Two Birds, One Stone

7. Fear Factor

this took so long I'm sorry but yall I've got 30k words to write in November and I'm struggling so bear with me
also neta and david I love youuuuuu

After we left the tree house, Jamie and I continued as if there had been no incident between us. We met, we hooked up, we went our separate ways.

Throughout the week, I kept telling myself to stop thinking so much, to be careless again. But it wasn't easy. I'd reached a frightening point where I wanted more. And not more in terms of sex -- God, I wished it was only that. Sex was easy. But sex was far from my mind.

It was Thursday morning, after a history lesson that seemed to draw on forever, when something caught my eye as I walked down the hall to my next class with Bryan. I stopped and backtracked until I was stood in front of the defaced locker, a frown on my face.

"Dude, what are you looking at?" Bryan asked, turning to see why I had taken several steps back, his eyes rounding when he saw the locker, where FAG was written in big fat red letters. Then another voice came from my other side.

"Like the new art?"

I jumped. I turned to see Jamie standing there, holding several books and looking annoyed.
 
     "Who did this?" I asked quietly, already feeling anger pushing to the front of my mind.

"Ask your friend," Jamie said dryly, nodding toward Bryan, and I whipped around in disbelief.

"You?" I demanded.

"I--I didn't write it," Bryan said, his eyes wide and guilty. "Or support it, or--"

"But you were there," I guessed, my anger mounting fast. "And you didn't try to stop it."

"Can I get to my locker?" Jamie asked impatiently. I grabbed Bryan by the wist and stepped out of Jamie's way.

Without stopping to think, I pulled Bryan into the empty classroom by Jamie's locker, and didn't wait for the door to shut fully before turning on my friend and saying, "What's wrong with you? I can't believe you would just stand there and let your friends do something like that! Maybe it's not a big deal to you, but you have no idea how little things like that can affect other people! Do you really think that sitting back and watching makes you any less guilty than doing it yourself?"

I was livid. I remembered what Jamie had revealed to me weeks ago, about being picked on. About the suicide of his best friend.

"The guys just . . . they just thought it was funny," Bryan stammered.

"To who?" I snapped. "To who other than themselves? Do you guys ever stop and think about how you might make others feel?"

"I didn't --"

"I don't care if you wrote the damn thing, or stood and watched, or were just passing in the fucking hallway!" I fumed. "You had the power to stop them and you didn't. You don't know if Jamie, or any of the other kids you -- no, sorry, the guys -- pick on has their own shit they're dealing with. You don't know if that person is so close to breaking that one thing could snap them in half! So next time you want to sit back and watch someone scribble FAG, or make fun of someone's weight --" I thought of Rosie Andrews "--or anything like it, stop and think of how much that person might end up hurting for the sake of a few laughs!"

Bryan was staring at me with wide eyes looking slightly scared, but genuinely remorseful, too. "You're right," he said with a nod, and the guilt in his voice eased some of the anger I felt -- at least, toward him. "You're completely right, Liam, and I'm sorry."