Mike smirked. “You trying to hide?” he said, and he stepped closer. “Just like the coward you are?”

“Please go away, Mike,” said Héctor.

Mike was now inches from him. He reached down and tried to pluck the hall pass from Héctor’s hand, but Héctor quickly stuffed it into his jeans pocket.

“Go hide in the closet where you belong,” Mike sneered.

Héctor couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes. It was such an obvious insult, and Mike had said far worse to him.

“You got a problem with me?” Mike said, and then he was so close that their noses almost touched. “We don’t snitch in this school.”

There was another groan in the hallway, and Héctor expected someone else to come upon them and break this up.

But no one did.

“You just tried to snitch on me to Ms. Heath,” said Héctor.

“You could have gotten me in trouble,” he shot back. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“Because you won’t leave me alone!” Héctor cried out, and he was so tired of this boy that he didn’t care that he had raised his voice. “I’ve never done anything to you. I don’t know why you hate me so much!”

Mike rested his forehead against Héctor’s.

“Yes, you do.”

He pushed off.

And then the word dropped out of Mike’s mouth and he walked away.

It was a word Héctor hadn’t heard since he was nine, when an older white man yelled it at Héctor as he walked by. He was dressed up as a princess for Halloween, complete with a long dress, painted nails, and a face full of makeup. His papi had chased the man off; it was also the first time Héctor had heard him swear. His parents had sat him down that night and told him what the word meant and how cruel it was, how people who were gay or queer had been called that openly for a long time. His parents held him and said that no matter what, they loved their son completely and without conditions.

It had not stung when he heard it that first time. But now, three years later, it felt like a knife to the heart.

Like a punch in the gut.

Like a bomb had gone off.

Héctor slumped against the wall. He couldn’t bring himself to go in the Room. It wouldn’t make him feel better. Nothing would. Because Héctor knew the truth:

He would never fit in here at Orangevale Middle School. Ever.

Maybe he was exactly what Mike had called him. Maybe he’d never be anything more than that.