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‘You’re surprisingly opinionated about this,’ said Garovel.

‘S-sorry.’

‘No, it’s fine. I understand. But those club people still seem like a bunch of dicks to me. And having sex in the clubroom was a stupid thing to do, anyway.’

‘They’re not dicks,’ said Hector. ‘They’re just... very protective of each other. A lot of the kids in that club have pretty rough home lives. So they rely on each other a lot. And the two people I got expelled... from what I’d overheard, um... they were having sex at school because their families didn’t want them seeing each other anywhere else.’

‘You learned that much about them just from listening?’

‘Y-yeah. I mean, I could kinda... infer some stuff, but yeah.’

‘Hmm. Well. I’m sorry you weren’t able to become friends with them. But if you had, then you and I probably wouldn’t have met.’

Hector paused a moment. ‘If only.’

‘Fucking cheap shot.’


Chapter Twenty-Five: ‘A maelstrom doth brew...’
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Between school, metalwork, getting tutored, meditation, and beating the tar out of criminals, the next few days were a juggling mess. School tended to take the worst of it, as Hector would show up in the mornings and then employ doctors’ notes to skip out on the rest of his classes. After the events in Sescoria, he had nearly forgotten about the box of excuses that his mother had given him, but now he was quite thankful for it.

He was also relieved that the first tutoring session was with Gregory. Hector wasn’t sure he could’ve handled it if Sheryl or Janine had shown up. Having someone else in his room was terrifying enough, but having that someone be a girl was an impossible notion to him--and realizing this after the first session, he arranged for the second to be at a burger shop instead.