Mikey stumbles back and his hands fling to cover his face. Everyone that was around us goes silent in astonishment.
“You’re a real dick Mikey, you know that?” I scream. Every word lowering my anger.

“What the fuck man! What did I do!?” He yells, blood starting to drip down his chin from his nose.

Mikey wouldn’t fight back, he was much too skinny. He knew that he would lose, and everyone would see.

“Shut the hell up.” I say, shaking my head as I start to walk away. As I start to walk away I feel a hand on my shoulder, yanking me back.

I’m spun around and met face to face with Pete, Mikey’s closest friend for 3 years now, he balls his fist and hits me right in the gut. Considering I had just had all that shit happen with my stomach, this was extremely painful. I lock my groan in my mouth.

“Pete what the hell? Stop!” Mikey says, pulling Pete’s fist just as it would make another blow to my side.
My vision is a bit blurred, all I can really see is him giving into Mikey.

“It’s not his fault dumb ass.” He snarls at me in a whisper then backs up and turns to Mikey.

Everyone is staring now, this is just horrible. I start to walk away towards the gates and can hear everyone muttering ‘oh my god’ and ‘Holy shit the fag just hit his brother’ and other bullcrap that I can’t quite hear. But I don’t care about any of them right now. I just really need to go home; my parents are at work so they won’t know.
***
As I got a few houses away from my own I saw a boy sitting on against a wall that divided his house to the one next to it, maybe a year younger then my brother. I had never seen this boy before, although I was never really sure who lived there, but never really cared enough.

The boy had black hair, short everywhere but his bangs, which hanged over his face and ended in a curl. He had black jeans on with a shirt that had sharpie on it, reading ‘Homophobia is GAY’. Clever, very clever. I chuckle a bit. He has his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms around them connecting by his hands. He then unlatches his hands and puts them up to his face, pulling his hair a bit.

As I get closer to him he stays in that position not noticing me. I feel bad for the boy though, there obviously must be something wrong with him.

“Hey uh, are you alright…” I say, awkwardly towering above the awkward boy.

He looks up, his eyes are hazel, making him look like a puppy. They’re puffy red though, with bags under them. He looks confused. Not knowing what to say.

“I’m fine.” He says, looking back down to his hands. They had scratches on them, red marks lashing from one side of the hand to the other.

“You don’t look fine...” I say leaning down on one knee next to him now. If I can’t try to help myself at the moment, I could at least try to help him.

He sits there, still looking at his hands, then putting them together and between his legs, any sight of the red marks, now hidden.

“Listen… I’m just a random stranger, I know. But you can tell me, I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” He looks up at me, eyes wide and sad.

“You promise?” He says, barely above a whisper.

“I promise.” I say with a straight face.

“You can’t tell anyone… promise me you won’t tell anyone?” He says, now desperate, taking his hands out of his legs and gripping them onto his knees.

“I swear I won’t tell anyone…”

“My mom and dad left me.” He says, looking down, his bangs now covering his face, making his expression unidentifiable.

“What do you mean by ‘left you’?” I say, confused. Is he adopted or something?

“They just, they just left! A month I woke up and they were gone! Their stuff and everything! They’ve left furniture and dishes and shit like that. But they didn’t leave a note or call or anything.” He said fastly, I could barely comprehend what he was saying. He looked up to me, his face now covered in tears.

“You have no idea where they went?”

“No, not at all. But please don’t tell anybody, please, please, please,” He begged “I don’t want to be put in some foster home or anything.”

“I won’t, but someone will come if bills aren’t paid… you get that right?”

“Yea I know, but they might be paying them or something. I don’t know. There hasn’t been any letters saying that anything is owed. I just don’t know.”

“Well, listen kid.” I said, putting my hand on his back “I won’t tell anyone, but let me know if you need anything. I live right there.” I point to my house.

“Thanks.” He said looking up to me.

“What’s your name anyways?” I say, wondering. He told me all this, and we don’t even know each other’s name.

“Frank, and I’m not a kid. I’m only a year younger then you.”

“Oh…? How do you know how old I am…?” I ask, how does he even know? Most people say I look a lot older then I am.

“I’ve seen you at school before, some kids were yelling at you when you were walking into Ms. Priebe’s class. She only teaches 10th graders.” He says, now awkwardly looking down when he realizes that it sounds a bit creepy. But it doesn’t sound creepy to me; I thought most people didn’t even notice me.

“Oh… Well do you know my name, also?”

“Nope.”

“Well I’m Gerard.” I say smiling, when he looks up and sees me he smiles too. And for once, this wasn’t a shitty fake smile. I kind of… well, I think I wanted to smile; for the first time in a while.