Conventional

The second Jack walks into my room, he grimaces. “It smells like sex.”

“Um…ok…”

I try to play it off, and thankfully Jack lets it go. He sits down in my computer chair and pulls out his cell phone. “We have a slight problem.”

“ Yeah, so you said…what’s up?”

“Matt is planning on tormenting Zack Merrick for being gay. He called me like an hour ago telling me that he found your name scribbled all over the pages of Zack’s notebook. Then he proceeded to tell me that he’s going to ‘take care of it’. I don’t know exactly what that means, Alex, but it can’t be anything good.”

*

After Jack leaves a few hours later, I try to call Zack. He doesn’t answer, though. He’s probably so pissed off at me. I wouldn’t blame him, but I wish he would just answer my calls or something.

At school Friday, I’m met by Matt at my locker. He’s smiling and it sort of makes me want to throw up.

“Alex, you’ve got yourself an admirer,” he says when I start putting in my locker combination. “You know Zack Merrick?”

“Yeah. What about him?”

“He’s like, in love with you, man.”

Matt pulls out Zack’s notebook and starts flipping through the pages, but I’m not paying it any attention. I roll my eyes and grab the books I need for class.

“Dude, you need to address this!” Matt exclaims when I slam my locker shut. “You can’t just let this fag stalk your life.”

I glance at Matt briefly. “Oh, yeah whatever. I don’t really care if he’s-”

“Hold on- he’s coming this way now. Hey, Merrick!”

I hold my breath as Zack looks up from the floor. He was walking down the hall by himself when Matt called him. Now he just looks terrified. He stops walking and glances between me and Matt.

“Merrick, come over here!” Matt motions for him to come closer and Zack does as he’s told – slowly. By the time he makes it over to us, Matt’s signaling for Oliver who’s at his locker across the hall. Now I’m starting to panic.

“Hey buddy,” Oliver says to Zack when he walks over. “How’s it going?”

Zack remains quiet, looking at everyone but me.

“Looks to me like you’ve got a little crush on our best friend Alex,” Matt says, opening the notebook and pointing to my name which is written at the top.

Zack blushes and tries to shake his head, but Oliver interrupts him. “Hey, man, it’s cool. I mean, who wouldn’t think Alex is hot? But really…it’s a shame that Alex doesn’t swing your way…”

“Yeah, he’s not a faggot, like you are,” Matt adds. Then he looks at me expectantly.

I know he wants me to say something – anything that will make Zack feel bad about himself, or something along those lines. He’s smiling slightly, as if me saying something mean will make his day. I know that if I say something, Zack will hate me. He’ll more than likely never speak to me again. But if I don’t, the guys will accuse me of being gay too, or something like that. But I can’t hurt Zack.

So instead of causing a scene like Matt wants me to, I simply mumble ‘you’re so disgusting’ under my breath and walk away in the direction of my first class.