Born Different by Faye Aitken-Smith

new
jacket, so that he could see his now newly dyed black hair. He
checked the eyeliner. Dressed and framed all in black, he hardly
recognised himself. The change was far more dramatic than he had
imagined it would be.
    Suddenly,
without warning, one of the cubicle doors flung open hard with a
crash and in the reflection of the mirror Gabe knew instantly that
it was Grace.
    She walked over
and stood right next to him and turned the taps on full at the sink
right next to his one.
    “The girl’s
loos had a massive queue! Isn’t that always the way? One day
they’ll figure out women need more toilets. Or...maybe we’ll beat
them to it and evolve to have cocks too!”
    Gabe replied,
“Yeah”, in a voice he didn’t recognise, in a voice that sounded to
him like the voice of a pre-pubescent girl. He smiled and tried to
give her a wink like he had practised so many times before in his
fantasies but he pulled it off all wrong and Grace just raised her
eyebrows and forced a grin as if to say, ‘What an idiot!’ and
before Gabe knew it, the door had slammed and Grace had gone.
    Probably the
one and only chance he had left of ever being alone in a room with
Grace and he had acted like a twat.
    “Fail, epic
fail.”
    But then Gabe
slowly realised that if Grace was here then there was a good chance
that the person who they had just ripped off was here too. Grace
and Alistair walking to school this morning, he had seen them.
Johnny would have also seen them from the park. Johnny had known
that Alistair would have been here this morning. Johnny had planned
it all of course. Alistair would have been sitting the exam this
morning while they robbed them and no doubt while Gabe was sat here
in this exam this afternoon, Alistair and the others would discover
the robbery and be out to find whoever did it.
    Dread filled
Gabe from the inside out. He really did have to get away from
Frank, Dave and Johnny. Detach himself. Gabe no longer felt
protected by their presence in his life. If anything, they were now
pushing him towards his worst nightmare.
    And it wasn’t
as if Gabe had other options, not yet.
    He would finish
his paintings, create a masterpiece sculpture for The Exhibition by
Friday next week, go and check out the address that had come with
the picture of his dad. Go and buy his mum something nice. Maybe
send her on one of those retreats she always went on about? Search
the internet for places to sell his paintings and try and get a job
in one of the galleries in town in the hope that they would
occasionally let him hang his own works up. He’d work hard, make
himself indispensable. Lock himself in his studio in his spare
time, keep his head down and hopefully the hard work would pay
off.
    Gabe didn’t
want to turn out like his friends, follow them into a life of
crime. He might have been in the gutter but that did not stop him
looking at the stars.
    Gabe put the
hood back up on his jacket and took another look in the mirror. He
felt so different to everybody else that looking different, in a
way, suited him just fine. And this thought sent a tingling up,
from the base of his spine that shot down his veins and washed over
his skin and cooled down his whole body. And, for a split second,
Gabe knew what it felt like to feel comfortable in his own
skin.
    The hall doors
opened and students start filtering in to find their chair and desk
where they were alphabetically placed. Some of them noticed
something different about Gabe and gave him a second glance but as
soon as they were all sat down and whispering they were told to be
silent. The clock on the wall ticked and the teacher who had been
given the thankless task of exam invigilator, who looked like he
would rather be anywhere else but here, held up his hand as the
papers were handed out. And even though now it was forbidden for
anyone to talk and everyone was trying to be tight lipped, stomachs
growled and audible sighs and last minute coughing fits
reverberated and echoed