“You shouldn’t stare.”

Startled, I discreetly checked the corners of my mouth for drool—it wouldn’t be the first time that I had subconsciously drooled over a boy. Correction, the boy; it was always the same boy. Glancing upwards, after I had assured myself that I looked decent, I was relieved to find Grayson, my best friend, waiting expectantly above me. Expectantly, I gazed back. I was just fortunate that “the boy” hadn’t caught me. Grayson sighed.

“Well… are you gonna sit with me or what?”

Skimming over the room, I was stunned at the fullness of the room; students were already perched atop their desks, prattling mindlessly. When I had entered the room, it was only me and him and his friends. And I had seized the seat beside him, Christian P. Schuler. Apologetically, I peeked at Grayson. A heated frown scorched my mud-like eyes as he trudged to an empty seat, crossing his arms moodily.

As the lesson started with the steady buzz of the teacher—who I hadn’t bothered to learn the name of—I scanned Christian’s bored lean. His pupils slithered to the corners of his eyes, which narrowed as he discovered my intensely concentrated gaze. Humiliated, I turned my face away from him. Not once had he crooked his head in my direction. Yet, that was probably the most attention he had given me all year. And it was December. But, I didn’t blame him. I was only average. And he was the brilliant soccer kid who had trained tenaciously to land himself a spot on the starting team. The amazing kid who had managed to place himself on both ends of the social spectrum: he was both the perfect straight-A student, and the popular social butterfly. He was the awesome kid who had managed to occupy my mind 24/7.

And I was just… me.

“Sam, you need to get over him. This isn’t healthy anymore!” Grayson managed to pounce on me again after class.

“I’m fine.”

“You are most definitely not fine. You shouldn’t be chasing after a guy who isn’t—“

“Interested? Shut up, I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”Incredulity lumped with disappointment bathed in Grayson’s shaky sigh when I didn’t respond. His judgmental stare stabbed and speared and sliced, carving my pleasant nature into a biting indifference.

“Sam, you need to—“

But, I hadn’t a care in the world for what I needed to do. What I wanted to do haunted my conscience into believing I was normal.

There was a soccer game today. And coincidentally, the editor for the school newspaper had asked me to cover it. Camera in hand, I quickly tossed my notepad carelessly onto the empty bench space beside me. I focused on Christian. He was the only one that mattered.

“Taking pictures for the paper, I hope. Otherwise I’d think you were stalking the poor boy.” Automatically I knew it wasn’t Grayson. Luck couldn’t strike twice in the same day. My lack of words caused a thin grimace to blossom unnaturally upon my editor’s beautiful, pale face.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell.” He vanished like a stealthy apparition, leaving my blank notebook as the only resident of the empty space beside me.

Grayson hadn’t failed to prod at my ego the following morning.
“Dude you look like crap.” I didn’t bother to waste a breath on a useless retort. I knew what I looked like; I had pored over my editorial for hours last night, slaving and sweating and stressing for perfection. Incoherent mumbles scrambled out of my mouth as I crumpled ungracefully onto the wooden desk in front of me. I slipped a glance at Christian, and I couldn’t tell if it was emptiness or disappointment that swamped me first. Atop his jean-clad lap was a beautiful girl. I didn’t know her name, nor did I care. Most girls at this school, more like anorexic humpback whales, didn’t pay attention to me, but the treatment was mutual.

Christian caught my eye. Guilt specked his hazel, green-rimmed eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, before his lips were ensnared between the girl’s grotesque ‘Full Fuchsia’ stained lips. Rather awkwardly, I twisted my head to lean on my right cheek and stare blankly at the wall while desire coursed through my tingling torso. Envy pounded like a drum against my hammering brain.

“Sam, he doesn’t deserve you, not like I do….” Grayson knelt at my level, as if I were a child. He kissed the corner of my lip. Confused, I whipped around again and clamped my eyes together.

“Hello…? Earth to Sam?” Grayson was standing above me worriedly. He had never moved. Was this morning even real? Christian was now devouring the girl’s lips with an intensity I didn’t remember.

The jealousy wasn’t even the worst part.

I couldn’t tell what was real and what was imagined.

I couldn’t tell if I should keep hope for Christian.

I couldn’t tell if Grayson was my best friend anymore.

It was wrong of me not to worry. Pasted on page 6 of the newspaper was a vulgar heading, and below it, a mammoth photograph of a mud-eyed teenager, smiling enormously. I caught Jamie, writer of the ‘anonymous post,’ by the arm in front of the bleak white door of room 107.

“I didn’t write it,” were the first and last words he said before he stormed away irately, shoving off my arm as if it were diseased. Students loitered in the hallways, stares trained on my figure as they exploded in whispers, the offensive ‘f-word’ in almost every one. I was a disease that no one was willing to catch, resulting in defensive glares and vile whispers. I hated it.
Before I knew it, I was in the press room, glowering fiercely at my editor, Colin Cree, as the pieces of the puzzle instantly cemented together. There was no need to speak; he already knew.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered.

“Why?” I needed him to say it, to build reality for me.

“You were obsessed! With Christian, of all people! I was angry! All this time, you didn’t see me! What was I supposed to do?!”

“Hmm,” I sarcastically feigned thought, “if you wanted me to ‘see you,’ maybe you shouldn’t have published my secret for the whole student body to see! I mean, what the hell, were you even thinking?!” Resentment ignited my violent outburst.

Exasperation spiked his rising yells, “I love you, Sam! While you were off hunting that animal, Christian, I was here pining silently over a guy who barely looks at me! I mean, Christian isn’t even gay! At least I love someone who’s the same sexuality as me!”

And with that, he had built reality for me.

I was Samuel Brae, the bullied, gay kid of Westfield High.