“Found your shoes?” His scowl was made of hatred that day.

I tried to sneak under his arm, and he grabbed me by the shirt. “Uh-uh. Not so fast.” Threw me in a stall. Struck me with the bottom of his spikes.

“Stop fucking looking at me all the time.” There was murder in his voice.

Bright blood trickled down my arm, got stuck to the hairs. I sucked spit through my teeth as he pulled me off the toilet and threw me into a urinal. I caught myself on the flush valve.

“Hey.” He twisted me to face him, punched me in the ribs. “Fight back. Why won’t you fight me back, you pussy?”

I didn’t answer. I only wished a flying sword could fall from the sky and impale his beautiful head.

I admire his beauty. His olive skin, powerful arms, the smell of Axe, seductive and suffocating. Rock-hard pecs, hair gelled and dark like a greaser from the fifties. He’s so beautiful and violent.

My one friend sophomore year was Kieran Waters—kid came from Nebraska or somewhere to Heritage, so he was just lost everywhere he looked. We sat next to each other in class and talked a bit, but after the first few weeks, he started to look at me sideways and frown, and I knew it was coming—that moment where he’d leave me like they all do.

He pulled me into a stairwell after gym class one day. “Sawyer, you gotta start talking more,” he said. “You ignore half the stuff I say. You barely respond to what anybody says. And you sit there and smile all big to yourself all the time and pull your hair out. Why do you do that? It’s so weird. Also . . . sorry to ask, but are you gay?”

I had no answer for that because it wasn’t my problem what people thought.

I’m put off by humans in general. I admire them so much in appearance. Kieran’s hair . . . I liked it because it was like a kamikaze, like a huge, all-destroying firebomb. His Adam’s apple was softball-sized, his limbs like bowstrings you could pluck and make music with. His bones were so visible.

I watched him. Maybe he thought I was gay because of how I watched him.

“Are you gay, Sawyer?” He jabbed me in the shoulder. “Huh? Are you? Answer me!”

I blinked and studied the protrusion of his collarbones, like two marbles baked beneath a crust. Everyone has always felt so hostile toward the fact that I enjoy the male form.

Kieran stormed away when I didn’t answer. I smiled to myself as he left. He was so angry.

I guess I’m so quiet because I’m under no obligation to speak, and people choose to let that bother them.