The Scars on Your Heart

"Everyone hates you, why don't you just go kill yourself?" Josh called from the end of the corridor, making me grit my teeth. My back was towards him, but I had a feeling that he knew he was pushing my buttons. "Hah, no wonder Tom killed himself. He hated being related to you, Sykes!" I stopped where I was and turned to face him. He was pretty far from me, but I could hear him clear as day. "I'd kill myself if I were related to you. Being associated with the fatass emo kid would make me--"

I dropped everything and began sprinting down the hallway, much to Josh's surprise. He looked scared for a moment just before I reached him, but then started moving his giant mouth again. "What are you gonna do, Sykes? Beat me--" I lunged towards him and knocked him to the ground, sitting on his stomach and punching him in the face over and over again.

"Don't you ever talk about my brother again, you hear me?!" I shouted, watching a stream of blood come out of his left nostril. "I'll have you know he's safe at home. He's not dead!" I finished up with one last punch to the mouth, which split his lower lip and made him bleed there as well. I stood and stared down at Josh, who was still on the ground, holding his finger under his nose, supposedly in an attempt to stop the blood from flowing. "Stupid fuck." I hissed, walking down the hallway to retrieve my stuff.

I heard loud footsteps quickly approaching the scene, and my chest tightened. Shit. "What on earth happened to you, Mr. Franceschi?" Dean Maskell shouted, her voice shrill and fear-provoking. I stopped in the middle of the corridor where my stuff was, not bothering to pick it up. I knew this was the end of me.

"Oliver Sykes happened, that's what," Josh said, his voice shaking with rage. "I was just standing here and he came over to beat me up--"

"Very likely story. You had to have done something. Mr. Sykes?" She shouted for me, and I turned around, looking at her and grinding my teeth. My eyes were welling and I lifted my arms from my sides, silently asking "what?" She gestured with her finger for me to come closer, so I picked up my drawstring bag and came closer, refusing to look at Josh, who grinned once he saw the look on my face. "Why did you do this?" She asked calmly and quietly, frowning as a single tear fell from my right eye.

"He was talking shit about Tom!" I cried, my voice tight and shaking, causing the other boys in the corridor to laugh. "Shut the fuck up!" I whipped my head so that it was half-facing them, and they stopped almost immediately. I turned back to Dean Maskell, tears streaming down my face. "He said that he killed himself. Tom would never do that." I choked. "Josh is delusional! He needs new medication!" I shouted, earning a scoff from Josh who now stood next to the dean.

"I need new medication?" He laughed, wiping the blood from his nose. "Wow." He took a step closer to me and placed his finger on my chest. "Listen here, you little--"

"That is enough, Mr. Franceschi," The dean interrupted him and placed her hand on my shoulder after removing Josh's finger from my chest. "Mr. Sykes, I think it's time you head to the safe room and think about what you did."

My eyes widened. "The safe room?" I asked. "No, no no no, please, don't send me to the safe room!"
"To make it fair, I will be sending Josh to the safe room as well." She stated firmly. Josh's jaw dropped and he began to plead for mercy, to which Dean Maskell simply put her hand up and silenced him. "I will also be making other arrangements, to see that you two begin to get along."

"Not with this faggot!" Josh screamed, his whole body shaking. "There's no way you can expect me to get along with him." He shook his head rapidly. "Absolutely no way."

"Seeing as you do most of the instigating, I think you could manage to change your ways a bit." She spoke softly, pointing me in the direction of the safe room on this floor, and turning with Josh on her heels to go back down the steps to the safe room on the first floor.

I sighed and turned around with my drawstring bag on my back, feeling the other boys' eyes boring holes into the back of my head as I walked down the corridor, head hung in shame.

------

"Why the fuck would he say that?" Matt shouted over the telephone, causing me to wince at the loudness of his voice. "That's just fucked up, mate. Really fucked up."

"I know," I responded, looking around to make sure Josh wasn't near. It didn't matter if he was near, though, just like I get the feeling when people talk about me, he would too. "Be quiet, he can tap into telephone calls." I reminded Matt.

"Right, sorry." He said with a nervous tone.

"Anyway, when are you coming to visit me? Have my parents told you yet?"
"No, not yet, but I think it'll be sometime this week."

"That's good." I spoke, my tone brightening. So, Matt was going to visit me. My parents always send him separate from them. They rarely visit me, but Matt comes every chance he gets. He and I have been friends since we were little. I always love spending time with him, because he makes me laugh. But he makes me eat, too, and that's not exactly fun. So times with him are always what you could call "bittersweet."

"You there, mate?" He asked, bringing me back to the present and making me smile.

"Yeah, what were you saying?"

"I was just saying that I have to go, but you have a good night, you hear?" He said quite loudly. I nodded, even though I knew he couldn't see me.

"Sure thing. Bye." I responded, and he resonated the last word. Then I hung up and the tech smiled at me.

"How was your chat with Mr. Nicholls?" She asked, her smile seeming sort of sad. I guess she was new. I had never seen her before, and after a while the staff stops feeling bad for the students and just goes on about their day without a second thought.

"It was good. Take care!" I said with a grin as I left the desk, and the boy behind me walked up. Lee, I think was his name. We accidentally bumped shoulders and I began to apologize but he cut me off.

"Watch where you're going, faggot." He snapped, turning away from me with a look of disgust and telling the tech who he wanted to call. I squinted at him for a moment, then turned and walked away.

I walked up to my room on the third floor, surprised to find a note taped to the door. "Mr. Oliver Sykes' room replacement: 1346," I read out loud after taking it down. I shrugged. I guess I'd be moving to a new room. I walked into my old room, 1322, and found that all my stuff was gone. I guessed they'd boxed it up and moved it while I was in class or something.

I headed further down the long corridor and stopped in front of the door to room 1346. I took a deep breath. They better be nice. I thought about my new roommate. Not a lot of the boys here were nice to me. It's been that way since I was 10. People came and went, but I always stayed. Luckily for me, I was going to turn 18 at the end of the year, so they couldn't keep me anymore.

This school was Maskell's School for Boys. They should name it "Maskell's School for Troubled Boys," because everyone here has some kind of mental issue. I have two, anorexia nervosa and problems with cutting and burning and scratching and the sort. They also give me medication that they say is for calming me down, but they change it all the time even though I'm calm, so that kinda makes me question the motive a bit. They can only keep you until you're 18. I've been here since the end of primary school. It kind of sucks, not having any friends other than Matt who I can't even see but twice a month, but I got used to it.

I opened the door and nearly screamed when I saw who was sitting on the bottom bunk. "Josh!" I gasped, standing in the doorway with my jaw hung.

"Shut your mouth before bugs start nesting," He snapped, standing up from the bed and throwing his arms out to the side. "welcome. I'm about as happy to be rooming with you as you are." He said with a mock smile on his face. I'm assuming he wasn't very happy at all, seeing as I was furious and terrified.

I took one slow step into the room, leaving the door open behind me. "What are you doing here, am I in the wrong room?"

"Nope, you're in the right room." He laughed. "Poor Oliver," He said with a voice that sounded like mine when I had been crying. "you also have every class with me now, too. They gave me my new schedule just minutes before you arrived." My eyes widened. "Shut the door, 'stupid fuck,'" He mocked my words from earlier, and I shut the door, heading over to my boxes of stuff which were on the second desk and in the chair.

I felt my lip begin to tremble as I remembered what he had called me. 'Fatass.' I knew it was true but there was no stopping the words from coming out of my mouth. "Am I really fat?" I asked, pulling my clothes out of the first box and staring at the tag on my t-shirt. 'Small.' Dammit, there was no denying it.

"Yes, you idiot, you're fucking huge." He stated, making a gesture that made me want to cry.

"Did you listen to me and Matt's telephone call?" I asked, trying to distract myself.

"What? No, dude, Matt isn't even real, you psycho--"

"Why does you keep saying that?!" I shouted, looking up at the ceiling and counting the dots to keep myself from getting angrier. "Look, if the techs let me talk to him on the phone, then he's real. You're just jealous because you didn't have any friends from the outside."

Josh clenched his jaw and stared at me, his steely blue eyes burning through my skull. If looks could kill, I'd have died a thousand times right there. "Go to bed, Sykes. You're having a bad day and I don't want to be any more a part of it than I have to." He hissed.

I frowned and finished unpacking my stuff, immediately climbing up to the top bunk and flopping down on the mattress. I felt my eyes begin to well again. Why the hell did Dean Maskell make us roommates? This was going to be one long semester.