SAL

          "You kiss your daddy with that tongue? I'm sure he—"

           That was a stupid idea. What else is a guy gonna do, though? Let himself get bullied by a dumbass like Travis?

           In elementary, they taught me to tell a teacher if I was being bullied. But what the hell am I gonna do? Sit around, let a kid cuss me out , and not defend myself? I suppose that would've been a better idea, because he punched me in the jaw when I got him back. It probably wouldn't have been as bad as it was if I wasn't wearing my prosthetic.

           For some context, I had an accident and my face ended up mangled. I think it would've been cooler if I had at least part of my face left. Then I could have a Phantom of the Opera mask. It would look awesome, and I also wouldn't have bled as much as I did that day. 

           So, Travis punched my prosthetic into my face. As he sped away, I spat out blood and it ran down my chin. My friend, Ashley, who was standing next to me when it happened, flipped out. I wiped the blood off with my hand.

           "What the hell, asshole?!" she shouted after him. That was also a pretty bad idea, because any teacher could have heard us. We live in a small town. There aren't a lot of students in our high school to block out the sound. "Are you alright, Sal?"

           "I'm fine," I said automatically. Not really. It stung. I'm glad my sweater's black, or the blood would've been more obvious... though, that could look cool, too. Like a tough guy.

           "C'mon, let's report that jerk," she said, scowling. She swiveled around, about to march off to the principal's office — I didn't want that. Travis was just some lame, homophobic shithead. We didn't need to worry about him.

           I put my hand out like I was a traffic cop. "No, don't worry about it." She turned around and gave me a dubious look. I adjusted my mask. "That'll just make things worse, trust me. I've dealt with worse bullies than Travis before." I really have. I was kind of surprised there weren't worse bullies here; it's not a super clean and wealthy neighborhood.

           Ashley didn't care about what I said. She looked at my mask, which apparently got blood on it from when I messed with it. "Sal, you're bleeding!"

           "I'm okay, really," I replied, putting my hands in my pockets.

           The thing with Ash is that she's really stubborn. Sometimes I get a free pass, like when she didn't go to the principal's office to report Travis — although she might just do that behind my back — but after that, I can't stop her. So of course she pretended not to hear me when I said I was fine. She's a great friend.

           "Here, let's use my bandana," she muttered, grabbing a red piece of fabric out of her pocket. I panicked.

           "Wait, hold on—" I protested uselessly. She'd get her way. "I— you can't— I'm—" What I was trying to say is that I'm ugly. I've gotten used to my face, but being a hormonal teenager, as well as a relatively sane person, I don't like it. I have an ugly crevice that splits my lip down the middle and goes up to where my nose should be. It looks more like a lizard nose than a human one. My jaw has a chunk missing on the left side. One of my eyelids flops over my eye. I look like Two-Face if he was One-Face. It's depressing. I really like Ashley — I didn't want her to think I'm a monster.

          Ashley was merciful and did not react to my face. Instead, she undid the bottom buckle, flipped up my mask like the hood of a car, and bit her lip as she focused on tying the bandana over my wound. It was weird. Now both Larry (my other friend) and Ashley had seen my face, and they were totally cool with it. I tried not to cry.

           "There," she smiled. "Looks like it was just a small scratch. Don't worry, you can hardly see it."

           "Ha... thanks, Ash."

           Larry walked over to us in long strides. He's always towered over me... it's a little unnerving. Maybe the scariest thing is how short I am. "Dude, what happened?" He probably noticed that Ash took my mask off... or maybe it was that she shouted in the hallway. I knew it would get some attention. 

           He immediately caught onto what was happening, took his hands out of his pockets, and curled them into fists. "Was it Travis again?" He didn't wait for an answer. Larry was usually chill, but if anyone messed with me, Ashley, or Todd (our other other friend), he'd lose it. "That prick! I'll kill him!" Larry is actually shorter than Travis, but unlike Travis, he actually has some muscle. He could probably beat him up.

           I was getting a little sick of this. "Larry, I'm fine," I sighed. "It's okay. Don't worry about it." He still looked pissed.

           In an attempt to control the situation, Ashley said, "Sal's right. If we stir the pot, it could just make things worse."

           "Not if he's dead!" Larry barked, actually shaking with anger.

           Larry and Ashley had their back and forth for a while, but I zoned out. There had to be a reason for Travis's rage. Why the hell was he so angry at me? What kind of trauma could cause someone to hurt a random classmate?

● ● ●

           After lunch that day, I went to the bathroom to... relieve myself. Right next to the door, there's a trash can. I noticed a crumpled up piece of notebook paper next to it. Pretty sure that's littering. Even though it's gross to pick stuff up off the bathroom floor, I grabbed it to put it in the trash. A sentence poked out of the crumpled ball. "...feelings I have are wrong."

           Couldn't hurt to take a peek.

           I smoothed out the note and began to read.

           "I know we don't really know each other and you probably have your opinions of me. I thought maybe if I told you how I feel—" Looks like we got a love story here— "things could be different."

           Somebody had a crush that they couldn't find the courage to talk to. Apparently, they couldn't find the courage to give them the note, either.

           "The truth is, I can't stop thinking about you. I'm crazy about you!" I was right! I smiled under my mask. I felt a little bad, though. That person would never know how... whoever wrote this note feels about them. "I think you're amazing! But I know these feelings I have are wrong." Oh damn. What was going on here?

           I kept reading. "It's not the way a boy should feel." Was this dude gay? "Shame swallows me whole just writing these words." Damn. This was a little sad. I wanted to help him out, whoever he was. I thought briefly about keeping the note, but decided against it. That would be a little stalkerish. Also, it was on the bathroom floor. It probably touched piss that missed the urinal.

           "My father would kill me, but I can't live in his shadow forever. I just—" The rest is scribbled out. Man...

           Then I heard sobbing from the last stall.

● ● ●

           "You gave him your number?" Ashley asked, looking at me like a crazy person.

           Travis and I had a pretty deep conversation in the bathroom about emotions and feelings and being gay and pressure from his dad, which was not something I expected to get from him so easily. I mean, I always knew he wasn't really a bad person, but I didn't think I'd be able to convince him to be less of a bully so fast. Then I wrote my number on a piece of notebook paper and slid it under the door, and he actually took it. Weird.

           "I think he needs someone to talk to," I replied. "He's not really the pompous asshole he tries to be."

           Ashley looked distraught for a moment, then laughed. "That's sweet, Sal. So... he's gay?"

           I grinned. "Are you kidding? He's been calling us all fags for years now. Nobody gets that defensive about being gay." I sobered and shrugged. "But really, whatever he is, I hope he can learn to get comfortable with it. It has to be difficult with a preacher for a dad."

           Larry strode up behind me. "Boo," he deadpanned, which scared the shit out of me. I flinched and turned around. "Did I hear that right? You gave Travis your number?"

           I nodded and shrugged again. "Yeah. I think he needs a friend."

           "You're pretty cool, Sal. Ash and I would've just beat him up," he said.

           "Killed him," Ashley corrected.

           Todd pushed his glasses up his nose and changed the subject back. "Society's come a long way from when we were hunted like witches," he said. "Still, it can be difficult to admit it to yourself. I hope you can help Travis with that."

           I scratched the back of my neck. "Yeah," I said. "I'll try."