Bully

I swing the metal door of the sports shed shut and lean casually against it, the corrugated iron feels cold through the fabric of my shirt. I can hear laughter all around me, punctuated by loud thumps at my back. I glance around at the crowd of students, some are doubled up, holding their sides, and all of them seem greatly entertained. I wonder for a brief second at their stupidity; do they really find all this so amusing? I feel another thump at my back and I stop thinking all together.

“Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!”

I laugh with practised cruelty, my voice joining in the raucous chorus, “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said let me OUT!” The thumping becomes more fervent, more desperate. I lean my full weight against the door and it doesn’t even budge, not even a little.

“What’s wrong? Afraid of the dark?” I know the answer to this question even as I ask it; the answer is yes. The answer is ‘yes I am afraid of the dark, I’m afraid of the dark and I’m afraid of you.’ I’m not sure who initially found out Evan Fulton’s greatest fear, but it hardly matters. Everyone knows, especially now.

“N-no! I’m not, I’m not! I’m… I-I-I’m not.” The tremble in his voice makes the crowd laugh harder, I laugh with them. “Please let me out! Please! Please!” He’s crying now, I can hear it in the strained tone of his voice. I step away from the door just as he thumps into it again and he topples to the ground in a mess of sprawling limbs. The crowd laughs again, like hyenas, like vultures, like stupid kids. There’s laughter in the air, in my ears and in my mouth and through it all I can hear Evan at my feet crying like a damned pathetic weakling, it disgusts me so much I feel sick. I kick him once in the side and walk away, leaving him, curled in pain, to the mercy of the mob.

---

“Benjamin,” his says, frostily, “you’re late. Why?”

If I speak he’ll get angry, If I don’t he’ll get angry, If I get angry he’ll get angry, no matter what I do or don’t do he’ll get angry. I stare at my shoes and mumble something incoherent. He strikes me across my face with the back of his hand. It stings.

“When I ask a question I expect an answer, Benjamin.” His eyes burn into me, hate and loathing dripping from the icy glare.

“Sorry,” I mumble to my untied sneakers.

“Excuse me?” His voice shakes with barely concealed rage and I feel the back of his hand once again as it connects with my cheek, harder this time.

“Sorry, sir.”

The expression of disgust on his face is as familiar as my own heartbeat. “Dinner is at six, if you are one moment late, you will not eat,” he says dismissively before turning on his heel and walking out of the room.

My cheek still hurts and I feel a wetness in my eyes, Oh God, I think, don’t cry, don’t be that pathetic. In the absence of his hate I hate myself.

---

I’m in the sports shed, sitting on the high jump mattress with a cigarette hanging from my lips, when I notice a silhouette in the doorway.

“Why did you do it?” It’s Evan.

I wonder if he’ll start crying and I take another drag from my cigarette.

“Why did you do it?” He repeats.

I consider locking him in the sports shed again, but dismiss the thought almost immediately. There is no crowd today, no laughter, no point. Just me and Evan and the question hanging in the air, mingling with the toxic cigarette smoke. He’s still waiting for a reply and I can tell he won’t leave until he has one.

“I’m a jerk,” I shrug.

“But you’re not, so why?” His answer surprises me. I stare at him. I am a jerk; no one would disagree with that statement, not even me. “When you’re not with your friends you act perfectly civil, so what’s stopping you from being like that when they are there?”

“They’re not my friends,” I say, thinking of that stupid pack of laughing hyenas and cringing inwardly, “and what sort of loser says words like ‘civil’?”

“If they’re not even…” He trails off, trembling with fury, then he glares straight at me and marches into the shed, into the shadows, until he’s standing right in front of me, “who are you trying to impress? What do you think you prove by picking on people smaller than you? What are you trying to achieve?” He hisses in an enraged whisper.

I wonder if he realises how dark it is in here, if he notices the sliver of light from the door shrinking ever so slowly. I can almost see the faces of the people I know must be there, their features contorted with ugliness as they try to hold back their laughter. I blow a steady stream of smoke into Evan’s face and wait. He opens his mouth and coughs, just as the door slams shut with a metallic clank. Laughter explodes into the silence and I can hear the sound of hands slapping the metal of the door. There’s a soft click as the lock turns and I wonder vaguely how they got the keys. I hear the sharp intake of Evan’s breath and he coughs again as his mouth fills with smoke. I drop the glowing cigarette on the concrete floor and put it out with the heel of my shoe.

“What are you—that was the only light!” He hisses in a panicked voice, barely audible over the laughter and banging from outside.

“Shut up,” I say and pull my phone out of my pocket, switching it on and letting it bathe us in its weak light, “just stay quiet and they’ll leave.”

He shuts up, and eventually they do get bored and wander off. But the door is still locked.

“I’m going to miss my bus.” Evan says, trying, and failing, to sound calm.

“It’s Wednesday, the soccer team trains on Wednesdays, someone will come to return the balls.”

“I’m still going to miss my bus.”

“Whatever.” I lie back and close my eyes.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he says, remembering his earlier anger.

“And I don’t mean to.”

He doesn’t reply and we stay in silence for an excruciatingly long time. I don’t even realise I’ve fallen asleep until my ringtone wakes me. I pick it up and answer it without looking at who it is. Mistake.

“Where are you?”

The voice makes me freeze. The sound from the phone speaker is loud in the broken silence and I know Evan can hear every word. This is not a conversation I want him, or anyone, hearing.

“Um… I’m…”

“I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses.”

“But you just –”

“SILENCE! Did you not hear me? Your feeble attempts at justifying your actions are lost on me. I did not raise such a rude, delinquent child. It’s that woman’s influence I’m sure – ”

“Don’t talk about mum like that!”

“I will talk about that wench however I please. Come home at once and face the consequences of your actions you pathetic waste of time, your cowardliness disgraces my good name, you—”

I end the call and throw the phone across the room. I glare at the shadowy figure that is Evan, daring him to say something.

“Is that it then?” to my surprise I hear no trace of either mockery or pity in his voice, “Is that the reason? Is that why? You think that’s a good enough excuse?”

Suddenly I’m angry, I’m furious. I grab Evan by his shirt, “You don’t know anything,” I spit into his face, “You have no idea!”

“Oh, don’t I?” He’s equally angry, momentarily forgetting his fear, “Don’t I? Your dad bullies you just like you bully me; you’re exactly the same as him. Mindlessly cruel for no good reason.”

Voices from outside interrupt our argument before I can reply, “Hey, Steve, did you bring the key? The bloody door’s locked and these balls are heavy.”

---

On the way home I don’t get off the bus at my stop. I watch numbly through the window as the corner of my street appears and then disappears from view. I suppose I’d always known what Evan said was true; I was just too good at pretending. Acting to entertain an audience and to fill my part as was expected, never doing anything I truly wanted to do, not even knowing what it even was that I wanted. Just existing and taking out my self-hate on others.

If my life were a movie I would go back home, I would stand up to my dad like Evan had stood up to me. I would probably pick up my phone and call all the people I’d wronged, apologising for inflicting my own misery on them. But my life is not a movie and I don’t even have my phone with me, it’s still lying in some forgotten corner of the school sports shed. I am no villain turned hero, I am just me.

When the bus reaches the end of the line the sky has darkened and the air become chill. I step out into unknown territory and start moving, pretending, as always, to know exactly what I was doing and where I was headed.

AN: Written for school a couple of months ago. Didn't post it here because I forgot about this place :/ (oops). Any and all feedback welcome!!