I didn’t think I could get any lonelier after that summer, but when high school started this kid John had it out for me pretty much immediately. He was small but had big friends. He came at me in PE punching my arms. But I didn’t fight back. His punches didn’t hurt and I never knew what to do in those situations.
Once I saw John on the ferry. He was sitting at a table in the cafeteria folding the back page of a Mad magazine in thirds. Someone asked if they could take the chair opposite him, revealing John’s tiny legs. He saw me, and looked scared without his friends. He seemed much younger than 13 with his mad mag, like the real John was much smaller and peeking out at me from behind his pupils. I looked for John once I paid for my snack just to talk but he was gone. We could of split a ciggie on the deck and tossed it in the ocean, so foggy and frothy out there it all looked covered in ash anyway.
That week back at school I was walking home and John and his friends appeared from an alley. John shouted that I’d taken his hat on the ferry, which was a lie. They ran after me and my heart beat so fast I couldn’t run as quick as I normally could. They chased me into an overgrown yard and kicked me on the ground taking turns. I heard myself sobbing underneath their blows. I tried to restrain the largest boy, clutching his forearms, but then John hit me in the back with his skateboard and they booked it out of there. I was winded so bad I never thought I would breathe again, laying there in the tall grass, the dying sun just a red stripe and me shivering now too after everything.
I took a few days off from school. When I returned I saw John in PE. He looked relieved to see me alive, then his face seemed to recede into that younger version of himself. Like he wanted to talk to me but didn’t have the words and was scared. I know this because I’m John. I’m the turd. I’m the liar. I told the story from the other kid’s perspective in order to rid myself of the damn thing. The sound of my skateboard hitting his spine. I still hear it, and it’s not unlike a gunshot.