There, There.

I wanted so badly to be brave

Pain. Pain everywhere. They had thrown him to the floor after punching him repeatedly in the face and now they were kicking him on his chest, making Avery hard to breathe properly.

They were on the locker room, after gym, and they had made sure that Avery would be the last to left the room by hiding his bag, so that he couldn't change. Avery knew something was up with them when they wouldn't stop looking at him but he didn't expect to get beaten up that day.

They got a hold of him as soon as they were alone and one of them had took Averys arms holding them behind his back, making it impossible to defend himself, while the other started punching Avery on the face, busting his lip.

At some point his legs had gave out and Avery had fallen to the floor and now he didn't dare to move, afraid that moving would mean to them that he still needed a few more kicks.

"You know," An angry voice barked. "you really shouldn't be wearing that t-shirt. It's like you are asking to get hit. We have told you a thousand times that we don't like that gay shit."

"I'm sorry." Avery spat. He didn't care what those stupid guys didn't like, he would still wear his t-shirt whenever he pleased, he just had bad luck today that they caught him alone. If he were to be with his friends, they wouldn't have dare to touch him. He could had taken one of them easily, but they had made sure that this time, they were going to win.

"The problem is" Jason, the leader of them said. "That you aren't really sorry are you?" He was a strong boy, stronger than anyone else in the school. He hadn't passed yet his senior year, even though he should had passed it last year, because he was needed at the football team because he was one of the best players.

"I think we should teach him a lesson. Your friends can't protect you now, eh tough guy?" The other one said, Crish. He was just like Jason, one of the strongest guys. The only bullies at school. They and the whole football team ruled the school.

Avery was curled up in the floor, trying to make himself as small as possible. He knew what was about to come and he prepared himself as best as he could. His mother taught him that if you can't attack and you are about to get the living shit out of you beaten, to get as small as possible to prevent great harm, so that was what he did. He put his arms around his stomach and brought his legs up to his chest. All his body hurt already so he didn't want more pain.

As predicted, they didn't waste any more time and they began to kick him. The first kick went to Averys stomach but he was protecting it with his arms, so the kick landed on his wrist, making him scream.

The two abusive boys laughed, glad that they were making him scream. They didn't like when gay people walked around like they didn't have anything to be ashamed of, for chrissake, they were fucking gay! They needed to learn that that wasn't acceptable.

"Oh look how's screaming now Crish." Jason laughed.

Crish hand gripped Averys hair and yanked it from the floor, but he didn't scream this time, he wasn't going to show them any weakness.

"I should smash his fucking head against the floor. What do you think Jason? If we are lucky he may die" Crish asked fiercely.

"Definitely dude." Jason responded with a nasty smile.

And just like that Crish smashed Averys head hard against the floor, making him dizzy and unable to move. They laughed even more harder this time.

Avery was barely conscious now, he was breathing really fast and he felt like he was choking on air, his chest and his hand ached really bad and he just wanted to go home. Get away from them. His angryness had evaporated and now he was just sad. Very sad.

Suddenly a door screeched outside the room.

"Shit, fun time over. Let's get out of here." Jason said, and they got out from there, passing through the door that led to the back of the gym.

Avery lifted his head a little trying to gain the strength to get up. But as soon as he moved he felt like throwing up so he let his head collapse to the floor into something wet and warm.

"Shit," He thought to himself. "now I'm fucking bleeding through my head too." Apparently he didn't have enough by bleeding from his busted lip that now he was bleeding from his head too. He curled more on himself holding his injured wrist, his body was really hurting now and he just wanted to stay still until it stopped.

"Avery? Why are you taking so long?" A voice shout outside the room. "You know that my mom wanted me home after school and it's getting late bro."

Some really big guy stepped into the room then. He had a mess for hair, with the hair stacking at all directions. He was dressed really weird too, with a Hawaiian jumper and some shorts with a lot of triangles. It was his friend Alex, or Big Boy as Avery liked to call him. Alex was the first friend Avery made when they moved to L.A. when he was ten years old.

Alex stopped death on his track as soon as he saw Avery on the floor bleeding. With a sigh he kneeled on the floor next to Avery.

"What happened?" Alex asked carefully, like he was approaching an injured animal.

Avery just shrugged, he had gone into the mood where he didn't want to talk because he felt too sad. He was sad because people wouldn't accept him for being gay, he didn't understand how could exist people that hated people for something they couldn't change. He felt like his words didn't matter now so he ought to not speak. When he got like this it was as if he didn't even have the strength to say a word.

With a sigh, Alex helped him to get to his feet and sat him on one of the benches of the room, after that Alex went for some paper. He dipped it into the water and he started to work on the now dried blood from his face. Averys head was split on the left on his hairline and his lip was torn open with blood that has cascaded down to his chin and his neck, making dirty his t-shirt which was his favourite t-shirt because it said 'What a beautiful day to be gay' and the pride flag was all over it, making it really colourful.

Carefully, Alex started to clean the blood on his hairline, and then went to his lip, he reopened the wound making Avery hiss and put some paper over it until it stopped bleeding. After that he cleaned all the blood that had escalated down from his face. This was something that happened a lot so he knew what to do.

"Can you give me your phone?" Alex asked when he finished, throwing the bloody paper to the bin that was under one of the sinks. "I'm going to call your dad."

Avery took the phone out of his jeans, careful that he didn't hurt his wrist anymore, and gave it to Alex, who sat down next to him to his left and put an arm around Averys shoulders while dialing his dad. Avery felt very tired so he rested his head on Alex shoulder.

"Mr. Way? It's Alex, can you come to the school to pick Avery up?" Alex asked. Then he fell silence as Averys father replayed. "Yeah, uh... It happened again..." He trailed off. "We'll meet you up at the parking lot okay?" Then he cut off the call. "I'm sorry I didn't came in sooner." Alex said in a hurry.

Avery looked at him. "You don't have to protect me." He muttered in a small voice, almost whispering. "I can handle them on my own. They just caught me by surprise."

"I know you can handle them on your own. But even you can't fight two of them at once. I knew something was up when you were taking so long, I should have come sooner." Alex replayed with a sad voice, he felt responsible that his friend had gotten hurt when he could had avoid it. He only had to have come in sooner.

"Doesn't matter now, It's okay."

Alex sighed. He knew that when Avery was in this mood he felt like he deserved everything that those bullies did to him and no matter what Alex did, he couldn't change that mood, Avery had to do it on it's own, so with a sigh he said. "We should get going, your father is gonna arrive anytime now. You can walk right?" He asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine" Avery answered. He felt pain on his ribs everytime he breathed and he was kinda dizzy and having some trouble focusing his sight but he didn't say anything.

They stood up and Alex took Averys gym bag, he didn't want him carrying weight now. They walked out of the gym towards the parking lot, Avery limping a little from the pain on his chest.