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I watch me stare the kid down, and I can't help but feel a gleam of pride. That was something my dad had hammered into me. "Men don't back down."

"Leave him alone," I repeat, enunciating every word.

"Come on, Tommy," whispers one of the other boys. "Let's go. The handball court is open."

Tommy the bully snorts and pushes past me. "Bunch of gay homos."

The insult doesn't even register to my younger self. It hadn't become a weapon that could be used against me. Not yet.

"Those guys are freakin' morons," I say, hurrying over to help pick his stuff up.

Aaron doesn't say a word. He doesn't even look at me. I try to hand him his papers, but he refuses to take them from me.

"Here, Aaron," I say.

"Leave me alone," he replies.

"It's okay, don't worry about them. Let's just go walk around the field."

"Leave me ALONE!" He swats the papers out of my hand. "I don't want to be friends anymore."

"What? Why?"

"Because I don't want to be gay."

"What is that?"

"You. It's gross. My parents say it's just wrong, that people like that are sick. I don't want to be sick."

"I'm not sick," I say.

Aaron grabs his backpack and hurries away, leaving me alone behind the bungalows.

I'm standing there, defiant and angry, but tears are welling up in my eyes.

"I'm not sick," I hear myself whisper again.

I remember what happens over the following weeks. The name-calling. The bullying redirected at me. Doodles passed around the classroom accusing me of holding hands with other boys. Finding slurs that no eleven-year-old should know scribbled onthe corner of my desk after coming back from the bathroom. Definitions I would learn by searching on the internet, and the rabbit holes of hatred I would fall into with no guardrails to protect me.

The bullying stopped after I knocked out several of Tommy's teeth and nearly blinded him. The trajectory of my life was now set. Dad's pride in me not taking any shit from anyone. Dad's fury learning why I'd been bullied. Middle school. More fights. I genuinely enjoyed goading assholes and bullies and drawing their attention away from the weaker kids, even if it meant people thinking I was some kind of violent lunatic who might go berserk if pushed too far. The fighting helped me to ignore the things I was trying hardest to push down. Everyone avoided me, even the teachers. And then I met Rachyl. She changed everything.

I see myself standing in the void. He's my fifth-grade self, but at the same time, he's me throughout my whole life. He's alone, trying and failing to stop himself from crying. His teeth are clenched so tightly it looks like they might break. A pathetic sight.

Remember, the world despises you...

The voice is like ice.

You should not be here.

Everything is all laid out in front of me. The whole reason why I've been running my entire life, why I've been so afraid. WhyI hate myself. All because of the words of a boy I'd loved, who probably hadn't even known what they meant.

The darkness is offering me an escape from all this. It pushes at my back, driving me forward toward the edge.

Do it...

"Jackson?"

I look up and see Rachyl. She gives me her usual hard stare, the one she would always give me when she's had enough of my antics.