A Match Into Water

"That all you got, faggot?"

My back slammed into the hard metal of the locker behind me. I fell to the ground, my knees hitting the tiled floor. I could already feel the purple bruises spreading. I tried to stand, but fell back to all fours after receiving a sharp kick to my side.

"Yeah, you get on your knees. Just like you do when you're sucking your faggot boyfriend's dick." I tilted my head up, my eyes catching the snakelike ones of the face glaring down at me with cold amusement. I could almost see the venom behind his smirking lips. Always ready to strike.

I struggled to my feet, still feeling small at my full height. "Just fuck off, Ben," I said, trying to turn and leave. No such luck.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around. A fist slammed into my gut. "What'd you say, you worthless little shit?" Ben spat in my face.

I struggled to wriggle out of his grip, but he shoved me to the floor. I could hear the crack as my body connected with the floor. A groan escaped my lips.

Ben grinned. "Maybe I will go fuck off. Or maybe I'll just go screw your mum, bet she'd like that after the fuckup that her fat homo son turned out to be."

A chorus of laughter erupted throughout the hallway, mostly from the group of stoners that followed Ben around. The final bell rang, interrupting the awful sound, and Ben stalked off toward the parking lot. On their way past me, a member of their group going by the name of Danny paused to kick me in the side once again, hissing "fag" under his breath. He then scampered off laughing crazily to join the rest of his buddies. Even though I knew that Danny was buzzed out of his mind, the comment still stung.

Clutching at my side, I once again pushed myself to my feet. I groped for my bag on the ground, searched for where it had skidded off to. My ribs felt like they were on fire, and if Danny hadn't broken one last year I might've suspected that was what happened. I bit down on my lip, trying to keep the pain under control. Trying to distract myself from the insults raging through my head, replaying over and over again. Trying to prevent the tears stinging my eyes from falling into the open.

I scooped up my bag, slinging it over my aching shoulder. The hallways were quickly clearing out, everybody anxious to leave the school far behind. That is, until they were forced to come back the next day. Nobody took any notice to my staggering form, limping toward the parking lot. If they did, they knew better than to interfere. I couldn't blame them. Who wanted to be on Ben's bad side? More importantly, who gave a shit about the pathetic Junior who couldn't go a day without fucking things up?

I made it out the doors, heading straight toward the beat-up gray Subaru parked in the corner. I rooted in my bag for keys, unlocking the doors with the click of a button. I learned a while ago that leaving keys in your pocket made for some pretty nasty cuts when you were constantly being shoved to the ground.

Sliding into the driver seat, I thanked God once again that I had my liscence. The anxiety and lonliness bubbling in the pit of my stomach was nearly unbearable, and being forced to sit on the bus with it was torture. Every second like a lifetime, staring out the window, just wishing that I could disappear. To make matters worse, James, another of Ben's followers, also rode on my bus. He lived across the street from me, and I couldn't go outside without feeling a stab of fear.

I slammed the car door behind me, pulling out of the parking space. I joined the line of cars waiting to turn onto the street, thrumming my fingers against the wheel. My stomach was doing gymnastics, and I wanted nothing more than to be home. To be alone. To lock myself in my room, where nobody could see my every move through a transparent car window.

My fingers thrummed against the steering wheel, my mind screaming at the cars in front of me to pick up their crawling pace. That is, when it wasn't chiding me for being such a failure. Whispering in my ear to do the one thing I knew that I wanted to do more than anything else. The only thing that might make me feel better. The one thing that I craved almost every second at school and layed awake thinking about at night.

A car honked at me, and I saw a Jeep speed past me. The window was rolled down, and a hand held up a middle finger in my direction. Laughter followed the car until it sped past the line and out of the parking lot. I bit my tongue, trying to keep myself under control. I closed my eyes, hoping that the darkness might convince myself that it wasn't real. That it was all just in my head, just a dream.

I opened my eyes, and the nightmare was still sprawled before me. I felt a twinge of dissapointment. I looked up over the dash, and saw that there was finally space to leave the school. I quickly applied pressure on the gas, not daring to look in the side view mirror until I was sure that the school was far behind. The road blurred before me as I drove, and I blinked the tears out of my eyes. They spilled onto my cheeks, and I tried to wipe them off while still keeping control of the wheel. Like I could actually control anything in my life. Well, there was one thing...but I had to make it home first.

I couldn't reach my bag on the passenger seat to pull out my iPod, so I tried fumbling with the radio. No luck. I didn't know any of the stations, and I kept getting static. Piece of crap car. I slammed my palm against the dial, and instead of silencing the fuzzy noise, it just made it louder. The white static filled the car, and I felt the tears falling faster.

Why couldn't I do anything right? Just one fucking thing? Why the hell did I have to be this way? I bit my lip as it trembled, and I tasted blood. The static hummed in my ears, but it could do nothing to keep my mind from hearing Ben's words looping endlessly on repeat. Stupid, fat, worthless, faggot. It might've well been tattooed on my forehead, everyone could see it. Everyone knew it. Especially me, when I plucked up the courage to look in the mirror.

I dug my nails into my palm, holding onto the pain as I turned into my driveway. The house was average-sized, nothing special. Nothing different. Nothing worth looking twice at. Nothing worth anything, really. I pulled halfway up the driveway, leaving space for my parents to pull into the 2-car garage when they returned home from work later that night. Stressed out, no doubt. Perfectly content to lock themselves away in their study to do even more work. Which was fine with me.

I shifted gears into park, and twisted out my keys. I hurried to the door, grabbing my bag from the other seat as I went. Jammed the key into the lock, disabled the alarm with a shaking finger. As I closed the door behind me, my entire body echoed with sobs. I did nothing to stifle the river of tears cascading down my cheeks. Who the hell was going to see me, anyways?

I kicked off my shoes and lugged my backpack upstairs, throwing it down on my bed. I then turned and pulled open the door to the bathroom. I flipped on the light switch, and as I stepped onto the cold tiles, a disgusting face greeted me in the mirror. God, how hideous it was. Ugly brown hair, long and tangled and sticking up in all directions. Fat, fat everywhere. On my weak arms. On my stomach, which I could clearly see protruding from beneath my shirt. On my face, on my stupid chubby cheeks.

In the mirror, I caught my own horrible brown eyes, brimmed in red from crying, bags underneath them from too many sleepless nights. I stared into them, at the secrets and lies and hurt hidden behind them. I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself.

I closed the door behind me, yanking open a drawer under the counter. I pushed aside all the crap shoved in the front, only looking for one thing. The voice in the back of me head coaxed me on, urges me to do it. My finger closed around the thin piece of metal, and I extracted it from the drawer. My fingers subconsciously repositioned themselves on the blade, and my other hand shoved up the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

I looked down at the maze of scars already decorating my arm, and the only thing that I felt was my hatred intensifying. Then the sharp pinch as the razor bade bit into my skin, and the calm that fell over me as I slid it across my arm. I sighed, closing my eyes. My heart settled in my chest, and my shoulders relxed. I slashed at my arm again and again, determined not to lose this blissful feeling of nothingness. Red lines bloomed across the tan skin of my arm, but I didn't care. I savored the relaxation that overtook my body, closed my eyes and breathed in the emptiness in my mind.

I was snapped out of my reverie by a pounding on the bathroom door. "Vic, what the hell is your problem?" came an angry voice from the hallway.

Shit. Mike. I forgot to pick him up from school.

"S-sorry," I stammered, bolting to shove the blade into the back of the drawer. I pulled the sleeves of my sweatshirt back down, then flushed the toilet to make it seem like I'd actually been going to the bathroom. Actually doing what any normal, non-fucked-up person would've been doing.

I ran some water over my hands, dried them off. Then I opened the door to face a very pissed off Mike. "You pick me up every day. Every day. Why the hell would today be any different?"

"I know," I said, looking down at my feet. "I'm sor-"

Mike cut me off, "I had to catch a ride home with Tony, Vic. Tony."

Tony was an old family-friend, but he wasn't exactly someone you talked to in public. He was a total nerd, with a Star Wars obsession and a strange turtle fetish. "Look, Mike, I said I was sorry. It won't happen again."

"Yeah, sure," said Mike, already turning away toward his room. "I cannot wait until I get my license. Then I won't have to depend on my dumbass brother to drive me everywhere."

I was pretty sure that the last part, mumbled under his breath, wasn't meant for me to hear. In a way, I felt bad for him. Felt bad that he still had a few more months until he got his temp. Felt bad that I had forgotten to pick him up. Felt bad that he had to have such an awful brother.

I longed to go back into the bathroom, back to the blade. But I couldn't risk it while Mike was home, even though I could hear his music thudding from down the hall. I would have to wait until tonight. I figured I should do some homework, but after pulling out a textbook and staring at it for an hour with no progress, I deemed it a lost cause. Who really needed algebra anyways?

I flopped onto my bed, stuffing my headphones into my ears. As I lay there, eyes closed, I thought about the equations that I couldn't solve. It was all those damn variables, I was sure of it. Without them, everything would be so easy. So simple. Just get rid of all of them, all the things that I couldn't control. All the things smashed together to form a long, confusing chain. All the parts of my life that made no sense.

My equation wasn't balanced. Too many variables, not enough concrete numbers. If only there was some easy strategy to be applied. Some easy solution. But I was never one for math. The only way I knew how to solve an impossible equation was to cross it out completely.

And frankly, I was getting tired of trying to solve this one.