Puck’s big arms were closed around to hold me inside, and I was squeezed into the dark between Puck’s enormous sweating pecs. Despite how unsanitary the moment was, I couldn’t help but feel comforted. I was leaving McKinley and somehow it felt like these were the last moments that I was going to have with these people. I looked around at the tear-streaked faces of my friends. Mercedes was leaning on Rachel and Mike was barely holding a sobbing Tina upright. Finn clapped a friendly hand on my shoulder and I buried my face deeper into Puck’s chest.
“It will be all right.” Puck said, “You cry now.”
So I did. This is as close to sleeping as I’ve been in a week. After being terrorized by bullies non-stop for weeks on end, one tends to be constantly on their guard. Sleep loss is a side effect of this.
Standing here in this choir room is when the realization of what is about to happen to me hits—I’m switching schools. I’ve given up. Thrown in the towel. I couldn’t take it. Not anymore. Not after what happened.
No wait. Back up. Let me start over.
For months I was bullied for my sexuality. Relentlessly tormented. Constantly shoved into lockers and receiving daily slushie facials. Finally, my dad threw me into therapy because he couldn’t stand anymore of my mental breakdowns in the middle of dinner or the violent sobbing that came from my shower every night. Plus, he saw the toll that my lack of sleep was taking on my GPA.
Therapy went well for a while and I actually began sleeping again. Finally, my therapist, Chloe, said I was doing better. So Chloe decided to move me into “group therapy”
This is how I met Sebastian Smythe.
Every day in group therapy, he would sit in the corner with this smug expression on his face. It said, “I don’t need to be here.” It said, “I’m better than you.” His stories were always told with a condescending air and were always too clich� to be believed, but no one said a word.
Our eyes would meet from across the circle every so often and I see him for what he truly is:
Faker.
His spikey brown hair, big green eyes, lightly toned body. Just sitting there, openly taunting me. This boy was a faker and we both knew it. After a few weeks, I couldn’t sleep again.
At the end of every session, after everyone went around the circle telling how their day went, we would all get up and walk around the room and hug each other. I came to the decision that at the next meeting, after everyone’s opened up and we’re all walking around giving support hugs, I’m gonna grab that little bitch.
His arms will squeeze tightly to his sides in that navy blazer he wears so proudly, my lips pressed against his ear, and I’ll say, “Sebastian, you big fake, get out. I can’t sleep with you here, you big tourist. I need this. Get out.”