GONER

18 • Sweatshirt Art

You'd think that if he thought Josh and I were together, which we weren't, his words would hold just the smallest amount of sympathy or generic concern. But they were just as cold and empty of compassion as his face was. His beady eyes and greasy hair and strong jaw and broad shoulders. He looked like he was born to make people feel terrible.

"One of these days, you're gonna realize that Josh doesn't leave this school and wonder if you, Dennis Rachner, hate him, or if you're going to call him a faggot every time you see him walking down the hallway."

"You sure about that?"

"Positive," I said, before spinning around to face him. I'm sure I looked ridiculous, with soaked paper towels in my small fingers and a huge mark on my clothes, bags under my eyes, and red faced, but it didn't matter much. I just needed him to leave so that I could stop trying to mentally convince myself not to argue back with him the way I wanted.

And I didn't have time to think about anything else before he grabbed me by my shirt and practically tossed me against the wall of the bathroom, his face as close to mine as it could possibly get, and with the air that was trying to make it to my chest getting stuck in my throat.

"You know absolutely nothing, do you understand me?" He growled. "I will kick your damn ass, and I'm sure you know that." I could measure the size of his eyes if I had tape right now.

I only let myself be scared for a second, before I picked my foot up off of the ground, drew it back, and aimed at his shin with as much power as I could. He yelled viciously, and moved as quickly as possible to come after me, but I was already running as fast as I could out of there, because kicking him was like telling him I wanted him to kick my butt and throw me in a blender.

Another part of me, though, wanted to let him beat me up, just so I could get a punch in. He spoke about Josh like trash, and that really bothered me, even if we weren't officially dating. You didn't have to be with someone in an official or romantic way to be bothered when someone insults them, right? Right.

But, I haven't been that mad (besides dealing with my mom) in a long time, and the entire thought scared me a bit. So I just kept running, even though he was way too close for comfort, because that's what I did sometimes, when I was scared, and he was shouting down the hallway, screaming my name and trying to pull me closer to him, but I was running and I doubt he could catch me. Maybe someone else, but not him.

And he must have had some serious anger issues if me kicking him in the shin warranted this. He did, in my respect, shove me against a wall, and I could feel the bones of my spine being pressed to the filthy, peeling bricks, and I wanted to kick him, so I had.

Now, there was more people shouting, and I recognized a few of them as teachers, and relief flooded my body like water when it rains and fills the cracks in the sidewalk.

I didn't know what to do, but I knew my body was screaming for various things, like water and air, and that I made the mistake of turning around, and now his huge hand was grabbing indignantly at my shirt hem again, and he dragged me to the ground as fast as possible. My elbows burned when they hit the floor, but my ear smacked first.

Seeing as my first instinct was to cover my face and simultaneously kick at the air, that's what I did, and my heart was screaming as it pumped blood as fast as possible, and then it needed to pump more, because in between people trying to pull him off of me, and the screaming I was doing, he managed to hit me in the side of the face as hard as possible.