A few long moments passed and he sighed. “So tired. We all spend our young lives trying to fit in, forcing ourselves to be like everyone we hate just so we don’t end up being the guy who gets thrown into the dumpster, or shoved into the lockers, or have things thrown at them at lunch. I was done being hated for existing.”
Bas glanced at Adam and smiled. “Now, he probably doesn’t remember this. But this guy called me that night, just as I was putting the knife to my wrist. I remember glancing at my phone and thinking ‘Who the hell would call me?’ No one likes me, no one cares what happens to me, but there was this guy calling me.”
He pointed to his chest. “Me the guy everyone wanted dead. I answered, ready to hear some horrible slur against my sexuality or something, thinking it would make all of this easier. Ending things…But do you know what he said? He asked if I was feeling well enough to go get ice cream with him.”
Bas shook his head as if the memory itself was unbelievable. But Adam remembered that night pretty vividly. When Bas had arrived to pick him up, he had still looked bruised and vaguely haunted. Like a puppy waiting to be kicked or something. But they had really gone for ice cream, chatted about nothing more important than some anime Adam had loved.
“Now don’t think this was some gay thing, ’cause it wasn’t. He wasn’t interested in me anymore than I was interested in him. But we’d grown up together, sort of grown apart through the years simply because he was more athletic than I was, but we’d been friends. He’d been the one who found me in the bathroom, called for help, saved me. He was the one who didn’t walk away.”
Bas waved his hand as if shoving away smoke from the memory. “There he was, saving me again. Calling me for ice cream in the middle of March. I expected it to be a trick but went anyway, figuring I could just end everything when I got home. I just had this tiny bit of hope, that maybe, just maybe, someone cared. Strange how important that little kernel of hope can be.”
He moved to the other side of the stage, making eye contact with people in the crowd as he spoke. “Now there wasn’t some grand revelation or age-old conversation about how my life was important, and he was glad to have saved me. No, we didn’t talk about that at all. We ate ice cream and talked about anime, of all things. I told him how I hated anime ’cause of all the big-breasted women in skimpy clothes, expecting him to call me a fag, but he laughed and told me that was only some of it. He told me about some of his favorites, which were more about acceptance than boobage. Even admitted to liking something calledFruits Basket.” He laughed and smiled at Adam. Adam was sure he was blushing.
“I thought, man, this guy has to be gay to like something calledFruits Basket. You seen it?” he asked the crowd. Some said yes, some said no. “It’s about a girl who loses her parents and decides not to burden anyone, so she goes to live in the woods. She doesn’t knock herself off or grovel in the sorrow of her lot. No, she sets forth to do the best she can and become the best person she can be. It doesn’t hurt that she meets some hot guys on the way. But while she’s not the most popular girl in school, she does find acceptance, not only from others, but for herself. She also teaches others to accept themselves, even though each one of them bears a curse. I watched the whole damn series, which, if you know anything about anime, means a lot.”
“So he told me about this series and was so animated and happy that I couldn’t help but feel lighter around him. Like maybe things weren’t all bad if someone like this could exist. I found out some interesting things about him that night. Like the fact that he doesn’t have a Facebook page, and never surfs the internet for porn.” He nodded his head. “I know, right? Wow. He’s a lot like that girl from the anime. Changing people without really trying. Changing the world by just being a little different himself.”
He did a little swirl in the air with his hand. “I drove him home, and he got out of the car, a big smile on his face, and said, ‘See you tomorrow, right?’ And I nodded dumbly, like sure, whatever. When I got home, there was a text with his schedule, showing that we had the same lunch hour. And he asked to eat with me. I couldn’t believe it. Someone wanted to eat with me, the fag who just got his shit kicked in the boys’ bathroom.”
Bas nodded and pointed to himself again. “I expected it to all be a ruse. I’m a cynical bastard. Apparently a masochist too, ‘cause I showed up that day. Expecting to have been played. But when I got to the lunchroom that day, after enduring all the stares and the total silence from my peers, he was sitting with a bunch of jocks. Some of those very same jocks who had hurt me. At that moment it was like the ultimate betrayal. Confirmation that I’d been right, he was going to hurt me too. Here I was, still alive and suffering, hopes high, only to be dashed. But then he turned, smiled, and waved me over.”
Bas sat down on the edge of the stage, staring out at everyone. “When I sat down next to him, no one said a damn thing. Those asshole jocks wouldn’t meet my eyes. No one got up from the table in a huff, and it was okay to sit there and just talk, just be me. Now of course, in time, the teasing returned, but this boy had become this sort of shield to me. He wasn’t all that popular or big and scary-looking, but what he had that kept the jerks back was confidence.”
The map came back up with all the faces. “One little word can defeat the bullies and stop the needless death. Confidence. Now you all look at me like I’m nuts. ‘Bas,’ you tell me, ‘I’m in high school. No high school kid has confidence.’ But that’s not true. One does—one did. Someone tried to take that away from him on Friday night, and they failed. It’s not about who’s biggest, strongest, or even the smartest. Life is about moving forward, being who you are. If you’re too afraid to walk down the hall, too afraid to speak out and be yourself, you’re being held back.” He motioned to the map. “Is that where you want to be? Is that all that’s left for you? A face on a map? A statistic? I say no. See, this same boy, who always stood up for me without even knowing it, had sort of been coasting through his life on autopilot. You know what happens when you’re on autopilot?”
He nodded again like he could hear all their answers. “Life throws you a curve. His confidence wavered. Everyone surged in like vultures to tear apart the wounded creature he’d become. Only he brushed them off and got right back up again.”
The picture with the bully came back up again. “I graduate this year. I know I owe a lot to my friend. I’m going to a great college, have big plans for the future, hope to someday find someone who accepts me for who I am so I can spend my life growing old with them. In twenty years I will look back and think, wow, those bullies really weren’t a big deal; but that one guy, the one who stood up for me, him I’ll remember. Who do you want to be? The guy who let it happen or was even bullying others, or the guy who stood up and made an impact?”
Bas got up and made his way back to the podium. “Thanks for letting me speak to you. Now Principal O’Brien has a few announcements.”
Everyone clapped, though Adam felt a rumbling discord of unease from everyone around him. He would have to talk to Bas about the saint-like role he’d placed on Adam’s head. Adam was not as confident or angelic as Bas made him sound.
The principal stepped up to the mic. “Thank you, Sebastian. Now, a few general announcements. First, we have a no-tolerance policy for bullying; that means name-calling, notes in lockers, shoving, or property damage will all result in immediate repercussions. We have, unfortunately, been a bit slack with these rules. However, there will now be faculty added to the hallways between classes to prevent these issues. All students should feel safe while attending school.”
He paused, cleared his throat, and then continued. “You may have noticed that some of your peers are missing from school today. We have suspended eleven students and expelled three others.”
Adam sucked in a deep breath. Had Nate been expelled? Who else?
“No tolerance meansnotolerance. Shove someone in the hall and you’re suspended. Shout things at them, throw things at them, write a nasty note, and don’t think it won’t get to me. We spent a good part of the weekend comparing handwriting on hateful notes with the handwriting on term papers. Do you all understand that this is not negotiable?”
There was a murmur of consent throughout the auditorium.
“Good. Now get back to class.”
Everyone rose en masse like some zombie exodus. Adam waited a moment, hoping for a word with Bas, but freshmen were already making their way in to fill the room. Bas waved him away, mouthing “Later.”
By lunch all of the meetings were finished. Adam walked through the lunchroom, searching the room like everyone else to discover who was missing. Nate was gone, and so were Hank and Jonah. He glanced at the lunch options and wrinkled his nose at the idea of spaghetti from a giant vat. Maybe Ru would take him somewhere for lunch.
Bas met him at the door, and they headed outside to find Ru, bundled up like an Eskimo, sitting on a giant blanket with a box of pizza in front of him. “Maybe I should go back in,” Bas suggested. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “As if anything is going to happen on school grounds. We get a forty minute lunch and I’m starving.”
Ru smiled at them both as they settled onto the blanket too. The pizza was from Dimitri’s, of course, and loaded with so much it was more than enough for the three of them. “Going to have to run later to work this off,” Ru told them.
Bas shook his head. “Boy, you look fine. And I do meanfine.”
Adam shook his head at Bas’s flitting words. But Ru’s worry seemed to ease a little. “So, Axelrod,” Adam said, smiling while he thought about his day so far. “I’m your hero, huh?”
“Maybe.” He put his hand to his chest. “I need a hero!” He sang. Ru sang a long for two bars before they all broke off laughing.
Adam threw Ru a sneaky smile and wink, then turned to Bas. “There’s this guy in Advisory who was asking about you.”
“In a good way, or a bad way?”
“A good way.” Adam proceeded to tell his friend about Dustin, the guy who was apparently pining for Bas. Maybe things would work out okay after all.
