Volume Nine.

The following Monday morning, I decided to give my cousin a call. Kelsey, my mom’s niece, was my first friend in life, and someone I could always count on. I was fairly sure she had come back home for a few weeks form university for Christmas break so I wanted to get hold of her since Trent had been busy all weekend. Kelsey was 2 years older than me and we had always been close until she moved into the dorms at her university where we lost touch.

When we were both young we literally spent almost every day with one another. We were either climbing trees, playing hide and seek with her neighbors, or walking to the local market to get some candy. Some of my most fond childhood memories were with Kelsey.

“Hello?” she said. I had called before leaving for school, so I more than likely had woke her up.

“Hey, Kelsey. Sorry to wake you, not really, but you know? Anyways, I get out at 2:00 today. Want to do something?”

“Sure. Call me back when the fucking sun is up, okay? Bye, love you.”

“Okay.” I said, but she hung up, more than likely rolling over in her bed during the process. Oh well.

I decided to check my voicemail while I had my phone out. I usually do this sort of stuff when I have some time to kill. Any other time and they would get ignored.

“You have, 1, new message…”

The voicemail had seemed to be an incoherent rant by someone drunk off their ass, or perhaps someone who had just left the dentist with a numb tongue. I could barely make out what they were saying.

“Huh…”  I uttered in puzzlement while pressing the delete button. 

I walked into first period and threw my bag on a back desk. Everyone else was buzzing into the class room to drop their books off at their desks so they could walk back out into the hallway as usual to do their meaningless, shallow, and empty socializing. I never cared much for socializing in the hallway. It never seemed to amount into a healthy or interesting conversation so I usually paced as fast as I could to the next class.

Strangely though, a few minutes before class, one of my track and field buddies, Beck Casely, walked into class. This interested me. He stopped at the entrance of the classroom and scanned the room until he found me.

He was a sophomore. Beck was not tall in the slightest, with short, strawberry blonde hair, and freckles all over his checks. He was very slim, almost nothing. However, he was fairly quick when he needed to be. He was probably the fastest sophomore on our team, not that that was saying much at all. He was a timid little thing, who would agree with you if you told him the grass was purple. At the time, I couldn’t imagine why he needed me. We were friendly at track practices and he would follow me around at our meets, but I never thought of him as a friend, really.

“Damon?”

“How is it going, Beck?” I said as I sat the front two legs of my chair back on the ground, taking my feet of the deck.

“Well, a bunch of the guys from the team have been talking, and they wanted me to come ask you…if it was true.”

“Wait, what?” I fired back as I pulled out my semi-complete grammar homework from the bottom of my book bag.

“Is it true, what they’re…saying?” He repeated, looking very nervous and talking softer and softer with every word.

“Who is saying what? What are you talking about?”

“I really don’t want to do this. Crap. Damon, are you really…a…umm…a faggot?” He whispered as he scanned the room again to make sure no one could hear him.

My face stopped moving the moment I watched his lips utter the word. I stopped moving and I just stared at him.

“What?”  I replied.

“I don’t know. A couple of the guys told me to come ask you if it was true.”

“Who did you hear that from, Beck?” I said jokingly in an attempt to not seem angry. Showing anger would have made me looked defensive and as if I had something to hide.

“A couple of freshmen, I don’t know. One of them said they heard it from someone at a party over the weekend. I wasn’t there, so don’t get mad at me, okay?”

“I’m not mad. Someone lied to you.” I was lying to his face. I was pissed.

“Do you know who said that about you, Damon? Everyone is talking about it.” Beck said with a hint of hurt in his voice. Beck looked up to me, I think, and hearing this about me more than likely diluted all the “coolness” he thought I possessed.

“No, Beck. I’m sure it is just one of the guys being an asshole. It is always has to be me they screw with.” I lied. I knew who had said it, and I was taking every ounce of self control I had to not punch Beck in the face out of my rage. Trent…

“Well, okay. I’ll see you at practice, Damon.” He said as the bell rang, signaling the beginning of first period.

My anxiety at that very moment was at an all time high. My fear of being found out was too much. I knew every single person who would have heard would be walking into the classroom with a completely new view of me. Something I was not, at the time, ready to be seen as. It would have killed me.

I threw my grammar homework back into my bag and threw it over my shoulder. I rushed out of the room telling Mr. Harrison that I was not feeling well.

My first period class was near one of the side entrances of the school building and it also happened to be near the parking lot.

I made the awkward walk past most of my fellow classmates who were now walking into class. I just stared at the ground as I pushed my way by.

I was pushing the side entrance door open as I heard him. His laugh. I knew his laugh.

The hallway was no almost empty with only a few freshmen scrambling into their classes as they scared down their breakfast. Near the junior lockers was a circle of four students. All of them were football players who had first period off, but still had to be in the building for attendance purposes. Among them were Andrew Jones, Marcus Finny, Antoine Colvin (or as he liked to be called: “AC”), and Trent.

I glanced back at him, and the silent rage began to build even more. I thought I could count on him. I thought he was going to be there for me like I was for him, but he was clearly too selfish to care about anyone but himself.

I closed the door and dropped my back pack near the water fountain located outside the bathrooms. I walked pass the entrance to my first period and, fists clinched made my way near the junior lockers.

I walked right into their small circle, past Andrew and AC, and right face to face with Trent who had been leaning against the lockers. The laughing stopped as I made my approach and without a single word I reared back and socked him straight in the nose pushing up as hard and fast as I could. Blood immediately started pouring out of his nostrils and some made it onto my first as Antoine and Andrew both grabbed hold of either of my arms.

“You are a lying son of a bitch, Trent.” I said as Trent fell to his hands and knees, putting his hands over his nose and mouth in an attempt to stop the blood flow.

It dripped onto the tiles of the hallway and he had smeared some onto the lockers as he made his attempt to get up. He looked up at me, clutching his nose, with his blue eyes. He looked stunned and completely out of it. He kept blinking and looking around as he stumbled to get up.

“What the fuck, Damon?” Marcus shouted as he tried to help Trent back up to his feet. 

I shook free and walked back towards the side entrance. As I grabbed my backpack I heard my principal’s voice.

“Damon Zephyr Lewis. Where do you think you’re going?” He said as he quickly paced down the hall way to stop me from making my grand escape. He grabbed me by my wrist and tried to pull me, but I pulled away.

“I thought I might go grab a late breakfast. Would you like to join me, Mr. Westwood?” I said back, throwing my book bag over my shoulders once again.

He was an alumnus of the very high school he was now in charge of. Now in his early 40s, he was a good ole boy that the entire town loved. He was once also a football player, but he had aged and with every passing year it seemed his belt size also went up a number too. His chin and neck seemed to have slowly become the same thing, as his hair line retreated. He was a tall man with a perfect upright stature, but his attempts at intimidating me failed every time.

“My office. Now.” He said with a deep monotone voice as Trent was being helped to his feet down the hallway.

“I was actually thinking Dunkin Donuts, but okay. Sure.”

“Damon. Shut up. This is not the time for your snide remarks. Move it.” I stopped. I didn’t even blink as I made my way past Trent to Mr. Westwood’s office. I stared straight ahead and didn’t even turn my head to see the nurse help him back up.

Mr. Westwood went through the obligatory “violence is unacceptable” and “we will not tolerate this kind of behavior at our school” bullshit before suspending me from attending class for the rest of the week. At the moment I regretted nothing.

With the rest of the day off I decided to not think about what I had done or the fact that the entire school was more than likely thinking I was a flaming homosexual. I called Kelsey again.

“What?” she said with an impatient tone seeing as only about an hour had passed since I had called her last.

“Wake up. I’m coming over. We are getting breakfast, and I have a lot to tell you.” I said blankly, being that I was in mood for anyone else’s crabby attitude.

“Fine, but you’re buying…”

“Okay…I’ll be there in a few minutes, bye.”

I had something I needed to do, before I went over to see her. Not something I particularly wanted to do, but something that I couldn’t keep from doing…