RAGE (2 page)

A few times, I risked peeking up to get a glimpse of her talking and laughing with her friends. I was careful not to be noticed looking at her by anyone. If someone saw me, I had no doubt that what my life would become would make what it was now look like a breeze.

She was the prettiest girl in the whole school, and her attitude made her even prettier. I couldn’t remember a single time that she’d ever made fun of me like everyone else did. She talked to me when I talked to her, unlike the other girls. If I asked them a question, they ran off to tell their friends that Brian Boozer actually had the nerve to talk to her. Carly would even start conversations with me, which no one ever did. Carly was different. It’s the reason I’d liked her for so long.

Her warm smile, kind blue eyes, and adorable dimples made her cute. But the way she treated me made her beautiful.

I finished my lunch and walked over to dump my tray. Had I not been so preoccupied with thoughts of Carly, I might’ve seen Dominic rushing toward me with his tray. Before I noticed him, he slammed his tray into my chest, pretending to have tripped.

“Oh, Boozer. That sucks.” He laughed. The three buttholes behind him laughed too.

Dominic pulled his tray away from my chest, revealing the mess. Lasagna and chocolate pudding covered the upper half of my shirt. Here and there, a green bean was stuck to the goo.

“You did that on purpose,” I said quietly.

“Did I?” Dominic asked, stepping toward me. “Prove it.” He jabbed his finger into my forehead and walked away.

I looked at Carly, hoping she hadn’t seen what just happened. She was looking directly at me. So were all her friends. So was everyone else in the cafeteria. But out of all those people, Carly was the only one not laughing.

I stood in the restroom, trying my best to wipe the food off my chest with paper towels that felt more like thin cardboard than paper, hating Dominic more by the second. Why was he like this? Why did he single me out and pick on me the way he did? I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered for the millionth time if I looked that different from the other kids.

My hair was a very average shade of light brown. It was a little long; not I’m-a-hippie long, but I-need-a-haircut long. I kept it combed forward. Seeing nothing unusual about my hair, I moved on to other things, like my face.

I had a few freckles, but not nearly as many as Spencer had. Lots of people had freckles. So that didn’t make me different. My teeth weren’t horrible. There were a couple of crooked ones on the bottom, but it was only noticeable if I smiled, and that sure didn’t happen often. My lips weren’t too thick or thin. My nose wasn’t too big or too small. My ears didn’t stick out either. Seeing nothing wrong with my face, I moved on the rest of me.

I was shorter than Dominic, but was as tall as most of the other boys my age. It wasn’t like I was freakishly big or freakishly small. I wasn’t fat. In fact, I thought I was too skinny. My arms and legs weren’t too long or too short. My feet weren’t too big or too small.

I didn’t see anything about me physically that would make me the laughingstock of the school. And yet I was. I always was and probably always would be. The thought of going through this hell for the next five years made me want to cry. In fact, my chin quivered and my vision blurred, but I quickly stopped it. I wasn’t going to cry here, where anyone could walk in at any time and see. I never let anyone see my tears, especially the people that caused me to cry. I didn’t have much, but I had that.

Already late for Biology, I didn’t hurry. I didn’t even care. I was flunking Biology anyway.

Slowly, I walked to my locker and opened the door. At first, I thought I had gone to the wrong locker, but when I saw my backpack, I knew I hadn’t. Hanging beside my backpack was a t-shirt. Taped to the front of the t-shirt was a note written in a familiar scrawl.

It said: Brian, this is my gym shirt, but I think it’ll fit you. Carly.

I smiled inside, though my lips never moved. I put the note in my pocket and held up the shirt. It was a plain light grey t-shirt. There were no indications that this was a girl’s shirt. But even if it had been pink with glitter and unicorns, I would’ve still worn it. After all, it was Carly’s shirt.

Bringing the shirt to my face, I buried my nose in it and inhaled the sweet scent of Carly. Breathing deeply, I closed my eyes and for a second, nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that the whole school had laughed at me. It didn’t matter that I had a tray of food smeared across my chest. Nothing mattered except that Carly had thought of me.

I didn’t even bother going to the restroom. I was the only one in the hall now, everyone else having already gone to class. I yanked off my ruined shirt and threw it to the bottom of my locker, and then pulled on Carly’s shirt. It was soft and smelled good. It was a little snug, but not noticeably so. Besides, none of my clothes ever fit properly so I was used to it.

I grabbed my Biology book and headed for class, fifteen minutes late.

When I walked into the room, everyone was already in their groups dissecting their worms. The teacher, Mr. Wilson, placed me in a group. Of course, we were next to Dominic and his buddies. I always seemed to end up next to him. But at least I hadn’t been stuck in his group, so I counted my blessings.

I saw the way Dominic looked at my shirt, undoubtedly wondering where I’d gotten it. But then he turned his attention back to the worm. Apparently, slicing open dead things was more important than bothering me. I was happy to know that something was.

Standing there in my group, I watched as the other kids did all the work. They didn’t even acknowledge that I was there. No one asked me anything, no one offered to let me do any cutting, no one asked for my opinions or observations on anything. That was fine with me. I wouldn’t have known what to do or say anyway. After all, I was flunking this class along with all the others.

“Brian, are you participating?” asked Mr. Wilson in a low tone. I liked him. He was a soft-spoken man with white hair and a constant smile. He never singled me out in front of everyone the way the other teachers did. If he had anything to say to me, he said it quietly, to avoid embarrassing me.

I looked up at him. “Not really.”

“Well, you should. It would improve your grade.” He nodded once and walked away.

I looked at the other kids in my group, sure that one of them would now hand me a scalpel or ask me a question or something. Anything. But it was as if they hadn’t heard a word. No one offered to let me in on the dissection, so I continued to stand there, feeling dumb and useless, until the bell rang.

At my locker, I put my book on the shelf with the others and headed to gym class, both wishing the day was over and dreading when it would be.

Walking to the gym through the crowded hall, other kids bumped into me, knocking me this way and that. When I heard the squeak of tennis shoes on the floor behind me, I automatically cringed. It had become instinct to do so. Then, I was shoved forward. I fell onto the crowded hallway floor with just enough time to brace my fall.

Nose to floor, I lay there, knowing who’d pushed me without even looking. When I heard him laugh, I looked up and saw Dominic and his stupid friends walking away from me toward the gym, laughing as they went.

I pushed myself up from the floor, wincing from the pain in my left wrist. It had taken most of the impact, and I’d gone down on it pretty hard. Slowly, I worked my wrist back and forth as I continued on to the gym, refusing to cry.

I walked down the steps into the gym, across the basketball court where a couple of older boys were dribbling basketballs, and into the locker room. Instead of turning and going into the actual locker room where the lockers and showers and other boys were, I went into the coach’s office where our teacher sat at his desk doing paperwork.

I briefly wondered what kind of paperwork he could possibly have to do, then said, “Mr. Laughlin?”

“Yes.”

“I just fell in the hallway and hurt my wrist. I was wondering if I could sit out today.”

“Don’t you sit out most days, Brian?” he asked, looking up from his papers.

“Yes,” I answered quietly, suddenly feeling ashamed that I didn’t participate more in P.E.

He stared at me for a minute without speaking. Then, “How bad is your wrist? Is it broken, you think?”

I bent it back and forth slowly. I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s broken, but it’s sprained, I think. It hurts when I move it.”

He stood up and came over to me, holding my hand in one of his hands and my wrist in his other. He slowly moved my wrist around.

“I don’t think it’s broken, either. I can call your mom if you want and she can take you for an x-ray.”

“No,” I nearly shouted. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Go do some stretches, run a couple laps and take a bleacher.” He went back to his desk.

Doing as I was told, I stretched my legs, stretched my arms and my back, and then I quickly ran two laps before grabbing a spot on the bleachers. I tried to be finished before the boys came out of the locker room. A few of them had begun to trickle out onto the court, but Dominic, Taylor, and Spencer hadn’t emerged yet and that was the most important thing.

The girls were coming out of their locker room now and taking their end of the basketball court. I watched them do their stretches, especially Carly. Since I was wearing her gym shirt, she had to wear the shirt she had worn to school. I felt bad that she’d gone to such trouble for me. She’d made a special trip to the gym to fetch the shirt, wrote the note, and placed both in my locker. I don’t know when she’d had the time, but it was nice to know she’d been thinking of me.

The boys were goofing off on their end of the court as they waited for Mr. Laughlin to come out and start the class. I watched them, wondering what it felt like to be part of them, to be a part of the group. I longed to know what it felt like just to be a regular kid with a lot of friends, never having to worry about an abusive step-father waiting at home or having to worry about class bullies. A kid who wasn’t picked on and made fun of. I’d surely never know.

I sat through the class on the bleacher, trying not to make it obvious that I was watching Carly. I couldn’t help myself.

A couple of times, she looked at me and smiled.

Once, the ball came over by me. Carly ran over to get it. She smiled at me and said, “You wear that better than the pudding and lasagna.”

I said, “Thanks.”

She headed back to the game.

I remained on the bleacher while everyone went back to the locker rooms to change. When the bell rang, we all walked out of the gym, headed for our final class of the day, which fortunately for me, didn’t contain Dominic.

Art had always been my favorite class. I guess it was because there really was no right or wrong answers. Art was as you saw it, and everyone saw it differently. Even I couldn’t flunk Art.

Our assignment was to draw a still life. Our teacher, Mrs. Madison, had arranged some flowers in a vase with petals lying on the table around it.

I went to drawing, thinking of nothing but the details. The veins in the petals, the shadows, the coloring, and the angle of the light all had to be perfect. I was so focused on my drawing I was startled when Mrs. Madison announced we only had five minutes left in the hour.

Quickly, I finished and sat back, picking up my drawing. I held it in both hands in front of my face, then slowly dropped it and raised my eyes to the actual flowers on the table. It was perfect. I’d gotten everything just as it was supposed to be. Just like I always did. I may not know what an ancient sea mariner was or be able to calculate square roots or dissect worms, but I could draw better than anybody else I knew.

I looked back at my drawing and noticed the grey on my fingers. It was a side effect of using my fingers to shade the drawing. I quickly put the drawing on the table and wiped my fingers on my jeans. I didn’t want grey finger smudges all over the picture.

By the time the bell rang, I had nearly wiped away all traces of the grey. Everyone stood and walked to the front, placing their drawings on the teacher’s desk before leaving the room.

As always, I was bringing up the rear of the line. I was the last one to put my drawing on the pile. Mrs. Madison saw it.

“Brian,” she said, picking it up. “This is magnificent.”

I looked at her face, saw it light up the longer she looked at my picture, and knew she was serious. She wasn’t teasing me. But then again, she never did.

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

“This really is breathtaking. You captured all the details perfectly.”

I stood there, watching her admire my work. She was the only one who’d ever praised me for anything. I’d stand there all day if I could.

“Are you entering anything in the art show?”

I shook my head. I knew there was an art show coming up. I wanted to put some things in it, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. What if everyone laughed at my work?

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Brian, you have to. You have such an amazing talent. You absolutely must show it off.”

“What would I have to do?” I asked.

“Anything you want. Sketches, paintings, chalks, charcoals, whatever you want. I’m sure anything you do will be fantastic. And do as many as you want. There aren’t a lot of students putting things in, so we have plenty of room.” She returned my drawing to the pile of others on her desk.

I looked down at the floor, thinking of what it’d be like to have other people look at my work.

“Brian, please think about it. Not everyone has the ability to draw like you do. Don’t hide it from the world.”

I nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

And I would think about it. But right now, I had more important things to think about. Like how to avoid my step-dad when I left here and went home.