Gone.

VII

ETHAN

***

He stood at the threshold of the large building, feeling as though he were staring out over the edge of a large precipice with no end in sight. He could hardly believe where he was; all the begging had finally paid off, but now that he was there, he suddenly felt an unrelenting, gut twisting sense of fear.

If there was one thing he learned from all the pop culture references he forced himself to brush up on, it was that high school is hell. Absolute, torturous hell. Yet here he was, at the doors of hell with his mother's hand on his shoulder, and he'd never felt so unprepared for what might await him inside, because what prepares you for hell? Therapy had prepared him for a lot of things, but he wasn't so sure hell was one of them.

The woman at the front desk thrust his schedule at him. He felt the paper tremble underneath my fingertips, this paper would dictate his life for the next few months, and it was tossed at him as if it meant nothing.

"Your first period is AP literature. If you have any other questions, please, hesitate to ask," the receptionist said flatly, turning back to her computer.

His mom was silent as she clutched her purse tightly against her body, "I think you mean 'don't'."

The receptionist's mouth was set in a hard line as she looked up at my mom, "excuse me?"

My mom cleared her throat and licked her lips, "you said to hesitate to ask, but I think you meant 'don't' hesitate to ask."

"Oh right, my apologies," the receptionist said, her crinkled lips not quite reaching her eyes.

I'm going to go to class now, he turned to his mother, signing.

She nodded before reaching out to move the hair that had fallen into his face. He felt himself pull away involuntarily, looking anywhere but her face to keep from seeing the way her eyebrows pinched together and her mouth turned down.

"If—if anything happens or you feel uncomfortable, just text me, okay? And—and we can go back to homeschooling, call back your tutor—anything you want."

He nodded as a feeling of defiance began to bubble in his stomach, he had to do this. This spark of determination continued to pool in his veins, forcing him to walk forward.

With his hand on the doorknob, he tried to dampen the childlike optimism that had somehow survived his ordeal.With a jerk, the door opened, and all he wanted was to be a cynic, to believe that everyone would judge him and hate him because that's what people do, and he knew that. He could feel the truth in his heart, but he couldn't stop the tiny voice that continued to scream otherwise, defying all reason despite what he had seen and experienced.

He walked into the hallway, head high. All around him, he could hear the noise stop, leaving nothing but the buzzing of the ever-present void in the back of his mind.

Freak.

The word made his head throb. He hated that word, but it was the first thing said to him when his neighbor's son had seen him after all this time.

Eyes burned into his body from every angle, silently crucifying him. They didn't have to say a word for him to already know the thoughts running through their minds. It was during this silent judgment that he felt it—a niggling sensation, tugging his attention off to the side.

He clenched his fists tightly, doing all in his power to keep from staring—he saw her and immediately hated himself, but above it all, he hated the way she made him feel.

He hated the way her gaze seemed to relax him, the serene blankness in her eyes—he wanted to scream, grab the sides of her face, and scream. Where was the fire that used to rage in her irises? Now all he saw was the stillness of an evergreen forest that he longed to set ablaze. But he kept walking, and she kept staring, her face eventually blurring in with everyone else—except she wasn't everyone else, and he hated that.

***

Although he had been expecting the silent judgement, he was surprised by the verbal kind. He expected long stares, loud whispers, and uncensored pointing, but what he had not been prepared for was the unabashed questioning. He appeared to have lost all rights to privacy and to be treated as a human—he was a zoo animal that people enjoyed staring at, occasionally approaching him to poke and prod—a science experiment gone wrong.

"Did they—you know—touch you?"

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"Do you even know English?"

He was the new pet everyone enjoyed playing with—all he did was silently pray that his novelty would quickly wear off and he could be left alone.

"Are you deaf?"

"Do you even know how to talk?"

"Would you want to be partners?"

He glanced up from his phone. Out of the countless people who spoke to him, their voices blended together—yet hers was the only one that sang out above the rest.

He didn't want to stare, so he kept his eyes trained on his desk, willing her to leave him alone—to turn and walk away.

She remained unmoving, but he could feel her gentle impatience prodding at him; she wasn't going to leave until she got an answer, not like the rest of them. He clenched his jaw—he didn't know why he even bothered; it's not like he owed her anything—but he found his fingers typing a two letter response on his phone nonetheless.

"No."

She stared blankly at him for a moment when he saw it—a tiny flicker the size of a lit candle.

"Felicity, sweetheart—"

And then she was gone, and he began to sketch a boy with a weight tied to his ankle being dragged underwater.