Chapter 8:

Fourth grade was a weird time. Not weird in the fun way people pretend childhood is when they want to sell you on nostalgia. Weird like walking around with a mask on your face but not knowing you're doing it. Like waking up in a house that used to feel familiar and realizing every piece of furniture's been moved two inches to the left. It looks the same, but nothing feels right anymore.

I still got A's, of course. That part never changed. Grades were easy. Always had been. The teachers looked at me like I was some sort of prodigy or quiet genius, but the truth was a lot simpler: the work was boring, the answers obvious, and putting in effort was the only way to get people to leave you alone. Nothing draws attention like failure. And I'd had enough of people noticing me for the wrong reasons.

There was a new teacher that year, Mr. Latham. Fresh out of college, probably. His clothes didn't look like he'd worn them for twenty years straight, let alone two, and he smiled too much. That's how you could tell he hadn't been broken down by the system yet. He asked me once, in the middle of the hall, "How's your day going, Grey?"

I didn't answer. Just kept walking. He'd try again, now and then. Same question. Same tone. Like he wanted to believe he could be the one to get through. I didn't trust it. People don't do things without a reason. Not ever. Whatever he wanted from me, I wasn't going to give it to him, so I walked past and left him standing there with that polite little smile that always cracked too fast when no one smiled back.

Most days, I just went through the motions. The other kids had already made their minds up about me: weird, distant, maybe even dangerous. I didn't care. I wasn't there to make friends. I was there because the law said I had to be. And so I showed up. I sat. I listened. I passed the tests. I ignored the paper balls and the snide comments and the way some of them flinched when they bumped into me in the hallway, like they expected me to explode. I didn't. I never did.

PE was the only part of the day I didn't completely hate.

I'd found this strange kind of peace in exercise. It made sense to me in a way people didn't. You run, you sweat, you breathe, you move. That's it. There's no interpretation or hidden meanings, or lies. If you're strong, it shows. If you're fast, you win. Simple. Clean. The only kind of honesty school ever offered.

That day, we were doing the physical fitness exams. Sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, a sprint, a half-mile run. Everyone groaned like they were being marched to the gallows. I stood in the back, arms crossed, waiting for the whistle. The gym smelled like rubber and sweat and mold, the kind of permanent stench that clings to your lungs. Most of the kids dragged their feet through the warm-up jog, already planning their excuses. I didn't say a word. Didn't need to.

First came the sit-ups. One of the coaches paired me with a kid named Travis, who looked about as enthusiastic as a dead fish. He held my ankles like they were radioactive. I knocked out thirty in just over a minute. Coach raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, just scribbled the score down. Travis got seven before collapsing and blaming a cramp.

Push-ups next. Same story. I dropped down, locked in, and went until the coach called time. Arms trembling, lungs burning, but something about the pain felt earned. Clean. I liked that. Travis did three and asked to go to the nurse.

Then came pull-ups. They had to get a stool for me to reach the bar. Most kids couldn't do more than two. I did ten. Controlled. Measured. Each one a little harder than the last, but I didn't quit. I wouldn't. Quitting was what people expected from me. It's what they always expected from kids like me.

When it came time for the half-mile, I was already dialed in. The sun outside was brutal, but I liked it better than the dead air of the gym. The track wrapped around the field, faded red with white lines that barely held together. I stood at the starting line, eyes forward, knees tense, waiting for the whistle.

When it blew, I ran. You can be sure as shit I didn't stop.

Kids fell behind fast. Some jogged, some walked. A few sprinted like they had something to prove, only to burn out by the second lap. I found a rhythm pretty quickly, foot to pavement, breath steady, arms slicing through the air like I was cutting through the world itself. My chest burned, but I kept moving. I didn't run to win. I ran because it felt like something I could control. Because it was the only time my heart beat for something other than dread.

I finished first. By a lot.

The coach looked surprised. Said something like, "Damn, Grey, you training for the Olympics?"

I didn't answer. Just nodded, walked off to the shade, sat on the grass, and let the sweat pour down my face.

That was the thing about PE. It gave me something solid. Something measurable. When I was running, no one talked. No one stared. No one asked me how I was feeling or if I wanted to talk about it. They just watched. And for once, it wasn't pity in their eyes.

Afterward, I sat alone, still catching my breath, while the rest of the class hobbled through their laps or fake-stretched to avoid running. I watched them, wondering how many of them hated me and how many just didn't care enough to know the difference. Maybe that's all school was, people pretending to understand each other just long enough to get through the day.

When class ended, I walked back inside, alone like usual. Mr. Latham was by the water fountain, leaning against the wall with a clipboard in hand. His eyes met mine. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but I was already moving past him.

"Good job today, Grey," he said, like that meant something.

I didn't look back. Didn't smile. Just walked.

Good job didn't mean anything to me. Not when it came from people who didn't know me. Not when it came from a world that only noticed me when I was too quiet or too fast or too alone.

Maybe I was all three, but I liked running anyway.

I thought the run would buy me some peace.

It didn't.

The next morning, Jace was already screaming before I'd even had the chance to lace my shoes. Something about losing five hundred dollars, apparently gone overnight in some bet he was too stupid to walk away from. I sat at the edge of the couch, tying the loops tighter, trying not to look up.

"You think this is funny?" he snapped, pacing like a junkyard dog. "You think I can just lose that kind of money and bounce back?"

I didn't say anything. I never did.

Then, like someone flipped a switch, he laughed. Short, sharp, ugly. "Hey, hey, hey! Wait!" He squinted at his phone, then whooped loud enough to rattle the blinds. "Look at that! Fifty bucks back! Told you I'd turn it around!"

He looked at me like I should be impressed. Like I should be clapping or something. I didn't move.

His grin dropped.

"You're real goddamn weird, you know that?" he muttered, stepping closer. "You just sit there like a freak. No reaction. No nothing. What are you, a statue?"

Still, I didn't respond.

"Say something!"

I stood and brushed past him.

Cowards always think silence is a challenge.

School was no better. A place full of voices louder than they were intelligent. Kids who had opinions like they mattered, whose insecurities festered into cruelty because no one taught them how to deal with pain without passing it around like candy.

I kept to myself. I always did.

But someone didn't like that. Someone always didn't like that.

I was at my desk when it happened; second period, just before the bell. I'd been drawing tiny squares in the margin of my paper, not even thinking about it. The room was buzzing with the usual background noise of crushed paper, gum snapping, and someone watching a video with the volume too high. The usual.

Then footsteps. Fast ones. I saw a fist arcing from the edge of my vision.

I moved, not far, more of a small side-step.

He swung wide, sloppy. Telegraphed like an amateur. I stepped to the side again, felt the air graze past my cheek. My knee was already moving before I thought it through, straight up, hard and fast, right into his groin.

The sound he made wasn't a scream. It was more like a sob cut short. He dropped to the floor with both hands between his legs, wheezing, eyes wide like he couldn't believe the world had turned on him.

I stood over him, completely silent, as the whole class stared.

He looked up at me, face pale, teeth clenched.

"Why don't you ever say anything, freak?" he spat, trying to sound tough with his voice cracked in half.

I bent just enough to meet his eyes.

"Leave me the fuck alone, or it'll be more than one hit the next time you come at me," I said.

That was all I had to say.

He didn't answer. Just turned his head to the side and curled in on himself. Someone in the back laughed. A couple of others whispered. The teacher hadn't even arrived yet, and already the moment had cemented itself into the school's invisible rumor mill.

He didn't come near me again.

People rarely do when they lose.

Humans are so painfully superficial. They'll pick a fight to prove they're strong, but the second they realize you might hit harder, they back off. It's not fear, not really, at least, it's ego. They don't want to be seen losing. That's worse to them than getting hurt.

The rest of the day was quiet, which, for once, wasn't suspicious. People gave me space. Not respect, just distance. I took it.

Mr. Latham pulled me aside after lunch.

"Grey, can I talk to you for a second?"

I followed him into his office. It was small, warm. Books stacked unevenly along the walls, papers spilling out of a drawer he hadn't closed right. He sat behind his desk and gestured for me to take the chair across from him.

I didn't.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I, uh… I've noticed you don't talk much."

Silence.

He waited.

Still silence.

He nodded slowly, almost like he expected that. "I just wanted to ask why. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. I'm just curious if something is going on that you'd rather not talk about. Or maybe something you'd like to, just... with the right person."

I watched him. Studied the lines in his face, the way his hands fidgeted with the edge of a sticky note. I could tell he wasn't acting. He wasn't grading me. He wasn't fishing for trouble. He was just trying to understand.

That almost made it worse. There's nothing more exhausting than being a mystery that people feel entitled to solve.

I didn't speak.

After a while, he stood, crossed the room, and returned with a bottle of water. He placed it gently on the desk in front of me, sat back down, and didn't say anything else.

The silence was peaceful, for once, nobody filled it.

I let myself sink into it, the quiet hum of the AC, the calm of not having to deal with other people, and the small pleasure in not dealing with schoolwork.

After a few minutes, he said, "You can go if you want."

So I did.

The bus ride home was uneventful. I watched the streets blur past the window, watched the kids around me act like nothing had changed.

But it had. Jace was waiting when I walked in the door.

"What the hell's this I hear about you attacking a kid?" he growled, stepping in front of me before I could reach my room. I said nothing; there was no point. I knew what was about to happen before it even played out.

"You're a goddamn monster," he snapped. "You know that? You're a fucking waste of space and money to keep around."

"He hit me first," I muttered.

Wrong move.

"You don't get to talk back!" He shouted. "That kid's parents called. Said you kneed him in the balls like some psycho. You think this is okay? You think this is normal?"

Mom was sitting on the couch. Remote in hand. Eyes fixed on the TV like none of this was happening.

I turned to her. She didn't even blink, and then I felt it.

A sudden, sharp crack, metal against my skull.

He'd slammed a can onto the side of my head. Hard. Not thrown. Slapped. Like a hammer made of aluminum.

The pain was instant. Cold. Blinding.

Blood trickled down from my hairline, slipped past my eye, and blurred the corner of my vision. For a second, I didn't breathe, I didn't feel like I needed to. I wanted to world to slow down as I glared at him.

Jace stood there, breathing heavily, chest heaving like he'd just won a round in a boxing ring.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just stood there. Staring, waiting.

He didn't apologize, of course, he didn't. I didn't expect him to either.

He just stepped back. Shook his head. Muttered something about "goddamn freaks" and "should've been locked up already" and stormed into the kitchen.

I looked at my mother one last time, and she still hadn't moved.

Blood kept sliding down my face, slow and warm.

I went to the bathroom. Rinsed it off. Watched the water swirl red in the sink.

My hands were steady; unfortunately, I tried to convince myself they always would be. To keep them steady, not to lash out without a chance at victory. Just like they always called me, a snake, waiting, watching, for its chance to strike.