“You cannot seem to follow the rules,” she said, still holding on to his collar. “And every time I try to find you, you are somehow gone. Where are you hiding, Mr. Muñoz?”

He twisted away from Ms. Heath and then spun to face her. “Nowhere,” he said. “I’m not hiding at all!”

Héctor had not intended for his words to come out so forcefully, but his frustration got the better of him.

Ms. Heath’s eyes went wide. “So are you calling me a liar?”

Once again, as was always the case, an audience began to gather around them. Orangevale Middle School sure likes their drama, Héctor thought bitterly. How ironic.

He sighed. “I never called you a liar.”

“I found you covered in garbage last week. I left you to clean it up, but when I came back with a trash bag, you were gone. Nowhere to be found.”

Héctor didn’t know what to say. She didn’t care about what had been happening to him, and he had no strategies left.

The silence was unbearable. There were now at least ten more kids behind Ms. Heath, all of them unsure whether to walk past this.

“I’m waiting,” said Ms. Heath.

“For what?” he said.

“For you to tell me where you’ve been.”

She pushed her fists into her hips.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“I cleaned up after myself,” he said. “And then I went home.”

“I know you’re hiding something from me, Mr. Muñoz,” she said. “Ever since you got here to this school, you’ve acted . . . suspicious.”

She hissed the word, like it was a curse cast upon his body.

He shook his head. There was nothing he could say to her.

The crowd had grown, and Héctor knew each person there was going to create their own story in their head: Here was the weird new kid. The gay one. The one who couldn’t follow the rules. It didn’t matter who Héctor actually was, did it?

And then Héctor saw the true source of this whole nightmare.

Mike and Frank, their smiles wide, their eyes alight with mischief, were slowly making their way through the crowd.

Mike snickered behind Ms. Heath, but it was like the world did not exist to her. It was just her and Héctor.

“I’m waiting, Mr. Muñoz,” she said. “Where do you go?”

Héctor still did not reply. Fear began to bubble up in his chest. She had already decided that he was a troublemaker, that he came to this school to disobey her, and nothing would change her mind. Anything he said would be picked apart. Would be disbelieved. There was a terrible irony in it all. Ms. Heath was supposed to be the person he could go to for protection. Instead, she was targeting him, too.

“Is everything okay?”