The Scars on Your Heart

"And you know I wouldn't go gay for that loser anyway!" Josh screamed, glaring in my direction. His eyes were full of fury, and I couldn't help but be a little hurt that he called me a loser, even if it was Josh Franceschi. I also couldn't help but wonder what he had said to make them think he was gay. But that really didn't matter.

I looked down at my milk carton, reading the nutrition facts like I did every morning, trying to distract myself from all the yelling going on at Josh's table. 80 calories in this one carton of milk. Fuck.

"You know what?" I heard Josh say, a little quieter than a shout but still audible from where I was sitting. "You guys are wankers. I'm leaving." I looked up as Josh left the cafeteria, wanting to go after him and try to calm him down, but I knew that would only make things worse. And he broke my fucking arm and then kicked me while I was downed. So basically, I should be angry. But I wasn't. I may have shouted "fuck you" a couple of times but honestly, it was my fault he pulled me off. I was being a smartass.

I stood up with my milk, hoping that maybe if I left with it the staff would assume that I drank it. Heading towards the entrance-slash-exit to the cafeteria, I heard one of the techs shout. "You can't leave with food or drink! Sit down and finish your milk." I turned to the guy and chucked my milk carton as hard as I could at him, watching it practically explode once it hit him. The entire student body laughed and the tech looked down at his milk-soaked shirt, then back up to me, and I began running.

It took a while but eventually I found Josh in the public bath on the second floor. I was out of breath from all the running and walking. I'm too fat to even run, I thought. how pathetic. "Josh?" I said, peeking under the stall he was sitting in. He had his feet up on the toilet seat and, much to my surprise, he was crying.

"Go away, Sykes," He snapped, and then he sniffed. "I don't want to see anyone, especially not you."

I stood up. "Josh, I--"

"I said go away." He spoke, a little more forceful this time.

"Give me a chance to talk, for god's sake!" I cried, throwing my arms down to my sides. He opened the door to the stall and I frowned when I saw his face. Not because I was mad about seeing him, but because I was sad to see him that way. It didn't matter if it was Josh, it would be the same if I was seeing Matt that way, or Tom.

"What? You're going to say what I said earlier, right? 'Only faggots cry'?" He said, viciously wiping the tears from his eyes and trying to make his face the rigid, angry one I was so used to seeing.

"No," I said. "I actually came to say I was sorry. Sorry for hitting you and making your nose and mouth bleed, and sorry for being such a smartass this morning." I said, folding my hands in front of me and looking down at the tile floor, bracing for an abusive comeback. When he didn't give me anything to work with, I simply continued. "And I kind of wanted to know why you were so upset earlier. And now." I added, looking back up to him. He was biting his lower lip, obviously trying to keep from crying any more, but the dam cracked and tears began flowing down his cheeks. He came at me and I winced, preparing for a punch to the face, but what I got instead was a hug. A really tight hug. I cocked an eyebrow, slowly putting my left hand on his back as I let him cry on my shoulder.

"I hate you so much," He sniffed, and I was baffled. This was completely over-the-top confusing. "look at what you do to me." He squeezed me tighter and I felt a million butterflies in my stomach, definitely from nervousness. What was he going to do next? Reel back and hit me? "It's been one night with you as my roommate and I broke your fucking arm and I feel bad about it, and I can't stop thinking about you and now my friends think I'm fucking gay because I said 'Poor Oli' at breakfast." Oli... I liked that. That was a cool name. "Why can't you just fucking leave?" He asked, pulling away and looking at me with a mix of fury and sadness in his blue eyes. "Why can't they just discharge you already so I don't have to deal with you anymore?" He added something that sounded like "and so you won't have to deal with me," but it was hard to hear because he was speaking so quietly. Josh took several steps back from me and let out a sigh as the school bell rang.

"Let's go to class," I said, not knowing what else to say and remembering that we had every class together.

"No, I can't be seen with you. I'll leave first, then you leave in like a minute or so." Josh said, wiping the remaining tears from his eyes and making a few faces in the mirror before walking out of the washroom. I stood there obediently, counting to sixty before making my leave and heading to our room. By the time I got there he was already gone. It was so weird of him to cry like that. Some of the boys here had severe depression, but you rarely ever saw anyone cry except for me. Maybe Josh did that a lot, just in secret. But probably not.

Then again, I only thought his heart was cold and hard as a rock until today. There was definitely another side of him that I didn't know about.

"Watch it, Sykes!" Lee Malia bumped into me again, and his cohort Matt Kean shoved my shoulder, sending a wave of pain through my broken arm. I took in a sharp breath and grimaced. Jordan Fish passed by me with a smug smile on his face and then continued on with Lee and Matt. Those three, along with Josh and his friends, were my biggest bullies. Everyone else tended to leave me alone. I preferred that over "avoid me".

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I walked down the hall and to the staircase, my class being on the first floor. Once I made it down the two flights of stairs, I walked all the way down the corridor to Miss Avery's classroom. The long walk made me dizzy and short of breath, as it always did. I stepped into the classroom and saw that Josh was sitting at my table. Did Dean Maskell arrange this? Because if every class was like this, we'd be spending a hell of a lot of time together.

I sat down on the stool in front of the lab kit that was laid out on the table, noticing that Josh was doing his best to ignore me. His best friend Max was in this class, and I saw him casting worried glances back at Josh. "Good morning, class," Miss Avery said in her unusually high-pitched voice.

"Good morning, miss," We all replied. Except for Josh. He sat beside me with his elbows on the table and head in his hands.

"Today is Tuesday, September tenth, 2013. We have a new student in our class today, Josh Franceschi. He transferred in from another class." She spoke with a grin, gesturing towards Josh, who didn't even bother to look up. "I expect you all to treat him kindly, like you do your other classmates."

I rubbed my hands on my jeans and tapped the toe of my black Chuck Taylors on the linoleum flooring out of anxiety. Josh and I would have to work together. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, after what I'd seen earlier, he kind of did have a soft heart.

"Today and tomorrow, we will be working on a study about luminol and what makes it glow." She explained some other stuff about the study that I didn't really listen to, and then got to the part about the kit. Josh and I did as she said and the class passed by rather slowly. Probably because I was casting glances from the clock to Josh over and over again while we worked. I just wanted him to look at me. To acknowledge that I was here. To realize that I wasn't as bad as he thought, just like I realized he wasn't as bad as I thought. But he didn't. Not for the rest of the day.

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I finished up my phone call with Matt and took my medication, then headed to my semi-new room. I had already hurt my arm in it, so it was already kind of broken in (pun not intended). When I stepped in the room, Josh yanked me in and shut the door, standing in front of it. "Erm," I muttered, looking him dead in the eye. "what?"

"Shut up." He said, approaching me swiftly. Oh, god, what did I do now? He grabbed the back of my head and I expected to be slammed into the wall, but what I got was worse. Actually, better. But worse at the same time. He fucking kissed me. Full on, tongue and everything. And the worst part? I found myself kissing back. No matter what all the rumors said about me, I wasn't actually gay. I don't know where that all started. But now I could see the reasoning behind it. I was fucking enjoying Josh chewing on my face.

He pushed me back and I stood there, breathless, a question mark probably visible over my head. What the fuck was that?! "Oh my god," Josh said, covering his mouth and turning to face the corner next to the door. The back of his neck was red as a tomato. He slammed his fist on the wall. "What the fuck?" He almost shouted, but kept his voice quiet so no one would come running. He turned to me, his eyes all seriousness. He gulped and then spoke. "You tell no one about this, you hear me?" He whispered, and I nodded. There were an awkward few moments of silence but after a while it was broken. "I guess I owe you an explanation..." He said it as if he were questioning telling me or not.

"Er, yeah, you do," I spoke as quietly as I could with it still being audible.

"Okay, just give me a second." He scurried to the washroom and I heard him run the sink and gag. I peeked in and he was rubbing his tongue with a cloth. I quickly backed out before he could see me and waited for him to finish cleansing his mouth of my germs. I wanted to do the same, but at the same time I didn't. So I didn't. "Okay," He muttered, coming out of the bathroom and running his fingers through his light brown hair. "first, I hated you. At least, I thought so. But after being exposed to you for a day, a fucking day," He explained, putting some extreme emphasis on the last word. "I started second-guessing. And I don't know what came over me, but I really wanted to kiss you. I'm not gay, I swear. Some guys, you know... experiment." He wanted to kiss me? Wow. That was a huge change. And something inside me told me that I felt the same way towards him. But, as he said,I'm not gay, I swear. He let out a somewhat loud laugh. "Man, I thought you'd be the one to put the move on me. Here I was afraid of it." He was cackling by now. "But I was the one to put the move on you!" He was getting a bit loud so I stepped forward and covered his mouth with my hand.

"Shh," I muttered. "people will hear." He nodded.

"You're right, sorry." He whispered, giving me a grin. Man, this was all too weird.

Then his facial expression changed. He looked angry again. "Get away from me." He said, shoving my chest. I cocked an eyebrow and stumbled back towards my desk. "I'm not gay," He muttered, flopping onto his bed and rolling over so that he was facing the wall. "I'm not fucking gay."

I looked at him and sighed, going into the bathroom to brush my teeth before I went to bed. What was going through his head right now? Other than "I'm not gay", of course. What did he think about kissing me? Because what I thought about it was baffling to me. I liked it. A lot. And I wanted to do it again. But that wouldn't happen. Ever again. Never. Because we weren't gay.

I finished brushing my teeth and climbed into my bunk, crawling under the covers and staring out the window into the darkness outside. Oh, Josh. You're so fucking weird.