city of achilles {bxb}

chapter 7

Wednesday

I don't talk to anyone. I find out that my talk is next Wednesday, which is a bit of a relief, but that only means I have to toil over it for another week.

Thursday

I start painting the background of Romeo And Julian. English is more dull than it has to be without someone constantly being an annoying little shit and asking me about my life. I guess it's just been so long since I've had someone to talk to that one person showing genuine interest feels like a million colours exploding out of nowhere. Every time I speak to Leon, it's like I'm throwing paint at a canvas and seeing what happens. Everything gets messy, but since I can't fix it or take it back, I just keep going. It's exciting, but thoroughly terrifying at the same time.

Yesterday night, Leon created a Google Slides presentation and shared it with me. I work on it in class and don't agree with his choice in colour, so I change the background to a dark blue. I make a note saying 'it's a bit hard to focus on the text with a red background, hope you don't mind the colour change :)'. I guess I was wrong about his favourite colour being blue- clearly he has an affinity for bright red that supersedes what'll be effective, but I find it somewhat endearing.

Ms. Wang leaves the classroom for something and Garret taps me on the shoulder. "Hey, you got a pencil I could use?"

I turn around momentarily. "No, sorry."

"Oh, what did you do, stick it too far up your vagina?" He snickers. The girl beside him, Lacey, rolls her eyes, but doesn't say anything.

"Faggot." He adds, pointlessly.

I turn back to my laptop and continue working. I'm trying really fucking hard to not let that bother me. It's just a word, right? Nothing more, nothing less. I really shouldn't be upset. I'm here to do my work, not focus on some dumb kid behind me. A dumb kid who's right. He's completely right about me.

I'm hunched over, but I hit the back of the chair with force after someone pulls my hood. I turn back and give him a look. Just fuck off.

"What are you looking at, huh?" Garret teases, throwing me an innocent look. "I didn't do anything."

I turn back again, taking a deep breath in. Stay calm. What do I expect when I look like this? I'm asking for it. I shouldn't get angry. That would be stupid.

He does it yet again and I don't look back at him this time. I hear him chuckle again and utter something along the lines of 'fucking queer' under his breath. Only now, the laughter is coming from multiple directions. I just wanna hide. I wanna disappear. I know what I am. I don't need other people to tell me that. I know I'm disgusting. If only they knew how hard I've tried to change that. If only they knew how hard others have already tried to change that. Is that what they're trying to do? Change me?

He doesn't pull my hood again, but he pulls my hair instead. It hurts fucking badly, but for some reason it's nowhere near as bad as him pulling me by the hood. I continue ignoring him, but he does it again a few seconds later, taking a bigger chunk of it.

"Aren't you gonna say something?" He says in a low voice. "What, you like that or something?"

I don't respond. Not mentally, not verbally. My stomach either drops or fills with butterflies- I can't tell- and it's moving down.

Oh god.

The tent is pitching.

Garret snorts and does it again. I bite my lip as I feel another surge in my stomach and I start feeling it somewhere else. I know I need to pull something down onto my lap before anything happens, but as I go to grab my notebook, he does it again and I burst out into tears and stand up, leaving the room.