Face the Curtain with a Bow

Five - Assault

- Okay, so I knew that joining choir again would be good because it would give me an opportunity to sing again and to make some new friends and reconnect with Kirstie, but to be honest, I was terrified of what the guys on the team would think. Choir’s obviously not the coolest activity you can possibly do. I know they were my friends and all, but I was still really scared.

A few days had gone by, and Scott was back to sitting with the guys at lunch like normal. They still had no idea about the whole Kirstie-lunch table-choir thing, which he was thankful for. And surprisingly, he almost forgot how fun they were to be around...at school, at least. Maybe the whole choir thing was just a snap judgement.

“Yo Scott, where’ve you been all this week?” Jake asked him around a mouthful of chips. “Too cool to hang with us in the commons during 4th, huh?”

Scott forced himself to laugh a little, with everyone’s eyes on him. “Oh, yeah. Uh, I’ve just been getting some math help this week. AP Calc’s a bitch, you know?”

“Oh, you know it’s a bitch when Einstein Hoying has to get math help,” Todd joked. Scott was committed to USC, after all. “Where do you go for it?”

Shit. “Uh, Ms. McEvoy’s room. 4th is her student help period,” he lied quickly, averting Todd’s eyes and staring down at his lunch tray. Maybe if he concentrated really hard on this gross-looking apple, Todd would stop asking questions that Scott definitely couldn’t answer.

It worked. “Oh,” Todd said, raising a wary eyebrow and taking a bite of his sandwich. “Cool.”

“Yeah.”

- That was the first red flag, I think. If they were really my friends, they’d support me no matter what I did. But yeah, I was really, really nervous of what they’d say, so I just didn’t mention it for a little while.

The tense silence that had fallen over the table was broken by Matt. “Hey, you guys wanna come chill at my place Friday after weight training?” he asked. “My parents are going to a cocktail party and they’re not coming home till late, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

The table became abuzz with excitement. Todd grinned and held his fist out to Matt, who returned the bump. “Hell yeah, sounds tight. I’ll be there. Can we invite girls?”

“Invite whoever you want. It’s our party,” Matt replied.

- Maybe they wouldn’t find out. Or if they did, they wouldn’t really care.

Jake turned to Scott and smirked. “Scott, you wanna bring Grace over for a little Round Two, since you totally blew it the first time?” he teased, and everyone else laughed.

“You can say that again,” Todd agreed, peeling his orange. “Anyone who wouldn’t wanna fuck her has gotta be gay.”

All the rest of them started laughing so hard that the cafeteria aide had to come over and shush them.

Scott didn’t say a word for the rest of the period.

***

- They found out a week after I joined, on November 20th. At the time, it was the worst day of my life.

Scott stared at the ticking clock on the wall, counting down the half-hour until 5pm. He had a nice part-time job working at his family friends’ flower shop. The owner, Mario, was always really nice to Scott and even scheduled his shifts around his volleyball schedule. He trusted Scott enough to lock the shop up whenever he couldn’t be there for closing time. So Scott stood at the register surrounded by the multicolored bouquets, debating whether to lock up early. After about ten minutes of scrolling through Twitter and counting the flowers on the display racks for the ten thousandth time, he decided to treat himself to an early night. Going through his closing routine, he switched off the air conditioner, gave the reservoirs one last water refill, flicked the lights off, and hung the master keys up on the board in the back room. Locking the door from the inside, he put his jacket on, stepped outside, shut the door, making sure it was securely latched before heading home.

It was getting darker (with it being winter and all, you know), and a little colder than the previous weeks. Occasionally, a car came cruising down the tiny side street, blowing a gust of chilly air right in his direction. He shivered a little as he walked, pulling his arms a little tighter into his chest.

- They cornered me while I was walking home from work and they beat the shit out of me.

He ducked into his alleyway shortcut and looked at all the graffiti on the cinder-block walls as he walked down. Way more cartoon penises than he cared to see, but whatever.

He emerged from the alley in the parking lot of the Italian restaurant that he was pretty sure was in business but never really seemed to be open. He barely had the chance to take a breath of fresh air before a dead weight hit him from behind like a sledgehammer. His brain processed that he was being tackled just before he hit the ground, and his head collided with the pavement as he went down. His vision swimming, he rolled over and tried to reach up and rub his throbbing head until his hands were suddenly pinned above his head.

“Get his legs!” he heard a vaguely familiar voice snap, and suddenly more hands were on him, clawing and scratching and ripping into his skin as he was lifted up hammock-style by his wrists and ankles. Before he even knew what was happening, his attackers had swung him back and then forward, letting him go so that he flew through the air until slamming into the concrete wall of the building. He swore he heard bone break, but all he could feel was the worst pain imaginable, all throughout his body.

He prayed for it to be over, but his prayers were far from answered. Before he could regain his senses, they were punching and kicking at him while he was down. One swiftly aimed jab to his stomach knocked the wind out of him, while another kneed him in the crotch.

Seeing stars, he groaned and curled up into the fetal position, weakly trying to shield himself from the constant attacks.

“Guys, he’s had enough!” he heard one of the attackers plead.

He would know that voice anywhere. “A-Alex?” Scott croaked before bursting into a coughing fit when someone else kicked him in the chest.

- They were wearing ski masks, but I knew it was them. I knew them too well to not recognize them by their voices.

He opened his swollen eyes just enough to see a bunch of guys hovering over him menacingly, dressed all in black with black ski masks covering their faces. Seeing his eyes open, one of them spit in his face. “C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here,” he muttered to the rest of them, and they all ran for the hills.

For a while, Scott just lay there, trying not to think about the pain that was flooding every inch of his skin and the mixture of tears and blood that was surely all over his face. He probably looked like a train wreck. But all he could think about was their clothes, their voices, the one horrible thing that he’d been praying wouldn’t happen.

They knew. And they were all there, kicking the shit out of him. Even Alex. What the fuck would he tell his parents?

- I should have gone to someone right after that happened, but I didn’t. I told myself I deserved it. You know, for sneaking around them like that. I didn’t even text Kirstie or anything.

Shakily, he forced himself to sit up and reached for his phone that they’d thrown aside on the pavement and saw it was miraculously unscathed. He opened his texts to tell Kirstie what had happened, since he had told her about how scared he was of this exact situation. He knew what small-minded fuckwads they were, and he knew they’d show no mercy about this. He went to call her, at least until he saw her most recent message from a conversation they were having earlier that day.

Tbh just ignore them. Idgaf what they think about choir and neither should u. We all like u and u like us too (hopefully lol). Just let it roll off ur back, we love u <3

Thank you Kirst :)

He stared at the conversation, welling up with tears. Kirstie was such a sweetheart. She didn’t deserve to be dragged into this mess. It was all his fault, and he had to deal with it like an adult.

Achingly, he stood up slowly and put a little weight on his aching left foot, wincing at the pain. Breathing deeply, he began to walk, limping the whole way home and planning the “I got mugged” lie he would tell his parents.

- I just kept my mouth shut.