Page 4 of Hunter's Hidden Camera
The restroom door opens again.
“Hey, faggot.” This voice belongs to Chad, a football player who’s nice to all the girls but pretty much a dick to all the guys, especially the ones who are gay or who might be gay.
“Don’t call me that,” Andrew says, firmly.
Chad barks, “I’m just calling you what you are.”
Andrew stands his ground. “Shut up, you idiot.”
Chad growls, “Don’t make me bash your fag brains all over the wall.”
I hear Andrew storm out the door.
Chad takes a piss and then moves to the sink.
I slip my laptop back into my backpack and open the stall door. My eyes meet Chad’s reflection in the mirror.
“Why are you always picking on that dude?” I ask, not really caring about an answer. I just want to call him out on his shitty behavior.
He growls, “Mind your own business, Hunter.”
“It happened while I was around, so itismy business.”
“Why are you defending a fag? Areyouone too?“ he sneers.
I’m kind of taken aback by Chad’s remark. No one has ever questioned my sexuality like that and in such an aggressive manner.
I want to scream “yes!” and punch him in the face. But I don’t have the courage. It’s not that I don’t have the courage to swing at him; I do. It’s that I don’t have the courage to admit that I am gay—to anyone, let alone a bully like Chad. So I just freeze.
It shouldn’t be this way. Objectively speaking, I’m smarter than Chad, better-looking than Chad, have more friends than Chad, am headed toward a brighter future than Chad. But here, standing in front of him, I feel like so much less than him. My secret keeps me small. My secret holds me down.
Chad suddenly makes a fist and raises it at me.
I flinch. He stops. It was a fake-out. He laughs.
With all the running and working out that I do, I’m pretty sure I can put up a good fight against Chad. But he’s got a bulky football player’s build, so he would probably eventually knock me on my ass, maybe even injure me badly. I don’t make a move.
“Thought so,” Chad says.
He then stomps out of the restroom, quite satisfied with himself, having terrorized two people before the school day has even started.
One day I’ll figure out how to get back at him, but for now I retreat into the stall—not to resume what I was doing, but to think.
“Fag.” I hate that word. It hurts.
But you know what hurts even more? The fact that I’m not brave enough to be who I really am.
4
Fail
It’s second period, and I’m in Mr. Hilton’s class early, sitting in my seat in the back. I’m the only one in here. On test days, I always like to get to class before everyone else. It’s like I need the quiet and solitude to prepare myself, to focus, so I can be in peak shape. It’s the same whenever I have a track meet.
After a few minutes, students start pouring in.
“Hey, Hunter,” says my best friend, Oscar Bustamante, as he takes his seat next to me. He extends his fist for me to bump it, so I do.
It’s funny to me how this school has a culture of homophobia and guys are so “no homo,” but at the same time dudes are always touching each other: fist bumps, handshakes, side hugs, playful ass-slapping in the locker room. (Yes, that’s a thing.)
