"His hat was pretty jaunty."

Ray laughed. "You have questionable taste in clothes, McKenzie."

I was quiet as Cam and Ray talked and laughed while we exited the Sherlock Cafe. Under normal circumstances, I might have found the hat-shaped mugs, the black leather seats and the waiters dressed in tailcoats rather funny and intriguing. However, with my heart in my stomach, it was hard to find anything funny at all.

We walked along the street for a while with my input to the conversation at a minimum. My mind was preoccupied with thoughts of Wilder. What did he really want? He seemed to be jealous when I told him I was going out with Marien. And yet, he pushed me away again. Then he would kiss me like I was the air he needed. What did it mean? Why was he tossing my heart around like this? When he knew how fragile it already was.

 Cam gently tugged at my sleeve and I came out of a reverie as I gazed at him, my vision unfocused. 

"Nic, is everything okay?"

Apart from the fact that I felt like someone was crushing my heart, yes, everything was splendid.

"Yeah. Just tired," I answered in a monotone.

He bit his lip nervously and exchanged a glance with Ray. I could tell they didn't believe me, but I couldn't care less. They wouldn't approve of me pining for Wilder anyway. A part of me knew it was unhealthy. But somewhere deep inside, I couldn't stop searching for the guy who had become my best friend. Somewhere I still hoped I would find him. 

We walked silently for a while as they tried to get me to talk to them, but I didn't say anything. Cam hadn't ever believed that Wilder liked me anyway. I had needed assurance and I hadn't got it from him. And I was terrified that maybe he was right. I fixed my gaze on the road as we walked, lost in my thoughts before Ray suddenly spoke up, "Hey, isn't that Mr Evans?"

I looked at where she was pointing and sure enough, saw my dad sitting in what appeared to be a cafe. I could see him behind the designer window glass, sitting across a gorgeous blonde woman who was smiling and talking to him. My stomach fell, my instincts tingling. I stood rooted to the spot and gaped at him, trying to wrack my brains and figure out if I had seen her somewhere and if she was one of his friends. However, I came up empty-handed.

"Er...Nic?" Cam asked, scratching his neck uncomfortably. "Let's go, man."

I stood and stared for a few more seconds, bewildered. I had to be thinking too much. It made no sense that he would be sitting in a cafe, talking and laughing with some stranger on a weekday when he usually had such a hectic schedule. I came to the conclusion that she was one of his company's clients and tore my eyes away from them, fixing them on Cam's instead. Anxiety gnawed my insides as I nodded at him and let them lead me away from there, a growing fear in my heart.

                                                                                                        *

I lay on my bed, gazing aimlessly at the ceiling with Arfie lying on my chest as if trying to suffocate me. Despite the fact that it was a little harder to breathe, I enjoyed the feeling of his erratically beating heart against mine and hugged him close, as if trying to thaw my frozen insides.

I knew I had two weeks to go for the English assignment. Angered by apparent class discipline, our teacher had told us that we would now have to read out our assignment and explain the plot pyramid in our own words. I had initially decided to go with 'Twenty-One Guns' by Green Day and had watched the official video to try and wrest some meaning out of it. However, I wasn't sure how to explain a wall being broken and two people making out for an uncomfortably long amount of time.

My own interpretation was that the entire song was a metaphor for miscommunication and how not talking to someone can result in unnecessary fighting and hurting. I almost smiled at the irony, the song seemed perfect in my situation with Wilder. Although when it came to us, it wasn't a fight. It was completely one-sided where he held all the cards. I wasn't going to try and approach him again. I wasn't going to force my company on him. Or plead anymore. 

My phone vibrated in my pocket and my heart leapt, wondering if Wilder was finally coming to his senses. I shifted Arfie and placed him beside me on the bed and reached for my phone, fishing it out. I gazed at the screen for a while, seeing that I had a slew of messages from unknown accounts.

anonymous101: u fucking asshole. you'll pay.

anonymousthethird: fuck u fag. did u think u cud get away with hitting Browning? ull get whats fucking coming to you piece of shit

anonymousone: ur gonna get pounded so hard ull be wishing u were never born shit hole

I gulped. My heart raced. My fingers were suddenly numb as I sat straight up in my bed. I opened the accounts and blocked them, knowing that it wasn't going to do anything. There were several more accounts I had to block and report, all created within the last two days and with no bio or profile picture, created solely to send threatening messages to me. The threats got viler and viler, calling my mother, my sister everything under the sun. 

Maybe the threats were empty. But knowing Matt's history, I wasn't sure. I gazed at the disgusting words, anger writhing inside me. I placed the phone back on the bedside table, feeling filthy that I had to live in a society like this. Where people like Matt had such ridiculous audacity. Where people were so shameless that they would threaten me from behind a screen, knowing I was alone and at a disadvantage.

I took a shuddering breath as I rose to my feet and reached my desk where my laptop was on stand by. I sat on the chair and took a deep breath. They could beat me again, that was the most extreme thing those cowards could ever get to. I didn't want to confront them face to face, but there was something I could do. Confrontations made me panic and my heart palpitate, but there was no way I would let them get away with this. Not again.

I opened up the blog and gazed at the steadily rising hits on the website. Gaining some strength from the massive support, I typed in the new topic

'To be a Real Man'

I took a deep breath. I had remained a pacifist my entire life before of course, Matt unleashed whatever violence was inside me. I hated it. But felt like it was necessary somewhere. I had always been very quiet, subdued after everything that had happened in elementary school. This was a topic close to my heart, and I had to get it out. 

'Over recent years, we have seen the creation of several new trends or 'fads.' Be it the several 'challenges' that have been created to raise awareness, be it the several memes that we have seen plastered everywhere, or be it the 'alpha male' who spends his time doing everything short of brandishing his dick around in order to show off his 'masculinity'. Apparently, we now live in a world where the size of everything, except the heart, matters.

A controlling, violent male is someone who gets much more respect than a meeker person. The biggest insult you would have faced for not resorting to violence would be 'gay,' 'faggot,' and more recently 'e-boy' or 'fem boy.'

To these people, I ask, is it wrong to be any of those things?'

I paused for a while, gazing at the screen. It was true that these were the first 'insults' that had been hurled at me. My somewhat feminine name hadn't helped me either. I took a deep breath and resumed typing again.

'Perhaps in some ways, I merely sound bitter. That is probably because I am. Because I have been a victim in multiple cases. Victim of fickle egos. Victim of my own mindset at times. Because somewhere, I used to believe in that. That I was everything that they said I was. The only difference now is that I realize that there's nothing wrong with being these things.'

I typed away for a long time, my heart racing more and more as adrenaline pumped through my veins like naked fire coursing through me. Maybe it was a taboo topic. But I felt safer and stronger behind my screen, just like those cowards who had tried to diminish me again. The only difference was that I had a cause, while their sole one was to make me pay for what I did to Matt. Something that wasn't going to happen because I couldn't look at someone ever hurting my sister as he had. Even if it meant that I got thrashed, I was still satisfied that he felt threatened enough to cyber-bully me. In a small way, it felt like a small victory. 

He had got suspended. Wilder had made sure of that. And somehow, in spite of his words, my foolish heart believed that there wasn't a time when Wilder Collins was truly going to abandon me. Or maybe that was just what I wanted to believe. 

I took a deep breath and finished uploading. I gazed at the screen for a while, feeling nervous before I shared the post to Wilder. I gazed in awe as in a mere second, the message was marked 'seen' and he shared it on his wall. My heart sunk when I thought about him, but it looked like he was no longer interested in continuing whatever the fuck it was that we were doing.

I shut the laptop and sighed, resting my face against the table, my heart hammering. I was half afraid that Matt and his gang were going to strike again. That they were going to try and threaten me to shut up. Technically they had no way of knowing that it was I writing the articles, but maybe he was smart enough to make the connection. But I would no longer be quiet, even if it broke me in the process.

I was no longer the timid, starry-eyed ten-year-old that had thought the world was his oyster. That had thought that physical attributes didn't matter. I knew that physical attributes did matter, to others. But they didn't have to matter to me. I could be small, skinny, look much younger than I really was. My heart could beat erratically, my stomach could twist in fear. But they wouldn't know any of it. They were shallow, able to see physical traits only anyway. So when they looked at me, they wouldn't be able to see the terrified child that cowered in the darkest corners of my heart. They would see an eighteen-year-old feigning confidence. And I hoped that it would be enough.