Class is dismissed and I'm walking, calmly but knowing i'm about to be harrassed. I smell his stink, his heavy odor that burns my nostrils. Wait, he calls, I only want to talk. But I know what he'll say, what he always says, when he begins to talk.

"Why are you so gay?" He asks, pulling the ends of my choppy bob hair cut. I side step him, turn around and hold my books close to my chest.

"Lesbian girl, wait for me!" He calls, buddies following him. "Maybe I can change your mind?"

I shake my head, hands balled into tight little fists. I'd love to make him eat those words, to shove them back down his rotten throat.  "You're sick."

A strong, fat hand closes around my shoulder and I'm backed up, roughly, into the wall. A hand cups my jaw, forcing my eyes up only to shudder, shocked.

"Would you like to repeat those words, b****?" He says, leaning into me with his foul breath.

I lean forward until my nose just barely touches his and my lips part open, wide, to yell as loud as I can, "Actually, I have said that to you, and all your punk friends more than enough times. I think it's time you understand I'm gay, and I will NEVER bow down to the likes of you. If you believe, for one minute, that I'm alone, you're wrong. Now back, the hell, off!"

He stares quietly at me, wide dropped in stunned silence. The hallway falls silent and students stare, and begin to snicker. I'm about to run when someone starts clapping.

" You tell him!" someone yells down the hall.

Someone closer says, "Let her go, you sicko!"

Even though my face is burning I know it's pride, and once he pulls away from me to retreat with his friends more hands start clapping.

A boy, no older than me walks up to me and smiles, holding out his fist to be pumped. From his wrist hands a very colorful bracelet.

"I got your back." He says, pumping my wrist and becoming my best friend.