Tacks for Snacks

"I get the feeling that I annoy you, Johnny," he says when math class ends.

I stand, stretch, stress. "You don't annoy me ..." I say slowly. "You ... make me uncomfortable."

"Oh."

He sits across from me and we used to get along quite well, albeit that he was always much more popular than myself.

Until.

Until he finds it amusing to sit there and pretend to cut himself. With a dramatized gasp of pain and a twisted face and a hand running down the length of his arm. Mockery, mockery, mockery.

I would sit across from him with my hands under the table. Thumbtack in right hand, left wrist extended. Pricks and scratches. Oh, sweet relief! Biting my lip as my eyes blur with tears. Can't you tell that you're hurting me?

Not to mention completely incorrect.

Let me tell you, Aidan--

When I'm sitting in my room with all the lights off and I have a pair of scissors in my hand, that's not what I look like.