Beautified Hell

Someone slammed into my shoulder.

My books scattered across the hallway, notebooks sliding over the cold tiles.

No one helped.

Instead, a circle of shoes surrounded me.

"Oops"

"She dropped everything"

"Too busy staring at girls, huh?"

Laughter echoed through the corridor.

I knelt to gather my things, but every time I reached for a notebook, someone kicked it farther away. Another student nudged my pencil case across the floor like it was a toy.

Then a hand picked up my notebook.

Relief flickered until I heard the words. "Let's see what this gay freak is hiding"

"No...please" My voice barely came out.

They flipped through pages filled with poems, unfinished stories, and letters I never intended anyone to read.

One page made them stop.

"So this is why" someone sneered. "Fucking pussy eater"

The hallway exploded with laughter as one of them read my poem aloud in a mocking voice.

"You're the stain in this school"

"Who do you even like? Girls butts???"

"Has she been staring at us?"

People stepped away from me as though I carried a disease,not because they feared me,but because they feared becoming me.

Before I could grab my notebook,a bucket of icy water crashed over my head.

The hallway erupted in cheers as i dropped to my knees,trying to get away from the circle.

Above me, a dozen phone lenses flashed with light, recording the way my breath hitched and broke. I buried my face in my wet sleeves, trying to disappear into the dark of my own arms, but the rhythmic clapping of the crowd vibrated right through the floorboards and into my chest. There was nowhere to look where someone wasn't smiling.

My notebook landed at my feet.

The cover was torn, and across it, written in thick black marker, was a single word.

HELL.

I stared at it, my vision blurring.

I refused to cry.

So I swallowed the tears, the shame, the anger, and the loneliness.

But some pain can't be swallowed.

It stayed.

Long after the laughter fades.