girly voice, and then everyone really does laugh. Ya know, I feel like I’m about two inches tall when he does that. I just want to die.
I really do hate Brad, but then on the other hand I can’t deny how hot he is. He’s totally a jock, and he has perfect hair. I wish sometimes I looked more like Brad. Instead I have this kind of hair that never looks good no matter how I comb it. When people look at him, immediately they want to be his friend. He has this smile that totally disarms you.
He’s so perfect-looking that you want to believe everything he says. You wanna feel like you’re his best friend.
I’ll never be Brad’s friend though. Even if he changed and stopped picking on me, I’d still always hate him for what he’s already done. Once he flushed my head in a toilet. He shoved me into my locker and closed it. He’s knocked me down more times than I can count, and he’s called me every name you could even think of.
Nobody is ever gonna tell on Brad though. They’d be stupid if they did. It’d be like suicide. He’s so popular that even the teachers like him.
Really I think even if the teachers knew all the mean stuff Brad did, they wouldn’t do anything about it.
My speech is about global warming. We had to pick a controversial topic and make an argument for it. I know it’s not really that controversial of an issue any more. Everyone knows global warming is happening.
It’s so obvious, but still there are a few morons left in the world who are in denial. I’m so nervous about it—I’m gonna throw up!
3
Yeah, I like the shirt, and thank god, it’s gonna be a good hair day.
Ugghh! Is that a zit? I have this big frickin zit right in the center of my forehead. Why does this always happen? Why today? I gotta get goin though. I can’t keep obsessing about this stuff. It doesn’t matter if I have a zit or not, nobody cares. It’s not like I have anyone interested in me.
And nobody’s even gonna care about my speech either.
Mom’s already left for work, and Daryn gets a ride with his friends. I walk. It’s only like fourteen blocks, maybe a couple miles at the most. Sometimes my friend Shelly walks with me. She lives on the next block, but if her mom isn’t working, she gets a ride to school. Her mom’s pretty cool, and sometimes she swings over and picks me up. Not always though. Her mom’s like pretty much a scatterbrain, and she’s always running late.
Shelly didn’t text me, so I guess I’m on my own today. It’s strange how my one and only friend is a girl, and really I don’t even like girls—not that way anyhow. I told her last year—when I was fourteen—that I’m gay. She was cool about it, and she kinda acted like it was no big deal.
Even though she knows a little bit about the stuff with Brad and his friends, I don’t tell her everything. In fact, I never even told her about the swirly incident. It was too embarrassing.
Plus Shelly is kind of popular herself. She’s not popular like Brad, but she is definitely not one of the school losers…like me. She’d probably say something to one of the teachers if she knew all the times Brad tormented me. That’d just make things worse. Or like she might even say something directly to Brad, and that would be a catastrophe. But really I think she sort of likes Brad, well at least as much as all the other girls in school do. Brad’s really friendly to the girls, and it’s almost impossible for them not to like him.
As always, the school hallways are so crowded. Seems weird to be so invisible amongst all these people, but invisible is good. An invisible day is a better-than-average day. Invisibility means no name calling, no fag jokes, no gut punches or pranks. On an invisible day, I make it out unscathed. Sometimes I’m even able to feel good about myself—about the A I got in geometry, about the positive comment Mr. Phillips wrote on my composition paper, or about the fact that Trent Richards smiled at
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