Enoch's eyes widened and his whole chest started to constrict in on itself the moment he saw Olive at the door. She had been listening the whole time, that much was obvious, and had probably slipped and given herself away. He was sure she had gone. She'd said goodbye to him at the door and his father had come out so quickly to give Enoch a piece or ten of his mind, that Olive hadn't left beforehand. He never let any stern conversations, or, more accurately, shouting and heated arguments have much of an effect on him and they certainly never made him clean up his behaviour or his school work. But having been back at school for three days, skipping a class and still not showing any interest or participation at all, resulting in another note home and no doubt, a much more serious one, had brought out the worst. It was mild now. They were in the shop where someone might have walked it at any time, not even out the back. It would be much worse at home.

Now Olive knew.

She looked mortified, caught in the act of eavesdropping and when she met his widened eyes there was a definite pity to them that Enoch didn't like to see. She vanished then, with a stammered, but certainly genuine, apology.

"Never mind 'er now, boy."

Enoch turned his head slowly, his eyes still wide with surprise and an uncomfortable shock as he stared at the floor instead. His father's face was still twisted into a stern, no nonsense, and near furious expression that rarely came out to such extremes.

"Ya gonna get back there, ya gonna finish at least some 'omework, and we're gonna talk 'bout it at 'ome."

"Talk 'bout it?" Enoch barely muttered, "That what ya callin' tryin'a shout me down again? That ain't gonna change me."

"I've tried bein' patient wiv ya. Don't answer me back now, Enoch. Office. Now."

He wanted to argue and refuse. He wanted to have a go right back and he very nearly did, but it would have done far more worse than good and even if that was something he didn't care about, he couldn't have stopped thinking of Olive's shocked and pitying expression if he tried. So Enoch just glowered darkly at his father and stormed off towards the office door.

The door slammed closed behind him and Enoch dropped into the chair but didn't take out any schoolwork. Consequences be damned. He growled and crossed his arms stubbornly as he slumped over the desk. It was a matter of minutes before he was checked in on to make sure he was doing what he was told but the more he was yelled at about his grades and forced to put in effort to something he had no interest in, the more he wanted to rebel against it. Did he ever tell his parents exactly how much staring at the numbers and symbols messed with his head and made his vision swirl? Of course not.

Science. Sure. He was good at that and he liked it which was part of the argument against his poor maths effort. Apparently they should have gone hand in hand. Good at one, be good at the other. That was a load of rubbish to Enoch.

He didn't want to do it and so he wouldn't. That was all there was to it.

If they started trying to tell him he was spending too much time with Olive now, which he had suspected might have been where it was going when his dad had brought her up, he definitely wouldn't be bridling his tongue. It was slightly ironic that he was so against letting anyone in at all, and going most of his life without any friends, and his mother especially pushing him to go outside, to now quite willingly spending enough time with a girl that they might think he was being too social.

Olive.

There was a reason he was so closed up and didn't ever really want to talk about himself at all. Even when she had just asked him about what he wanted to do, it had been awkward and he didn't know what to say. He didn't want her to know too much about him and about his parents that it would put her completely off him. She believed in him and had told him as much weeks before they'd actually become anything, no one else did and as a result, neither did he. There was only Olive and if she changed her mind about that because of what he actually put up with almost everyday, inside his head and out of it, Enoch was sure she'd see him the same way everyone else did. A freak who was only good for cutting things up. No. He could shield her from that for as long as possible.

At least, he'd thought he could. But no, she had taken it upon herself to listen.

xxxXxxx

"Enoch, you've hardly touched your fish."

Enoch didn't so much as look up at his mother as he only stabbed at the battered fish with his fork, piercing holes in the batter coating but showing no interest in actually eating it. "Not 'ungry."

He could feel their eyes on him and it made his skin crawl uncomfortably. His school bag was still sitting in the hallway outside the kitchen and in it, unfinished homework that he was dreading the sight of. He would say he was going to do his homework and he'd finish the reading for biology so he'd technically kept his word. Then forget the rest, he would just draw instead and dash it all when they found out.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and Enoch froze. He knew it was Olive without needed to see it. He stood up and pushed out his chair without a polite word.

"Enoch, you 'ave ta eat somefin', ya not goin' anywhere." His father said with a mouthful and Enoch finally lifted his gaze from the table to glare at him.

"I fink you'll find I am. Got 'omework don't I? I'm not 'ungry."

"Attitude."

"Yeah, I got one. Whateva." Enoch grumbled and turned to leave the room and grab his bag from the hall. He heard another chair scrape across the floor.

"Owen...not again. Not now."

His father must have listened because the next thing Enoch heard was the creak of the chair as he sat back down in it and let Enoch go without further argument.

He let the door swing closed with a satisfying bang, tugged the blue school jumper over his head and had started to unbutton his shirt when his phone buzzed again, reminding him of the message he hadn't yet checked. He sighed and dropped down onto his bed as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened the text.

I'm really, really sorry...

Enoch swore under his breath and shook his head slowly before running a hand over his face and through his hair as he just stared at the words. Sure she meant them, Olive was nothing if not genuine, and she was probably beating herself up about it but that didn't mean he wanted to deal with it right now. So instead of saying it was alright, or even an 'okay', he left the message unanswered on his bed and started to change.

He did do the reading for Biology, not like he needed to. That was one textbook he knew inside and out and one subject he'd voluntarily taken A-level in. Enoch even opened his math textbook and left it there on the corner of his desk in view of the doorway in case anyone felt the need to make sure he was doing it. But of course, he wasn't going to. Instead he thumbed through the almost full sketchbook and stopped accidentally on the still unfinished portrait he'd been trying to complete. Olive was much prettier than he could do justice to but he'd been trying nevertheless.

Then his phone rang, Olive. His heart sank. His heart, that warm organ that beat and pumped blood and kept him alive but anyone would still have called cold and hard until Olive had come along. He wanted to ignore the phone but at the same time he didn't and that was just frustrating.

He jumped off the chair and reached over to grab his phone on the bed right before it would have rung out.

"Mmhm?"

"...I wasn't sure you'd answer."

"I...wasn't gonna." He muttered truthfully and he could hear the hitch in Olive's breath. She was more upset about it then he'd thought.

"You have every right to not want to speak to me. I shouldn't have listened, that was horrible of me."

Enoch didn't say anything, just held the phone to his ear and clenched and unclenched his jaw periodically.

"...alright, well...you know I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry, Enoch."

"Yeah, I can tell that."

"Are you terribly mad?"

He wasn't mad. Not really. Not with Olive anyway. He hated that she'd listened, but he hated a lot more that she knew now, however that had happened. "...Not terribly."

"I probably ruined everything, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"Say it as often as ye want, ain't gonna change it now. Ya did."

"I know...I don't expect you can forgive me right away." Olive sniffled and Enoch had to bite his lip to keep from sighing out loud. "You're private, even from me and I should have respected that. I just wanted...wanted you to know that I do know I crossed that line."

"...maybe."

"But please don't shut me out."

Enoch said nothing at first, and the moment he opened his mouth there was a quick rap on the door and it opened a moment later.

"Enoch, get back to it."

He scowled at his father, fully aware that Olive could probably hear it too. Maybe he could drill a lock on the inside of his door.

"What is this, prison? Consider it my one phone call then. Two minutes, really?"

" 'urry up."

The door closed with a very audible click and after a moment Enoch heard Olive speak again.

"Am I getting you in more trouble?"

"Bloody 'ell, stop talkin' 'bout it." Maybe it was a little harsh, his words came out too quickly and his tone perhaps a little harder than he'd intended it with pent up anger towards his father.

Olive didn't respond for a second and when she did Enoch could hear her voice shake.

"Okay...I guess I'll see you at school. Please believe that I'm sorry, Enoch." The line beeped and went dead and for a long time he just stared at the screen.

xxxXxxx

Despite his father's warning about skipping another class, the last thing Enoch felt like doing was going to school. He groaned awake to the blaring of his alarm and reached over blindly to press stop on his phone. He didn't want to have to deal with it today. Bleary eyed and messy haired, Enoch pushed himself up on his elbows and frowned at the covers. He was still half asleep but he'd already made up his mind what he was going to do but there was only a fifty percent chance it was going to work. He ignored the alarm that had woken him and instead buried his head right under the covers again. If he wasn't up and dressed in the next ten minutes or so, someone would come to make sure he was doing so. He could bluff sick if it was his mother and his dad had already left, but if it was him, he'd probably see right through Enoch's attempt.

Sure enough, right on cue twelve minutes later there was a knock on his door and, to Enoch's relief, his mother's voice called through. "Enoch? Are you up?"

He just groaned in reply, muffled by his covers as she knocked again. When he still didn't respond with actual words, he heard the handle turn and popped his head, a good deal warmer now, back out from under the covers and pulled one bare arm free to drape over his chest.

"Enoch, up you get, you know when the bus leaves."

"Don' feel good." He mumbled, moving his arm from his chest to flop over his eyes instead.

"You don't look ill ta me, Enoch, up you get."

"When 'ave I eva faked it?" Enoch muttered, "I'm real 'ot, I feel ill."

He had, in fact, faked it before. He'd just never been caught on it. He hadn't done it regularly, and mostly in primary school when he'd had a much more rubbish time of school than high school.

With a sigh she came closer and reached out the palm of her hand to lay on his head to feel for a temperature. He would be warmed, he'd made sure of that just in case and with as naturally pale as he was, knowing his mother the moment that the possibility of Enoch being sick entered her mind, she'd imagine he was paler still because of that.

He screwed up his face and shifted over uncomfortably when her hand touched his head, indignant at being treated like a child even while he was making it up.

"Mum, gerroff..."

"You are a bit warm...you really feel that sick?"

"Hnnn."

"Alright...you stay home today. You do look a little peaky too, you might have something. I'll call the school and tell them you won't be in."

Enoch waited until he heard the click of his door behind her and smirked to himself. At least that had worked. Something was still going for him at least for today. After another half an hour, when his bus would just have been pulling up at the school and the bell ringing in another five, Enoch's phone chimed again. He sat up in his bed, the covers just over his legs and rubbing a bare shoulder with his hand as he looked over at the phone beside him on the mattress.

You weren't on the bus. Are you sure you're okay?

Right. Olive. He was almost surprised she'd messaged him at all given the nature of the end of their phone call last night. Enoch sighed and ran a hand over his face. She'd probably think he was avoiding her. Maybe he was. But he didn't really mean to be. Just like he hadn't meant to snap at her, it had just come out. It took a full minute of staring at the phone for him to tap the reply box and text her back.