All cause I was brave enough to not be ashamed of who I am. I was brave enough to hold my hands in the air and say 'I'm gay.' And look where it got me. I knew it wouldn't be an easy ride. But I didn't expect my friends to abandon me. Didn't expect the school jocks to beat me up every day.

Some days I pretended to be sick, just so I didn't have to go. But then my Mom got worried and wanted to take me to a doctor, so I had to go back. I'm going to give you a timeline of an average day at school for me.

At eight thirty in the morning I arrive at school. Early, I know. But this way I can get to class before other kids start arriving.

By eight thirty five I'm hiding in the toilets, where I stay for the next half an hour.

By five past nine, the halls are mostly empty and I can get to my first class, in time, with only the occasional shout of 'Faggot' from some Neanderthal in a Letterman jacket.

And then, I get to class. I hate class, cause there's no escape. People throw bundled up notes at me. Usually with some derogatory or demeaning way to describe what I am. Sometimes there's even graphic drawings, lewdly labelled by kids in the class.

So, yeah. Not exactly the environment for a teenager coming to terms with who is to be in.

The teachers worry, because no one has seen me speak at that school in about two months. I don't bother any more. If I speak up in lessons, people laugh. If I try and defend myself, people just hurt me worse. What they don't know is that I haven't spoken at home in two months, either. My parents have tried to get me to speak, but I don't.

I spend lunch times and breaks spent in some distant corner of the court yard, trying to blend into the background. But they just keep coming, and I keep ignoring them until they get bored and move on. Then I wait for the next group to come. Sometimes its verbal jibes, sometimes they throw things at me.

But they got smart. They never do anything bad enough to cause action by the teachers. Not that they try. They see what goes on, and they simply let it happen.

It was after a particularly bad day that I decided not to go straight home. I went to the park, just walking, not really paying attention. I felt a soft bump against my shoulder, and I looked up, expecting it to be someone from school taking a jibe at me again. Instead, I looked up into the warmest pair of blue eyes I had ever seen. There was concern in his eyes, something I hadn't seen in anyone for years, not counting my parents. And then that soft, soprano voice said 'I'm sorry. Are you okay?'

My eyes welled up with tears, and I knew things would never be the same again.