Archive of Our Own ^beta

The prospect of girls attending school was a welcomed challenge for Joseph, a co-ed school that would be attended by both boys and pretty girls in skirts, the new development was a deeply talked about subject amongst his friends over the last few weeks leading up to the announcement that his school would be one of the first to introduce girls to state education.

An opportunity for fun than he had initially thought.

The first day brought along a cute girl with strawberry hair that tinged on a bright orange, held in twin braids. She met his eyes across the yard and snapped her eyes forward in a way he had characterized as cowardly. 

A lamb led to slaughter, he thought at that moment, fitting the first girl being so girlish.

He never would’ve thought Michèle Magnan would be the reason why he was now looking in the mirror with only one eye.

His father demanded that he would return to school no matter the state of his eye- although even this father could not acknowledge that it was no longer there- even though Joesph could still feel the ache and sting. The bruising had not yet fully healed leaving him purple-stained skin that the make-shift eye patch barely covered. The eye was nothing more than a gooey mass, it was disgusting. 

His mother who spent the better part of the night fretting over him said “And what will happen to that boy,” she asked with a venom he never heard her use before, “surely you can’t expect him to go that school with that boy,” 

“Jean-Pierre will never make it far out of this town, I’ll make sure of it,” his angry father said in such a sure tone.

And what about that girl, the dean’s niece, he only thought to himself, knowing better than to disrupt his father during his angry rants. 

She wouldn’t face any consequences. She didn’t do anything except show up at the last minute before her bother punched a glass in his eye but he knew whatever Jean-Perrie would get it only fall back on her, what is a sister if not to take the brunt of the family shame? And shame was a long-lasting ugly thing in this kind of town. 

The same uglyness he felt when he looked in the mirror.

disfigured 
ugly
crippled 

These words he would’ve used on a person like him if he had seen them on the street before this, he could barely see out of his non-injured-still there eye, half joking to himself that maybe he should get a monocle as he could no longer wear his glasses, a funny thing considering his eyesight could no longer get any worse only by the chance Jean perrier might want his other eye.

The more he walked to school the more hunched his back became like the overwhelming ugliness swallowed him whole and completely devoured him by the time he reached the school gates.

Student openly gawked like he couldn’t see them like, as if Jean Perrier had taken both eyes. 

And her waiting by the school bench with her other defiant female friend, found her face clouded with the same look she had when she saw Jean Perier landing hits on his friends. The look he would call guilt and anxiety maybe even a little bit of fear- he tried to push away the memory of her trying to be helpful her still wet hand trying to help him stand, her face taking on a stronger emotion he couldn’t place, only crumbling when he had jumped way from her like she was on fire his hand dropped from eye revealing to her what her bother had done. 

Good, he thought she should be scared but there was an irritation that ever so slightly pricked at him, he wondered how long she would look at him like that. If that look would morph into a similar hatred he had for her when her brother soon gets expelled. He felt a giddy kind of sickness at that thought, like how she acted at lunch, she and her friend got all righteous and uppity only pushed him to set up that prank that sealed his fate. He now knew that Michèle was more like her golden boy brother, he thought the prank would knock her down a few notches, he never would’ve guessed that Michèle was the type of girl who didn’t wear an undershirt or had an upper-class brother down the hall. 

She was bold, so bold that she kept stealing guilt-ridden glances his way in class, so much so he starred right back. The teachers decided to move him up a few rows due to his injury, he sat across the room from her but that didn't stop her from distracting him, now she simply had to move her head to the right instead of turning back to look at him, it also meant his staring back would be a little bit more obvious.

It was like a game, she’d stare and he caught her glance holding it before she very quickly got uncomfortable and looked away. Then he would stare for a little longer before also putting his attention back on the teacher, only to catch her blue eyes back on him out of the corner of his eye and catch her stare once again lasting a little longer.

The tension in the classroom was rising like the other students could feel her overwhelming guilt and his all-consuming anger, such strong emotions directed at each other only spilling out.

Maybe this was her very pitiful attempt to guilt trip into forgiving her or her bother and get Joseph to drop the charges before the discipline hearing. 

The more she glanced his way the more his ire rose, and the more he wanted Jean Perrier buried and Michèle crying over his grave.