One Thursday towards the end of March, I was going to Chem when I was stopped by a few of the upperclassmen, but it was mostly the Jocks. Most of the upperclassmen were off doing something, most likely trying to stay on good behavior and walk at graduation. But some of them were one year above me, which didn’t stop them from still bullying everyone.

I tried not to let it bother me, but it did. It’s not like I had incredibly thick skin and I could ignore it. What kid doesn’t let bullying bother them?

But I remember, on that Thursday, it was really bad.

One of the jocks was once my good friend, Tyler. He didn’t seem to care at all when he and his buddies shoved me into a wall whispering homophobic slurs at me. One, however, particularly ticked me off.

I don’t remember what the line was exactly. I think it consisted of the words “fagging” and “homo”. I just remember snapping.

I closed my eyes tightly and slugged the one holding me against the wall in the jaw. I must’ve hit him real good, because he fell like a ton of bricks. Then I just stood there like an idiot, looking between my fist, which was now bruised slightly, and Tyler.

I was in violation of the school hierarchy code. And I would have gotten away scot free if his friends hadn’t decided that I needed to be “taught a lesson”. Mostly what I did was just fancifully pushing them away, but others I had to sock, which hurt my knuckles and fingers.

Tyler was the last to come. His buddies were at my feet in pain, and a few onlookers on the upper floors of the stairwell were watching in quiet amazement as the quiet closeted kid was beating up the jocks.

“What, Tyler?” I said, glaring at him. I tried to come off macho, but I was shaking too much.

Tyler smiled, and began walking over towards me. “You know,” he began, “I can overlook the homo part, and we can be friends.” He reached out his hand to pat me on the shoulder.

I was upset. I was so royally pissed off. I took his hand and twisted his arm around his back. He slipped on one of the stairs, which brought him to his knees. But I came up behind him, still holding him back, and whispered, “Now, listen to me, ass wipe.” Tyler didn’t say anything; he struggled to get out of my grasp. “You’re going to leave anyone you pick on, alone at this school. Or I will kill you.” I tightened my grip on his arms and pulled them further up his spine. He gasped. “And you know I can.”

Haha, I always wanted to say that. I never meant it, though.

I let go of him and he stumbled to the staircase floor.

Which was, unfortunately, really bad timing. But considering it’s me, it’s not really that unfortunate.

One of the English teachers reported me for assault on the other students. Finally, after the hour passed where my dad and my principal, Mr. Simmons, talked/shouted about what happened, I chimed in. “You know,” I said, “I’m right here. And it wasn’t assault. It was defense.”

“Defense?” Mr. Simmons asked, almost on cue.

I drew in a breath, but stopped. I hunched over my knees, and began rubbing my knuckles together.

“Well, Adrian? Tell us,” my dad insisted.

I looked to Mr. Simmons and made a number of gestures indicating to him that I didn’t want my dad in the office. I’m surprised my dad didn’t catch on that I wanted him to go.

“Uh, Mr. Murphy, would you excuse us for a moment? Student confidentiality.” Probably one of the best bullshitted lines I’ve ever heard. Though now that I think about it, it was probably true. But my dad, being my dad, made a fuss about “wanting to stay with his son”, then finally obliged, and walked out the door towards the reception area. “Now, Adrian, what happened?” he asked, sitting back into his chair.

I began playing with my thumbs. “They were picking on me.”

“Why?” I began curling up into myself. “Adrian, why were they picking on you?”

The words I wanted to say lumped in my throat. “Please, sir,” I asked finally, “I must ask you to please, please, please keep this confidential.”

He nodded slowly. I sighed very slowly and grasped my throat, still unable to find myself to say the words I’ve been able to say in my head.

“Adrian,” Mr. Simmons began, “If you don’t want to – ”

“No!” I unintentionally shouted. I had begun shaking. “I’m going to say it.”

“Mr. Murphy, you don’t have to – ”

“I’m gay,” I told him, making eye contact with him finally. “They were picking on me because I like guys rather than girls. I’m gay.”

Those two words changed everything for so many reasons.

For one thing, I never said the word “gay” – I always danced around it. And if any two words in my life can change anything so drastically, as well as make a room as awkward and silent as possible, those are the two words.

Well, there are a few other words that can do that, though. There are three words I’m specifically thinking of.

Mr. Simmons fell back into his chair further. I began expecting the worst to happen. Detention. Expulsion. Belittlement. Though I don’t know why I was thinking this. I looked away, waiting for him to speak.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?”

I looked up, surprised. “What?”

“Adrian, I make it my duty to not only make sure the upkeep of the school is right, but also to make sure everyone feels safe in it.”

I sighed, but my mind ran at a million miles an hour. “I’m sorry.”

Mr. Simmons placed his hand up. “Don’t apologize. It’s completely understandable. I just wish you brought it to my attention before.”

I told him that it started beginning of freshman year, and how I had asked my dad to move me to another school because of it. He didn’t say anything; he just listened to me and nodded slowly. Eventually, Mr. Simmons got up and invited my dad back into the office. He told him that the jocks had been picking on me before and that I just lost my temper. He even gave me the rest of the day off, which I accepted.

“I would like to meet with you tomorrow, Adrian, to discuss your, punishment,” Mr. Simmons said.

I nodded, and walked out of school towards my dad’s car.

The ride was menacing. It was about a fifteen-minute drive home, and it was mostly silent. “Where did you learn those moves?” he asked after eight minutes of awkwardness.

“Remember that self-defense class you thought I was a sissy to take because ‘only women take that class’?” It had come out unintentionally snotty.

My dad forced out a chuckle. The relationship between me and my dad had slowly begun to deteriorate by that point, but I wasn’t aware of it yet. “Well, it sure did come in handy today, huh?” he asked. I didn’t answer. “Why didn’t you tell me about this, Adrian?”

I turned to him. Angrily, I shouted, “I did. Before winter break I asked you to move me to another school because I couldn’t stand the bullying. You said I ‘seemed fine’, and you didn’t listen to me!”

My dad didn’t try to reply. We pulled into the driveway, and I stomped off to my room to watch South Park reruns, or something else that was mind-numbing, on my computer. I regretted screaming at him, but I didn’t regret saying what I needed to. He should’ve listened to me before when this all wasn’t happening.

Dinner was my favorite, scallops with lemon sauce, but you could feel the tension. Dad and my stepmom talked quietly, almost in whispers, and no one said anything else. It was an eventful day, and I was full of hate, which was just waiting to make an appearance.

Unfortunately for me, it appeared tonight. Of course.

As part of our dinners, we talked about what was happening in the world, because Dad thought that “kids today were becoming ignorant of the issues”, and he wanted to keep our brains thinking.

“Sweden passed a same-sex marriage law last year,” chimed in Alyssa.

I wanted to kick her under the table, but she sat too far away. Alyssa sneered at me.

“Why?” asked Sam, who had several pieces of scallops stuffed in his mouth.

“What do you mean ‘why’?” asked my stepmom as she buttered a roll.

“I don’t know, Sam,” Dad interrupted.

“I don’t know, I guess it falls under human rights, doesn’t it? People who want to get married to each other?” I asked, shaking slightly.

“Yeah, but it’s unnatural,” said Sam.

I grinned. “So is polyester, air conditioning, artificial sweeteners, coloring, and preservatives, glasses – ”

“What’s you’re point, Adrian?” Dad asked. My stepmom was trying to hide a snide smile behind her roll.

“My point is, is that gay people have every right to marry who they want to marry. You say it’s unnatural, well, so is everything I listed before, but we don’t complain about that.”

“You’re wrong,” chimed in Sam.

I leaned back in my chair. “Okay, so, lets just say you wanted to marry a nice girl, but you weren’t allowed to. What would you do?”

“I don’t have to do anything. That isn’t the case,” said Sam. God, how I wanted to hit him. Just, smack the stupidity out of him. When was he leaving for college again?

“That’s not the point,” I continued, trying to suppress my frustration. “Lets just say, hypothetically, that you couldn’t marry the person you wanted to. What would you do?”

“Not…marry them?” he asked.

God, I was so close to just smacking the stupid out of him.

“I think what Adrian is trying to say is that people should have the right to marry whoever they want, and no one should say otherwise,” explained Alyssa.

I glared unhappily at her, and she got my message: Thank you, Alyssa.

“Well, they’re denouncing God, Alyssa.”

A loud sigh escaped through my nose, and I wanted to slam my head down on the table and break the plate with my face. No, not this. Anything but this. I could never control myself when Dad began talking about religion. I didn’t care one bit about it, and Dad seemed to love talking about it. “It says that God denounced the homosexuals for – ”

I stopped listening after that. I began focusing on keeping myself calm as they talked about the horrible things. Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I thought about the book I was reading upstairs on my bed. I thought about the DVD’s I could be watching after I had cleared my plate. I thought about anything and everything – something that would distract me so much that the discomforting rant would disappear.

Of course, it wasn’t working. I was getting more and more scared. I tried again, but as my dad continued to belittle gay people, talk about God, and how all gay people should be “reprimanded”, “killed”, or “commit suicide”, I began feeling really small.

Maybe I was just so tired of feeling insignificant in my own house, or maybe I had finally gained the courage to ask him to stop. I had rehearsed what I was going to say so many times before – in my head, walking to class, in my sleep – but now I was horribly angry and offended. Everything was building, every single hateful, vengeful thing I’ve ever wanted to say or thought about him, my stepmother, Sam, everyone and everything threatened to surface.

“I completely agree with you,” replied my stepmom, who had shrunk into her seat slightly.

“God dammit!” I shouted, standing up from my seat, and knocking down my chair.

The noise was what got their attention, not the profanity that I had just shouted. “Adrian, what – ”

“What difference does it make to you?” I shouted. “You’re not gay, so what does it matter? It’s people like you who make this world so difficult and horrible to live in!”

“Adrian!” shouted Alyssa.

“I hate you so much it’s not even funny. You are just a horrible person for, for spewing you nineteenth century bullcrap every chance you fucking get. Not only are you a horrible role model for, anyone, but you’re also full of shit! Whether you like it or not, the gay rights movement is happening, and, and, and you need to shut your fucking mouths about it!”

“Adrian!” shouted Alyssa again.

I stopped, still fuming. I didn’t really get a chance to see my damage because I immediately grabbed my coat, slipped on my shoes and walked out of the house. My dad and stepmom demanded I stop, even following me to the edge of the front lawn. It didn’t matter what happened to me at that moment.

I had been walking so fast that, before I even realized it, I was at the park. I sat down on my bench and screamed into my hands, the sound being muffled so I wouldn’t cause a commotion. I only stopped screaming when my hands felt cold, so I stuffed them into my jacket pockets.

I sighed loudly and swung my arms up and over my head, accidentally hitting what I thought was a tree. I turned to see Ryan covering his forehead and nose, stepping back slightly towards the curb. I got up. “I’m so sorry, Ryan. I swear I didn’t see you.”

Ryan’s mouth twisted into a faint smile, and his eyebrows pulled up into a sympathetic look, almost like he was pleased to see me. He pulled out some Post-Its and the purple Sharpie, and began writing. He handed me a neatly written note, saying:

“You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far.” - James Baskett

I smiled slightly, delighted that I had been given a note, then frowned again. “I’m not running away from anything,” I replied.

Yes I was.

He took the Sharpie again and wrote:

Everyone runs away from something. It just depends on when we turn back to face it.

My jaw tensed. “I don’t have to face anything. And I’m not running away.”

No I have to, and yes, I am.

I crumbled the note and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. And, of course, I missed. Both times. After I finally got it in, he put his hand on my arm, and pulled me along to walk with him.