Focus - Logicality

Logan - It Can Always Get Worse

I'm a scientist--or at least, I will be after I graduate high school. Then I can go to an Ivy League college, become an astronomer and find a steady job at NASA: the dream I've had since I was little. I have everything planned out. Once I leave for college, things will get better--I know they will. Then I can become an astronomer, and everything will be okay. That's all I need, and then everything will be fine and it'll all be worth it.

For now, I'll suffer in silence. I just have to stay on track and get through this. I don't have time for love or miracles, and even if I did, I can't afford to get sidetracked. Feelings are worthless and unnecessary. They haven't stopped betraying me since my mom died when I was little, so I put them under lock and key. I don't trust them, and I doubt they trust me, either. Neither do most of the kids at my hole-in-the-wall homophobic high school. I doubt they'd trust me with anything more than a lab project or their physics homework. Why might this be? I don't see anything wrong with a sensible black polo shirt, blue necktie and horn-rimmed glasses, but it snugly fits their definition of a nerd.

If I was just a nerd, then maybe I could get away with sitting with the computer geeks at lunch and getting by as your just your average bookworm, but I'm gay. Openly. It's not like I have any say in who knows and who doesn't by this point--except for my dad, who is still in the dark--so I may as well be open about it. For all the homophobes out there who just flinched, stop reading now. See if I care. I'm perfectly content sitting alone in the library during lunch with my star maps and the ever-faithful constellation book my mom gave me before she passed on. But for all of you who just said so what? I'll have you know that I'm in the same boat--I could care less about my orientation or the orientation of those surrounding me. But when I transferred here a few days ago, I wasn't aware that being the new gay junior at this school meant my life was over.

After a clique of homophobic-looking boys gave me the quote-unquote initiation ritual on my second day, I learned that Remus is the kind of imbecilic, stuck-up goliath that you don't mess with. Remus said he hadn't seen me before. I said that yes, I was new. Remus asked if I was gay. I told him that the information is not of his concern and asked if he would ever-so-kindly let me proceed to class. I also said that for his information, I am gay, and I'm not scared of what he may do to me because of it. By the second day of school, demeaning LGBT insults were written on my locker lipstick. Yes, lipstick. Charcoal black and neon green, to be exact, which are the same colors as Remus's typical outfit and the inverse of the school's colors.

An emo-looking boy with black eyeshadow under his eyes--he introduced himself as Virgil--pulled me aside in the bathroom. He had ripped black jeans, black fingernails, and three ear piercings--a little silver skull in each ear and a moderately sized black hoop in his left. His build is small and lean. I wouldn't call him short, but it's hard to judge when you're six-foot-one. He appears to be about five-eight. The only color breaking the gloomy black of his outfit is the purple of his hair and his black-and-purple patchwork hoodie that appears to be hand-stitched. When he sees me sizing him up, he realizes the hoodie is unzipped and quickly zips it. Before he does, I take note of a lilac crop top with white symbols on it and a silver belly button piercing.

He asked me if I knew about the rude, petty things put on Instagram about me by Remus and his lackeys. I told him that I've only been at this school for two days and I didn't have social media. That he must have me mixed up with someone else. He said they did the same thing to him when he transferred here last year and pulled out his phone. The words Welcome to the Black Parade are displayed on his case along with an album cover I don't recognize for a band I've likely never heard of.

He pulls up an Instagram feed then holds the device in front of my face, scrolling through a string of posts from the previous night. Surely enough, the kid was right. Seeing the stunned look on my face, he quickly starts explaining. "I hate this shit myself and distance myself from it as much as physically possible, but my boyfriend tries to keep on top of the rumors after he came out and Remus tried to blackmail him. Remus and Roman are on our school's shitty football team. Roman, the quarterback, is pretty good. He's the only reason they ever win games."