CHAPTER THREE

BLAKE’S POV

The minute I stepped foot inside school, I was bombarded with questionable gazes from the other students. I tried my best to not think murderous thoughts towards them as I found my way to my locker. The moment I opened it, Luke and Dante accosted me.

“What the hell Lindell?” Dante asked. “What the hell did I see on the students’ forum?”

“Are you gay?” Luke had a disgusted expression on his face when he asked this. I remembered then how much of a homophobe he was.

“No, I am not gay, Luke. And what you saw was not true. Anthony and his stupid friend are playing some kind of sick joke.” I slammed my locker shut with so much force it rattled the others beside it. Dante and Luke look relieved at my statement.

“He tried to punch me yesterday in the Clay Room but tripped instead. The moron fell on me instead and…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words. I felt so mad and angry at Anthony that I wanted to ram my fist through his face over and over again.

“If Anthony wants to play, let’s give him what he wants.” The way Dante said this had me rethinking telling them that Anthony planned the video thing. Don’t get me wrong, I did want to take revenge on him, it’s just that Dante has been known to take things a bit too far when it came to pay back and I may have hated Anthony but I didn’t want him maimed for life.

“Guys, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, okay?” The words were barely out of my mouth when Luke spotted Anthony walking in with Crystal, her face crestfallen as she sighted me. My two friends were over there in record time and I swore silently as I followed them.

“It’s a nice morning isn’t it, Pearce? Have any more boys to ambush with kisses on your list?” Dante asked mockingly. Then he lowered his tone and asked “Am I next by any chance?”

Crystal looked at me pleadingly, as if begging me to tame my friends. I didn’t know how to tell her that I had no control over pissed-off Luke and Dante. At least to some extent.

“I don’t do dipshits, McCollin,” Anthony responded. Dante oohed and gave him a sadistic look. I could only imagine the plans he had for Anthony.

“Does that mean you like Blake?” Luke asked. “Bro, that’s disgusting. As if Blake Lindell will ever get with a guy.”

“It’s the freaking 21^st century but you guys are acting like assholes from the 1900s. Grow up, would ya?”

We all turned to look at Crystal who was glaring spitefully at my friends and partially at me.

“No matter what century we are in, being gay will never stop being disgusting,” Luke said with so much venom to Crystal.

Dante lowered his stature to be on the same level with her and said “You have terrible taste in men” before capturing Anthony in a headlock.

“Let’s go to the scene of the crime, shall we Pearce?” he announced and started dragging Anthony across the hall to the Clay Room despite Crystal’s pleas and his struggle to be free.

We arrived at the Clay Room before Crystal did and Dante locked her outside. She banged on the door to be let in but we all ignored her and focused on Anthony.

“What? Are you all going to gang up and beat me? Pretty cowardly, don’t you think? Picking on someone with a broken arm.”

“Like you could take one of us with properly functioning arms,” Dante said and snickered. He stalked over to the shelf where all the clay sculptures were kept and picked up a silver mug with swans on it.

“Hey be careful with…” Dante let the mug slip before Anthony could finish his sentence.

“Oops.”

Luke picked up on Dante’s plans and moved over to the other shelves.

“Now hold on. We can talk it out…”

They began to smash every clay object they could lay their hands on, from the mugs with intricate designs to the vases and plates. I watched them, unable to join them for some reason, but also unable to stop them. I felt a tightness in my chest as I saw the horrified look on Anthony’s helpless face. I knew how much work he put in all these clay objects. Much as I hated him, I didn’t like the idea of his hard work being destroyed before his eyes. I felt the same way when I was kicked off the basketball team.

Dante held up a rainbow-colored mug.

“Ooh. He made a freak mug.” He threw the mug up in the air and caught it. Anthony turned paler and paler as he continued to toss it in the air and catch it.

“Please, be careful with that Dante. Don’t break that.” Anthony’s voice was dripping with desperation and worry, his eyes wavering, but Dante ignored him.

“Tell me, what’s your ideal guy like? Blake?” He pointed at me and Anthony went red like a tomato.

“Look at him. He totally likes you, Blake.”

“Shut up, Dante. Don’t say shit like that. What if you start to put ideas in his head? I don’t want a fag liking Blake. That’s just weird and disgusting.”

Dante chuckled and made to smash the mug in his hand. I caught a glimpse of the inscription on it just as his fingers stopped supporting the weight of the mug. It dropped to the floor, just like the others, and smashed into a thousand irreparable pieces. I could feel the pain emanate from Anthony as he watched the destruction of the mug. That made something stir in me.

“Come on guys. We have to go or else we’ll be late for class.”

Reluctantly they agreed to leave. Crystal looked at me with so much venom and spite as we exited the Clay Room. I tried my best to not dwell on Anthony’s words about being a coward and left without looking back.

***

The cafeteria was as noisy as ever. I didn’t like having lunch in the cafeteria but I was forced to because of social convention. My friends enjoyed watching others eat and making snide comments about their food and eating habits. I had to be there because… well, they were my friends.

In this moment I couldn’t help but feel a little bit jealous of Anthony. He never ate in the cafeteria. His entire high school life was spent in the Clay Room. I thought of the mess that my so-called friends made there this morning and my stomach flipped. I suddenly didn’t feel like eating anymore.

We got to our table and sat there. A few seconds later, Susan, the second hottest girl in school joined us with her friends from the cheerleading squad.

Dante and Luke kept talking conspiratorially with each other. It was so unlike them to not focus on two beautiful girls and opt for talking about God-knows-what instead. Susan tried to start a conversation with me, but I was more interested in finding out what was making them so pleased with themselves.

“Are you guys going to let me in on the fun or are you just going to keep giggling to yourselves like a bunch of girls?”

“You’re gonna love this,” Dante said excitedly and pointed behind me. “Watch.”

I looked back and saw Anthony taking a sit beside Gary on the basketball team’s table. I frowned because I had never seen Anthony in the cafeteria since tenth grade and also because of the smile he exchanged with Gary. It was too much teeth and cheeks and just too…much. Too gay.

I watched and observed nothing extraordinary happen. Anthony just brought out his lunch from the little brown lunch bag that he always carried from home because he couldn’t eat cafeteria food since he didn’t know what they put inside. It was a sandwich, as always and I paid attention to him as he took a bite of it.

“Wait for it,” Luke all but squealed, unable to hold in his laugh. He and Dante were acting really weird and I suddenly felt this cloud of dread settle upon me. Why did I have such crazy friends?

I saw nothing at first. Then I saw Gary move his hand towards Anthony’s face. The action confused me even more when Anthony slapped his hand away and grabbed his throat instead. That was when I noticed how red he’d gotten.

“What did you guys do?” I asked, dreading the answer even though I already knew it.

“We just gave him a little treat. We know how much he hates peanut butter so we decided to give him a little taste of it.” The way they laughed after Luke said that enraged me. My eyes bulged out of their sockets and I looked at the pair of them like they were mad, which frankly they were.

“Hate? Hate?” I yelled, startling all that were seated there. Dante and Luke stopped laughing now and stared at me like I had lost it.

“Did you just say hate?”

“Dude…” I cut Dante off before he could say something even more stupid.

“Anthony doesn’t hate peanut butter! He’s allergic to peanuts, dipshits!!” Their faces fell in unison. We all turned to Anthony’s table now. He was so red, if a tomato was placed next to him you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in color. Everyone around him seemed to be clueless as to what to do. I stood up quickly and ran to his table. He fell over from his seat just as I arrived.

“Pearce! Hey, Pearce, look at me!” His blue eyes now looked grey.

“I…can’t…breathe,” he managed to force out.

I faced Gary and told him “Don’t let Pearce die” before leaving Anthony’s side and running to my locker.

I thought to myself how proud and smug my mother would be when I told her that I used the EpiPen she literally begged me to carry around for Anthony today. I never thought I’d need to use it. I guess mothers did know best.

I found it tucked safely between my math textbook that I never used and headed back to the cafeteria. Mr. Cornell, our History teacher was already by his side, calling emergency services.

“Out of the way people!” I yelled and shoved those unwilling to yield. I crouched down beside Anthony. He looked blue now.

“Please don’t die Pearce. My mom’s gonna kill me if this EpiPen doesn’t save you.” And without wasting a second I stabbed his thigh with the injection. It took a couple of seconds, but to me it felt like hours.

Finally, he breathed in.