I woke up the next morning feeling rough. My mind unable to focus on anything other than the previous nights events. I took a quick shower and threw on some jeans and a comfortable grey oversized sweater. I grabbed a breakfast bar to eat on the way as I was running slightly late. My parents barely paid any attention to me as they were busy getting ready for work.
I walked to school with my headphones in listening to my favourite songs. Usually that helped me clear my head an calm down but today I couldn't shake the nerves or the memories of Hannah's reaction. The horrified look on her face was seared into my brain, the bitter words echoing in my ears.
As the rusty blue school gates drew near my heart rate quickened. I stopped outside the doors and took five deep breaths. A girl with ginger hair walked out and looked at me. She paused for a second and I could swear there was a glimpse of pity on her face a she passed. I squeezed my eyes shut and told myself I was just being paranoid.
I didn't enjoy school by any means, but never before had the locker lined corridors seemed so daunting. Even before I saw another student I felt like everyone's eye were on me.
Far off I heard the excited buzz of voices but as I drew nearer to the corridor where my locker was, the chatter got louder. I slowed down as I rounded the corner becoming increasingly weary. I froze the moment I reached the corridor.
I saw a huge crowd of teenagers pointing, whispering, shouting. The centre of their attention was a point in the wall. It took me three seconds to workout that it was my locker. And as two girls near me parted I could see why.
I felt the walls spin. The world around me came crashing down and my lungs couldn't take in enough air. A sentence was scrawled across my locker in bold white spray paint.
Castiel Novak is a fag!
I saw a boy Azazel standing next to it proudly holding up a spray paint can. And to his left stood Hannah expressionless.
I bent over desperately trying to take in more air but I couldn't. My head was thumping and my vision blurred as tears pricked my eyes.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the younger girls point and gasp. "It's him." She yelled but it sounded like she was underwater. A few people turned but I didn't get a chance to see who.
I bolted. I forced my legs to move until I was running through the halls. I burst through the front doors without a second thought and continued running. My mind was blank. I was completely unable to think. I only stopped running when I physically couldn't run anymore.
I collapsed against a wall and took in all the air my lungs could take. I looked around, I was a block away from my house but that didn't prove any comfort. I'd just bunked school for the first time in my life. But above all that, they all knew my biggest secret. And they were already using it against me. I couldn't go back there. I never wanted to go back there again.
It was then that I finally allowed myself to cry. I didn't have the energy to stop the tears so I let them flow.
A woman walked passed holding a small boys hand. "Mom why is that boy crying?" He asked tugging her sleeve and looking at me worriedly.
"I don't know honey, come on." The woman hissed hurrying her son along. I watched him glance back at me and forced a smile to comfort him. In return he gave me a small wave which only made me want to cry more.
I buried my head in my hands until I couldn't cry anymore and then I just sat there.
After what felt like forever it became apparent I couldn't stay outside. My hands were numb and the cold hard stone of the wall was digging into my back. Not that I noticed. I decided to head back to my house. I had keys and my parents would never know.
I don't really remember the walk home. I was just numb. I unlocked my house and first picked up the house phone and called my school. I pretended to be my father and told them I was off sick. It was easy, they barely questioned it.
Then I headed up to my bedroom. I switched on my laptop and logged into facebook. The first thing I was greeted with was a photograph on my locker from a boy in tenth grade underneath was the caption "is this true!?".
The further I scrolled the more photos I found, some with silly captions or comments, some with rude ones. I found Hannah's page and checked it. She hadn't posted anything since before the party. For some reason her silence was more unnerving than all of these people. I'm not saying they weren't bad, because they were, really bad. But the idea that I'd actually hurt Hannah, hurt me more than the comments on my locker.
After ten minutes I couldn't take it anymore and slammed my computer shut. Everything hurt, my legs, my head, my lungs. But my mind was the worst. Worse than any other pain I've ever experienced. And so I did what I always did in situations like this. I created more pain to stop the one in my brain.
I walked over to my bedside table drawer and pulled out the blade. Up until that point I'd been five months clean. Five whole months of hard work came crashing down in one afternoon as I slid the blade's sharp edge across my wrist. I cut multiple times within that hour, and deep too, deeper than I ever had before.
After a while I began to feel light headed and went down to the kitchen. I wrapped my wrists in thin bandages from the cupboard then covered them with my usual wristbands. I went back upstairs and collapsed onto my bed. I fell asleep almost immediately exhaustion taking over me.
Five whole hours passed until I was woken by the sound of my parents arriving home. I grabbed some books and spread them across my desk to give the impression I'd been doing homework. I pulled down the sleeves of my sweater and sat up rigidly as I heard the footsteps approaching my door.
My mother knocked then opened the door. Despite already calling in sick a little part of me expected her to ask why I bunked school today. She didn't. "Castiel, dinner will be in about half an hour," she paused and glanced at the books on the desk. "Good to see you're working hard, you'll need it. This year is very important."
I nodded weakly. My mother was obsessed with me doing extremely well at school. She flashed me a wide smile but there was a cold undertone to it, her blond hair bobbing as she left the room. There was always something so fake about her, her appearance, the way she spoke, walked, everything. She almost seemed plastic.
I barely spoke at supper, my father said grace. He and my mother spoke about their day, even at home I was invisible. In my mind I was going over what to do about school. I couldn't go back there. I left the table early saying I wasn't feeling well, saying I was ill was probably my best option at the moment.
The next morning I stumbled downstairs complaining about a headache and feeling sick. My father pressed his big hand against my head. It was funny I didn't really look anything like either of my parents. My mother had blond hair nothing like mine, I did however share her blue eyes. My father was a very tall well built man with dark eyes. He had hints of dark hair like mine but it was mostly grey now, he put it down to stress but I preferred the term old. In case you haven't noticed by now, I didn't have a very good relationship with my parents. When I was younger, I'd fight their strict rules and views but as I got older, I just didn't see the point.
"You seem fine boy, you can survive a little school." He said. I should've known I wouldn't be able to fool him. "I can give you a lift though if you'd rather not walk, I have to head that way anyway." He said blankly. It was as if he knew I wanted to bunk. Maybe he did.
There was no arguing with him on this though so I got into the car with him and let him drive me to school. I'd just have to go in and then leave like I had done the day before. The building loomed over me and my chest grew tight. I felt the world start to spin as the panic attack began to wash over me. I turned back to the gates to see my father's car still sitting on the road outside. I'd make a run for it but the one thing that scared me more than the kids at school was my parents. So I took in as much air as I could and stepped through the double doors.
The moment the doors shut behind me I felt like I was going to collapse then and there. The corridor was packed with kids this time and everyone's heads turned to me. There was a ripple of whispers and giggles then someone shouted out, "What's the matter fag, you gonna run away again?"
The crowd errupted into fits of laughter. Only a few select children stayed silent, but they were mostly the people who'd been through something similar to me and preferred to blend into the background.
I couldn't exactly leave now. I couldn't 'run away' again. So somehow I forced my legs to move and I made my way to my locker. Focuing on my breathing trying to block out the giggling children that lined the walls, and yelled insults. I honestly didn't hear most of them as the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my ears muffled them. I rounded the corner, my footsteps slow to stop me collapsing.
Then I saw my locker. It had been covered up with a peice of blue paper that matched the other lockers but still made it stand out. I stood in front of it unsure what to do. Did I open it anyway, did I just walk away. I glanced to my left then my right to see if everyone was still watching me. Of course they were. Worse still to my right I saw Azazel and his posse approaching smirks painted on their faces. I didn't see Hannah but I did see Dean, Azazel yelled something and I swear Dean actually grimaced. I watched them and prepared for the downpour of insults and possibly punches when Azazel froze.
"Castiel Novak?" I heard the stern voice of a woman behind me.
I turned to see a tall woman with harsh features wearing a grey suit, her light brown hair tied up in a tight bun. Mrs Naomi was our head teacher. She wasn't exactly popular amongst the students and was notourious for only caring about the reputation of the school and not the actual pupils. "Can I speak to you in my office please." She said and I nodded and followed her down the corridor. As I was entering her office I noticed the laughing had stopped completely.
The room was virtually all white with two white chairs opposite a glass desk and another white office chair. Naomi sat in the office chair and gestured for me to sit in one of the chairs opposite her. I sat down tentatively and she watched me through narrow brown eyes. "Well." She sighed after some time and I sqeezed my hands between my knees to stop them shaking.
"Castiel I'm guessing you know why you're here." I nodded. "Then you'll understand we have to get to the bottom of it, we cannot tolerate this kind of behaviour. So please tell me, who did this." Her voice was harsh and I couldn't help but feel like I was the one being targeted instead of the person who did this.
Of course I knew that Azazel did this. But I wasn't going to rat him out, that would just make me even more unpopular. "I don't know." I mumbled unsure if she could tell I was lying.
She sighed heavily. "Right, well are your parents aware of what had happened?"
"No!" I said abruptly, "you cannot tell my parents!" I didn't care if I seemed desperate, I was. In that moment my whole body tensed and I begged Naomi not to mention this to my family.
She let out an exasperated sigh. "Ok but you see Castiel if something were to happen to you," she glanced at the bandages round my wrists that were poking through the arms of my shirt. "If something were to happen to you this school could be held responsible for not acting on things like this."
I realised that in her time as a teacher Mrs Naomi had probably seen her fair share of depressed kids and I understood what she was trying to say. If I were to kill myself the school could be held responsible. I picked at the leather of my chair as she continued.
"And as we don't know who did this, we must do something to ensure you are safe." She looked at me through heavily lashed eyes but I couldn't hold eye contact for long and averted my own eyes back to the peeling leather on the arm of the chair.
"If we cannot inform your parents then I recommend you go to our school counselling group on Thursdays after school."
My eyes widened at the thought. No way was I going to go and sit in a room with a bunch of other kids who probably hate me, and talk about my feelings.
Naomi noticed my distaste and tapped her pen on the glass of the desk impatiently. "It's this or your parents Castiel."
How about neither, I thought to myself but knew that wasn't an option. "Fine I'll go." I said quietly, I wasn't keen on the idea but it was marginally better than my parents finding out I was gay.
"Good!" Naomi said, "the first session is tomorrow, I'll make sure you're there." She smiled a fake smile and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "You may go now Castiel."
I nodded and stood up my palms clammy and heart pounding. I left and headed straight to my first lesson, the one upside of my meeting with Naomi was that everyone was already in class so I was safe from the laughter and insults for now.