How . . . how, god, why . . . no . . .

He stumbled into the shower, not completely able to be steady on his feet yet. How could he be after what had happened; what they had said to him. Although, they were angry. Anger makes you shout out things in the heat of the moment. People always do that, right? Yes. Things that are true usually come out then . . . like when they’re drunk. Drunk. Oh, to be drunk, take the pain away, at least just numbing it.

However, he didn’t need to drink to take the pain away . . . forever. Embracing the eternal darkness, the eternal sleep, the cold grasp of- no. No, he couldn’t. He’d promised himself that he would never do that, never seriously consider that again. At least, if only for the sake of his friends.

He sighed. If they even were his friends. Who knew anymore? Maybe they were just really kind-hearted people that took pity on him. ‘Hey, look at that pathetic guy. No one could ever possibly even go near him. I should pretend to be able to stand him.’ It didn’t make sense, but at this point hardly anything did.

He sighed again, “Jesus . . . ” Huh. Jesus. That was ONE person that he knew wouldn’t leave him. At least, he didn’t think so. He was one of the most committed Christians in the school. But that hardly meant anything; after all, he wasn’t perfect. He’d done a lot of things he wasn’t too proud of. No, not anything so tremendous as killing, or stealing, or anything illegal. Just some of the finer Biblical laws that, even though most Christians wouldn’t think twice about breaking, they mattered to him. Another sigh. After all. If they mattered that much to him, why did he break them? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore.

He signed again as he stepped out of the shower, turning the water off. As he started toweling off, he spotted a razor. No, he wouldn’t overdo anything, like he was thinking before, but maybe just to break the skin, so that . . .

He’d done it before.  Practically every reason in the book. To release emotion, to feel something, to show he was real, to prove he could do something right, to scream non-verbally, to punish himself . . . No. People used that razor; how could he soil it with his impure blood?

As he got ready for bed, he saw himself in the mirror. He briefly looked himself over, wiping away his tear-stained eyes, that way no one would know he was crying. They never did. He was pretty decent at covering that up, somehow.  Or maybe they just didn’t care. But it mattered. He always had to be the strong one. Even though he was weak. No, maybe not physically; he did have pretty good muscles. But he was thankful he’d never had to use them to defend himself. No, he was weak in a different way. Emotionally. Acted strong to cover up his weakness. As opposed to acting weak but actually being strong. That was worse, much worse. He knew firsthand.

He wrinkled his nose at the image in the mirror. ‘Ugly,’ he decided. ‘Everyone thinks I’m ugly. Most people won’t say it to my face, no, but they know it. They try and find ways around saying it directly. To try and spare my feelings. But they know it.’ Ugly. He was ugly and fat. No, not completely obese, or anything, but still fat.  He really was shocked people pretended to like him.

He smirked ironically. ‘If only they knew my secret. No one would want anything to do with me if the knew I didn’t like girls. Not even Jesus.’ Heh, maybe he should tell them. All of them. Then they would leave him alone. They’d abandon him and they’d feel better about it. They wouldn’t pretend to love him anymore if they knew.

Not that it mattered. He sighed to himself. No one could ever love him anyways. Regardless of his orientation, or gender he was. No one. Ever. In any use of the word love. He’d had proof of that tonight.

As he fell into bed, his mind ran over everything that they had said to him. Shuddering at the memory he started falling into a much-welcomed darkness. Temporary, yes. But it would do for now.