Storms - 2. Michael

‘Who is that kid, anyway?’ I asked, leaning back against a desk.

‘Who?’ Patrick leafed through his notes until he found the correct page and handed me the notebook.

‘Ta.’ I took the book. ‘The one you were bullying,’ I continued.

‘I wasn’t—’

‘Yeah you were, but that’s not the point. What’s his name?’

Patrick shrugged. ‘No idea. Don’t care. Fucking hate that guy. Bleeding little homo.’

I elected not to engage, skimming through the notes instead, though my mind was miles away. I didn’t much expect anyone to accept me if they knew I looked at other guys, but still . . . Having it confirmed like that felt all kinds of shitty.

‘Not bullying him. Right,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘Don’t disrespect me, Storm,’ said Patrick, without any real venom. ‘No one gets to disrespect me. Not even you.’

I looked up at him with my most disarming smile. ‘Course not. I only disrespect people who disrespect others. You don’t do that, do you, Pat?’

Patrick gave me a long look, eyes narrowed. I kept our gazes locked until he finally shrugged and looked away. It felt like a minor victory, all things considered.

I hated bullies, but I learned early on that the best way to help their victims was to be popular enough that they’d accept my intervening. It helped that I was the tallest in my year (and thus in the whole school), and that I worked out enough to look a bit menacing. Despite the fact that I had never used my strength to fight, nobody wanted to fuck with me. I never gave anyone a good reason to. Too diplomatic, I guess. Teenaged boys might not need a good reason to pick on the little guy, but to take on a guy like me they’d better be damned sure they wanted a fight.

I closed Patrick’s notebook and handed it back to him. The truth was that I was entirely on top of the project. My own notes were safe in my bag, and I had read through them that morning before leaving home. I had only used it as an excuse to get Patrick away from that poor kid.

‘Cheers,’ I said. ‘I think I’m good now.’

* * *

‘So, then this year ten girl, Sophia, stands up and is like, “How comes you’re not talking to the guys about this? D’you think we impregnate ourselves?” And everyone cheers and whoops, you know. So the guy holding the presentation is all like, “Yeah, but half the battle’s won if you just say no.” And Sophia said, “Saying no didn’t stop Isabella Delmar from getting raped!”’ Amy paused for effect, taking a sip of her drink before continuing her tale. ‘This profound silence, like, fell over everyone. And next thing we knew we were all given the rest of the lesson off.’

‘No fair, you getting free time while we were stuck in Geography,’ said Deacon, and Siobhan elbowed him in the ribs.

‘Sophia’s right, though,’ she said. ‘They’re putting all the responsibility on us, as if boys aren’t just as responsible for teen pregnancies as us girls.’

‘It’s pretty stupid,’ I agreed, knowing that agreeing was the best course of action.

Amy nodded. ‘Yeah. Sophia’s a bit too much of a social justice warrior, though. Like, she needs to calm the fuck down and get off Tumblr once in a while.’

I let Amy and Siobhan argue back and forth for a little while before getting to my feet. ‘Loo break. I’ll see you lot in Maths.’

I dumped my dinner tray and walked out of the canteen with my hands in my pockets.

‘Michael!’ someone called, and I turned to see Julie coming down the corridor.

I smiled. ‘Hey.’

‘Listen,’ she said when she reached me. ‘I had a really nice time this weekend.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘The movie was great. And thanks for suggesting that pizza place, it was brilliant!’

Julie grinned shyly and tucked a strand of pale yellow hair behind her ear. ‘I was wondering . . . You wanna hang out again some time?’

‘Yeah, sure! I’ll check with Siobhan and Deacon, and maybe we can bring Amy as well this time.’

‘Oh.’ Julie’s cheeks flushed pink and her eyes flicked back and forth between my face and my left shoulder. ‘I meant . . . I mean, I was thinking maybe . . . Maybe just the two of us?’

My smile faltered. ‘Oh. Erm . . . Hey, listen, you’re a really great girl. Honestly. But I don’t think . . .’

She blushed deeper, looking at her shoes. ‘I . . . I thought since you asked me . . . I thought that meant you liked me.’

‘I do!’ I said hurriedly. ‘Really! Just not . . . Not quite like that. I think you’re really cool, and I thought you’d really hit it off with Siobhan, which you did . . .’

Julie nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s nice.’

An awkward silence followed. Why did this always happen to me? It had been the same with Amy at first, but at least she took the hint and desisted when I insisted on always hanging out with her in groups, and it had stopped being an issue a long time ago.

Deacon, Siobhan, and Amy were my inner circle. I wasn’t out to them—I wasn’t out to anyone yet because I didn’t even know what I was supposed to come out as—but I suspected they might know that I liked boys, and was sure they wouldn’t mind. Deacon’s older sister Anna was a lesbian, and we’d all been to his place when she had her girlfriend over. The fact that Anna had a girlfriend had never been a big deal, it was just a thing that was. That made me feel like my friends wouldn’t judge me if I came out to them. Like it was a non-issue.

Julie had seemed really cool, and I had hoped that she could eventually become part of our group as well. Maybe she still could. As it was, a lot of people assumed Amy was my girlfriend because Deacon and Siobhan were dating. I thought it would be more comfortable for everyone if our group expanded.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last.

‘Is . . . Are you with somebody else?’ Julie asked softly.

I sighed, pondering my answer. I couldn’t very well come out to Julie Kinkaid in the middle of a corridor at school. A small white lie, then. ‘Kind of? It’s complicated . . . There’s . . . There’s someone I like.’

‘Is it Amy?’ Julie bit her lip. ‘Everyone said . . . But I thought since you invited me and she wasn’t even there—’

‘It’s not Amy,’ I told her at once. ‘We’re just good friends. I hoped . . . I was hoping you and I could be good friends, too.’

Julie remained silent and I sighed again.

‘I totally understand if you don’t want to,’ I said after a moment. ‘It’s . . . It’s not fun liking someone and not having them like you back. At least not in the way you want them to. Believe me, I know all about that.’ She cocked an eyebrow at me in a way that clearly indicated that she didn’t believe that for a second, but I was telling the truth. I went on, ‘But if you ever want to, consider this an open invitation to hang out whenever you like, okay? You could sit with us at dinner, if you want.’ I tried for a smile, and after a few seconds she returned it, albeit with less enthusiasm.

‘I’ll . . . I’ll think about it. Okay?’

I nodded. ‘Absolutely. Not a problem.’

‘Right then.’ She began to turn away, but just then I spotted the boy from that morning down the corridor behind her.

‘Hey, could I ask you something completely unrelated?’

She turned back to me. ‘What?’

‘That kid over there. He’s in your year, right? D’you know his name?’

‘Which kid?’ She looked around until she spotted him. He was walking with his hands in his pockets, eyes downcast and shoulders high. He looked like he was trying extremely hard to be invisible, and in so doing he seemed to stand out all the more, from the tips of his curly dark hair to the soles of his worn trainers. ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Julie. ‘His name’s Daniel. Daniel . . . Hartman, I think.’

I nodded. ‘Thanks. It’s been bugging me that I don’t know his name . . .’

‘He’s a bit odd,’ Julie went on. ‘Quiet like. Keeps his head down, never talks to anyone. It’s like . . . Like he’s really lonely, but he doesn’t know how not to be.’

‘That’s sad,’ I said without thinking.

‘It is, kind of.’ She looked at me and smiled. ‘You’re all right, Michael. It might take a little while, but . . . I’d like to be friends. Thanks for being straight with me.’

I returned her smile. ‘I’ll see you around, Julie.’

‘You probably will.’ She turned and walked away.

I looked around for the kid, but he, Daniel, seemed to have slunk away again, as he was nowhere to be seen. At least now I knew his name.

* * *

I found my sister Liz on the couch watching telly when I got home. ‘Hey, Lizzie,’ I said, plopping down next to her.

‘How was school, bear?’ She reached over and ruffled my hair, and I pulled away pretending to be annoyed.

‘All right.’ I paused, letting my eyes rest on the rerun of Friends she was watching, but not really paying attention. ‘Hey. If someone was being bullied, and you didn’t really know them but you wanted to help them, but you didn’t know how to approach them . . . What would you do? Hypothetically.’

‘Hypothetically?’ Liz gave me an amused smile. ‘I’d try and talk to them anyway, find out what’s going on, maybe tell a teacher. In practice . . . That’s not always so easy.’

‘You sound like you speak from experience.’

Liz shrugged. ‘I had a girl in my year who was bullied a lot. She was a bit fat. Like, not even properly fat, but chubby, you know? Puppy fat, basically . . . Everyone made fun of her for it. I didn’t, but I didn’t speak up for her either. Didn’t know how. One day she passed out in class and was rushed to the hospital. Turns out she’d stopped eating. No one had even noticed. She changed schools after that and I never saw her again, but I kept thinking, if only I’d talked to her, you know? If only someone had told her she was fine just as she was, that she didn’t need to change.’

I nodded slowly.

‘So, what’s this about?’ Liz asked, pulling her foot up under her and turning toward me.

I leaned back and sighed. ‘This kid. Daniel. People aren’t very nice to him, and I don’t think he has any friends. I want to help, but . . . I feel like I can’t help him unless people respect me, and I don’t know if they would if I tried to make friends with him. As it is, I intervene in my own way whenever I see someone bullying him, but I’m pretty sure I don’t even see the worst of it.’

‘Hm.’ Liz looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose what you’ll have to ask yourself then is what does he need most? Someone to stop the bullies some of the time, or a friend to comfort him afterwards?’

The front door opened, and a minute later Mum stepped into the sitting room. ‘Do my eyes deceive me? Both my children at home and not making trouble?’ She ran her fingers through my hair. I had no idea why the women in my family seemed so obsessed with my hair. ‘Have you done your homework?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I only just got in, Mum. I’ll do it in a bit.’

She smiled. ‘I know you will.’ She sat down in a chair with a loud sigh. ‘Lord, so much to prepare for this trip! The bureaucracy around this stuff is astounding. So much paperwork . . .’

‘Worth it, though, right?’ said Liz.

‘Of course. This is important.’ Mum looked from me to Liz and back at me. ‘So are you two, though. You sure you’ll be all right by yourselves for that long? I can’t believe we’ll be missing your sixteenth birthday, Michael!’

I shrugged. ‘It can’t be helped. What you’re doing is way more important than my birthday, anyway.’ I meant it, sort of. It’s not like my parents had scheduled the trip then to hurt me or anything. It was simply what had worked best. Still, that didn’t mean I wasn’t a little bit hurt. That made me feel like a terrible human being.

‘And we’ll be fine,’ Liz added. ‘I can hold down the fort. You guys don’t need to worry.’

‘You’re such good kids!’ Mum stood up. ‘I’ll go get started on dinner. Give me a hand, Lizzie?’

‘Yeah, in a minute,’ said Liz, and mum left the room. ‘You’d better go get started on that homework, little bear,’ she said to me.

‘You do realise I’m way bigger than you now, right?’ I said as I stood.

My sister waved her hand in a gesture of unconcern. ‘Doesn’t matter how big you get, you’ll always be my little bear.’

I rolled my eyes again, but secretly I was pleased. I might complain about my sister babying me and treating me like a kid, but the truth was I loved it. For as long as I could remember, Liz had been my best friend. Sure, we fought like any siblings, but at the end of the day nobody knew me or understood me like she did, and I loved it when she called me bear and ruffled my hair.

‘See you at dinner,’ I said. ‘And thanks for the advice.’

‘Any time, baby brother,’ she replied absently, her attention back on the telly.