TRIGGER WARNINGS

•Deaf person getting bullied

•bullies/jerks

Roman, Patton, and Virgil were walking down the hallway at school to meet Logan outside. It was time to go on and get home, it had been a very long day. Wednesdays always seemed to drag on forever.

They were talking about the next public speaking assignment that they had to do. They had to present it in front of the class, but now that the teachers knew about Virgil's situation, they were very understanding, and agreed that Virgil didn't have to talk.

He would be the one holding all of the items and props, or clicking through the slideshow.

They stopped at Patton's locker to grab some stuff, when they heard an annoyed voice talking to a student.

Virgil, who was leaning against another locker, darted his eyes over to a teacher who was looking at a student in disappointment. He was talking to her, but receiving no response.

"Excuse me?" A teacher asked, a glare in his eyes. He seemed to be really annoyed at the student. "Why are you ignoring me? I'm speaking to you. I said, take that air-pod out! It is against school policy." He began to snap in her face, and that finally caught her attention.

The girl was looking up at him with confusion in her eyes, looking like she was trying to tell him something. She began to move her hands around in a way that annoyed the teacher. But Virgil understood that she was signing. So he payed attention, looking closer.

'It's not an airpod its a hearing aid'

  She looked as if the was going to take it out to show him, but before she could, the teacher rolled his eyes and said, "if you won't listen to me i'm taking it. You'll get it back tomorrow."

The teacher ripped the device out of the girl's ears, and she immediately clasped them, and panicked, she said in a slurred, jumbled voice, "Hey! I need that!"

A student nearby scoffed and laughed, "dude, what is that voice?!" Slapping the back of one of his friends as they went into a giggle fit.

At this point, Virgil got Roman and Patton's attention and they listened in to, and after the teacher took her hearing aid, decided to go over there and pick a bone with that teacher. Patton knew that girl, her name was Susan, and she was a senior just like them. But Patton knew everyone, so no shock there.

Roman stomped over to the teacher, he wasn't happy, he hated when people acted like this.

"Hey dumbass, that's not an airpod. It's a hearing aid. You know, the thing that helps people with hearing disabilities be able to hear? Yeah, the only good thing about this situation is that she doesn't have to hear your indignant bitching you ass!" Roman hissed.

The teacher had an eyebrow raised, and upon looking a little closer at the device in his hand, and he looked completely and utterly shocked and ashamed with himself. Hey, her hair was covering it mostly-he truly thought it was an air pod!

Patton took the device from the teacher carefully, and gave it back to the girl, who thanked him, even though she basically had no clue what the hell just happened. But she knew Patton, so assumed that everything was going well.

'Are you okay?' Virgil signed, 'does it hurt to have your hearing aid ripped out like that?'

'I'm alright, it just scratches the back of my ear a little, it probably didn't even leave a mark, thank you!'

They smiled at each other, and Virgil looked at the girl a few minutes later as she walked off. He sent a frown ro the teacher. Some people just didn't care- didn't understand. Most of them never will. He waved goodbye to the girl awkwardly as she walked past him, and she smiled, waving back.

He was impressed that she hadn't freaked out too bad or anything when her hearing aids were taken. Virgil knew for a fact that he probably would've died on the spot.

Virgil overheard the teacher yelling to the principal that he hadn't known they were hearing aids because her hair covered most of her ears.

Virgil sighed. He was just trying to cover his ass. Even if he truly didn't know, he shouldn't have overreacted and put his hands on her, to physically take something from someone.

Besides, she wasn't showing any outward signs of disrespect or blatant disobedience. She just looked confused for a second.

When people started making up excuses, that's when Virgil got frustrated. Like, just accept that you screwed up, and accept the consequences of your actions.

He knew it was hard to accept mistakes, especially big ones. Virgil had made plenty of those, but over time, he learned to stop using excuses. They rarely got him anywhere.

See, covering your ass because you made a heartless choice and telling the truth so you don't get wrongly punished weren't the same. Telling the truth wasn't 'making up excuses'  as most of the teachers at the school thought.

But soon enough, the whole dispute was over-as far as they knew...who knew what the principal had up her sleeve for that teacher-the principal had actually argued, "It is literally the end of the day. They can wear AirPods if they want to! My office, now!"

————————————————————

  They had told Logan about the whole dispute when they finally got outside, then they drove off. They got to Patton's house to hang out, and once they sprawled themselves on the couch, Roman checked his phone and scoffed.

"Uh oh, his majesty is annoyed-what happened?" Logan teased.

"Look at this. I hate kids."

Roman passed the phone to them. Some freshman apparently had filmed the whole thing and posted it on instagram, with a bunch of stupid captions and tags like, "imagine being deaf lmao"

The comments were no better.

'Dude!! That voice!'

'Jesus, who even lets her leave her house? She'd an utter embarrassment'

'She sounds dumb'

They stopped reading, and all were utterly pissed. Why were people so heartless? Disabilities aren't jokes. They're real problems that real people have to live with, and suffer through. And these little freshmen pricks were making fun of it.

"Can he get in trouble for posting this?"  Roman asked.

"I've already pulled his account up and began taking screenshots" Logan said, his phone in his hands.