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My eyes flick to his, snapping right out of it Maybe it was his mention of the prom photo “Why did you tell me this, anyway?”

Chad flinches, his stare on ay?”

“Yeah Why is it so important for me to know?”

“Because I …” He shifts his footing, repositions his hand on the wall, then squints at me “Well, why the heck do you think? Weren’t you wonderin’ why it was always you I kept targeting back in high school?”

Again, I feel like I e of either reaction “Because I had better hair than you?”

He steaht over my co, even if I didn’t know it about ay I just had all this … soer Or loneliness Or resentfulness Maybe there ain’t a na And the”

“And … suppressing your super hoayness?”

“Nah, that wasn’t it Super hoayness? The fuck, Lance?”

I look him down from head to toe, skeptical “I just don’t see it Are you dicking with ht now? Is this a prank?”

Chad lets out a huff so deep, it corowl “Lance, I never bullied you ‘cause you were gay I mean, not directly It wasit quite difficult to speak so bluntly “I think … I think I hated how loud you were How ‘you’ you were How able-to-be-yourself you were”

My gaze detaches from him

My brain draws a direct parallel fronored and cold-shouldered Billy so harshly way back then

Are high school students just an incestuous ring of one person taking out their anger on another, round and round, until the day of graduation at last sets us free from each other?

“And yeah, alright, sure,” he adds in a lighter tone, “maybe I hated your hair, too, because it was better than mine”

I sht now I’ve never seen this aard, uncertain side of hi his words