Worick is thinking, has to be Claire, “Where are you headed?”
She hums into her scarf; they’ve reached the edge of the parking lot, on the right was the Old School and to the left was the student Center, “Well, where are you headed?” she asks him,
“Culinary hall.”
“Of course! Why did I even ask?” She smacks his shoulder and he hardly feels it through the thick of his clothing, “Well I’ll see you around I guess.” He smiles and she takes off across the parking lot towards the Old School.
A gust of wind has Worick breaking into a sprint just like Claire only moments after her departure. When he reaches the Culinary Hall he’s overjoyed, his bag is feeling heavy on his back and he drops it at his feet to lean up against the cement walls. After his short break Worick enters the first room on the right; its mostly empty aside another student in the back of the room on their laptop, its dark too so Worick flicks the lights on. He sits at a round table, leaning back into the plastic chair; he retrieves his phone from his pocket and begins to read over the email he had received from the assistant coach of the basketball team. Nicolas Brown’s name is typed neatly beneath two others; next to his last name shooting guard is written in bold as well as his number, one. Yesterday was slightly upsetting thanks to Coach Adkins. Worick was beside himself though, of course he understood that it wasn’t the coach’s fault that Nicolas wouldn’t cooperate, but at the same time something that extensive shouldn’t have been taken so lightly. When the blonde had arrived home he snatched up last years yearbook in search of the scrawny boy and was surprised to find him there. There was an uncomfortable pause in Worick's thoughts for just a moment.
How the fuck am I supposed to befriend him?
The only natural route would be basketball.
But, if Nicolas were not heavily dedicated to the sport he probably wouldn’t be willing to sit and converse about it for too long. Prior to a conversation of any sort there was the fact that Nicolas was deaf over everything, Worick didn’t know sign language and he had never engaged in any sort of action with a deaf individual in his life. He was feeling thoroughly fucked for the most part at this point.
He cracked his knuckles and decided to proceed with his dealt cards.
If he didn’t try he couldn’t fail, after all.