TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️

There were lots of flowers and postcards on his desk again and I didn't even need to move closer to know what they had written on the cards. RIP, We hope you're happy there, We miss you, Love you, and all that, when in reality, they had never loved him. They didn't even know his name. They all called him The Outcast. They'd been calling him that for so long that lines had blurred and sometimes, I was sure even he must have forgotten his name.

I can still remember vividly when it all began, every single detail that led up to this moment. It all started on the first day of SS1, the first day he stepped into this school...

He was the new student, the newly transferred student that the students had heard about a week before his arrival. The one whose social affiliations they'd been trying to gauge. They were already labeling him way before they met him, if he'd be rich enough to belong to the IT circle, if he'd be one of the middle students; or the "just there" students, the students who weren't enough to be anywhere.

But they all didn't have to bother when they saw him that Monday morning. Why bother trying to gauge his social status when he looked like that?

His looks already solidified where he belonged, which could only be among the lowest of the lows because boys weren't supposed to look the way he did.

Boys weren't supposed to look flabby, they weren't supposed to have round chests that looked like they were growing boobs.

They weren't supposed to have asses that jiggle as they walked.

They weren't supposed to look that feminine.

And when he opened his mouth to introduce himself in front of the class, the whole class burst into laughter at the sound of his voice.

Loud, derisive, mocking laughter, one that made him bite down on his lower lip to stop the tears from falling because he knew why they were laughing. He had dealt with it in his former school and now, it looked like it would be the same thing all over again.

"This one is a girl in a boy's body," A loud masculine voice that belonged to Jude sneered at him, "I mean, just look at that body. Even some girls are nowhere near this endowed."

"That's enough, Jude," The teacher snapped at him. "You guys should be nice to your new classmate. That's an empty seat right there," the teacher turned to the new boy, pointing to an empty seat. "Make yourself comfortable."

But he couldn't make himself comfortable. How could he even be comfortable when, with each step he took, the whole class shook with laughter? How, with each step he took, they tapped each other and pointed at him while giggling hard?

"Wow, big yansh dey shake oo." Another guy that was sitting beside Jude piped, causing the whole class to double up in laughter and my heart bled for the new boy as he dragged his body towards the empty seat.

But I did nothing.

No one did anything.

I said nothing.

No one said anything.

We all just let it happen.

************

That was how it started and that was how it continued.

Jude and his minions had singled him out to be the object of their deriding jokes and pranks.

And well, the rest of the class enjoyed it. They had a good time laughing at his expense and the others that didn't enjoy it dared not speak up.

Speaking up would mean defying Jude.

And defying Jude would mean living in a hellhole for the rest of your school days and even afterward.

Because of Jude... That boy! He and the devil got along just fine. His being was spawned from the greatest part of hell because no one, no other high schooler could possibly be that wicked. He did things the devil was probably afraid of doing.

To him, rules existed mainly to be broken. And boy, did he break rules.

He once beat a boy to a pulp because he made them lose a football match.

He once shaved off a girl's hair because he didn't like the way she looked at him.

He also once groped a girl's boobs because he claimed, "They were in his face."

And once, he slapped a corp member's ass in class because, in his words, "I just felt like it."

And what happened after he committed all these atrocities and others that I didn't even mention? He was let off the hook with just warnings. After all, his dad was the major sponsor of the school and his dad's net worth could eclipse all of the other parents' put together. That was the most important thing. In a school like ours, money was the only rule.

There was something about the new boy, something that irked Jude, something that made him torment the boy over and again.

A week after the new boy resumed, Jude had made a joke about how he looked and talked like a girl, about how it'd feel to slide his d**k against his ass cheeks as he forcefully rubbed his hands against his ass while his nameless minions held the boy down.

This happened in front of the whole class and I could feel his shame, feel his pain and embarrassment as Jude publicly ridiculed him and no one did anything about it.

The ones that weren't amused by it pretended not to notice. They busied themselves with reading books, pressing their phones, or pretending to sleep.

But the bottom line was that no one did anything.

Not even me.

I just watched.

I just let it happen.

"Eeeehhh," Jude cackled loudly as he slapped the boy's ass, producing a sound that echoed through the entire class. "Are those tears I see in your eyes?" he jibed, jabbing the boy's chest with his index finger, "You're supposed to be a boy, bro. You're supposed to fight back when someone comes for you, not cry like a pussy. But then, you look like one so I'm not surprised..."

The door of the classroom burst open then and our English teacher, a new teacher who'd just started working in our school, entered. When his eyes zeroed in on what was going on, his brows quirked questioningly.

"What's going on here?" he asked, with something like a frown on his face.

"He fell," Jude told an unconvincing lie as his hands wrapped around the new boy's shoulders, "He's crying because he fell, so I'm consoling him."

"Oh really?" He asked, the frown on his face dissipating into a grimace of disgust. "Dude, you shouldn't cry because you fell, you're not a girl."

"Same thing I was telling him, sir." Jude was quick to answer the man, his hold tightening around the boy's neck, choking him even as he wore a devilish smile on his face.

"Okay, that's enough, you guys should settle down and open your textbook to page 17."

Everybody settled down, the boy did too but he wouldn't stop crying, wouldn't stop cleaning his face with the back of his palms. All of a sudden, he looked up, turned towards me, towards the direction of the window, and when our eyes met, I looked away immediately.

I couldn't bear, not even for a second, to see what his eyes held.

**********

Wonder why I never mentioned the new boy's name?

Because no one knew his name.

Or because we all forgot about his name.

He was always alone. He was a loner and had no friends or even anyone to talk to. No one dared extend a hand of friendship to him because they were all afraid of Jude.

So he went from sitting alone in the cafeteria and getting picked on by Jude and his minions to disappearing completely during lunchtime.

And no one needed a soothsayer to tell them where he was having his lunch.

He was an outcast. The prominent outcast who always lived in fear of what Jude and his minions were going to do to him next, who didn't even get to enjoy being a high schooler.

Because he looked a particular way.

Because he talked in a particular way.

And because he couldn't play any manly sports.

Because he simply didn't fit into all the stereotypical images the world believed about males.

He couldn't play football or basketball to save his life. Watching sports was such a herculean task for him. He preferred music instead.

He preferred to watch videos of people playing the violin and singing. That was one of the few things that made him happy, one of the few things that made him feel like he mattered.

So he signed up for the school choir but the choirmaster laughed to his face and turned him down with his words forever imprinted in his memory.

"You're the only boy that signed up and it'll be odd if I allow you to join the group. The choir isn't meant for boys anyway, just go and do something that's befitting of a boy, like play a sport and something."

And so he tried. He tried so hard to feel among. He tried so hard to be deserving of being called a boy. He tried to control the way he walks, read up to a thousand ways to make his voice deeper and he did every single one of them. Worked out insanely and only ate certain foods so he'd have a more defined upper body, so he'd have a body more befitting of a boy. He watched a lot of football tutorials so he'd get a hang of how the sport worked.

He tried so hard to fit into the shoes that had been made for him. He obsessed over changing his appearance, changing his voice, losing himself, and just becoming someone befitting of the title 'male'.

But all his efforts went up in the flames because he simply couldn't.

It wasn't him.

And so, the bullying worsened.

And still, no one did anything about it.

**********

The Outcast.

That was what became his name. It started with Jude calling him that, and he dared not answer to any other name. Other mean classmates followed suit and the rest-the ones that weren't mean but had no power to do anything-found themselves slipping and calling him that at times too when they couldn't remember his name.

And so it stuck.

His name became The Outcast as he became the outcast.

*************

I caught him on different occasions, sitting alone in empty classrooms, crying silently so that no one would hear, and whenever he sensed that someone was coming, he'd be quick to clean his tears. After all, he was a boy, so he wasn't supposed to cry.

My heart bled for him and I wanted to help him. I wanted to save him.

I wanted to be there for him.

But I couldn't.

I was that much of a coward.

And now, he was dead. He died on the school grounds and students... Students who didn't know his name, students who laughed at the cruel jokes and pranks Jude and his minions had pulled on him, students who addressed him as The Outcast whenever they wanted to talk to him, students who pointed at his ass and laughed whenever he walked by were dropping useless flowers and postcards on his desk.

Postcards filled with messages they didn't mean.

If only they had shown him even a tiny fraction of this love when he was alive.

If only someone had spoken up.

If only they had tried to help him.

But they did not and now, they were dropping useless messages and flowers that weren't going to rectify anything.

I felt overwhelmed by sudden anger, an anger that made me want to overturn his table and trash all the flowers but something stopped me in my tracks.

I couldn't do that.

I was no different from every other classmate who said nothing, who did nothing.

They were all just trying to save their heads and I was too much of a coward to try to do anything.

"Impromptu assembly!" A student yelled from the hallway and students started mumbling to themselves as they started trudging to the hall.

I took one long look at his desk, at his desk by the window side. He had always sat by the window side ever since he joined the school before I started following the students to the hall.

"What do you think is going to happen to them?" A girl, one of our classmates, one of the ones that never said anything asked another female classmate as we trudged towards the hall.

"Well, what do you think? They're going to get expelled of course." The other girl's reply was instantaneous.

"Expelled? But he's Jude, his dad practically owns the school."

"And so? Someone died in cold blood. They bullied him and made his life so miserable, expulsion is even small. God! They're so terrible. How could they do that to him?"

And you? I screamed at her in my head. Are you any better than them? You watched it happen and you did nothing.

"Bullying, in and of any form is intolerable in our school," the principal, a short man who barely reached the microphone, started when we were all seated in the hall. "And it saddens us that one of our loved students has passed away in such a gruesome manner.

This is a school environment where we're raising the leaders of tomorrow. We expect our students to be their brother's keepers and build good and solid friendships with one another. On this note, we announce the expulsion of Jude Martins, Goke Lawal..."

I zoned out as the principal announced the names of the students who had tormented the boy, who had driven him to his untimely death.

The school could punish bullying all they wanted. They could expel Jude and his minions, send them to prison even, but the damage had been done.

The Outcast was dead, and no amount of damage control would bring him back.

"Look at them, I'm just finally glad they're getting what they deserved." A male classmate said when we left the hall and were all walking back to the SS2 Block. I turned towards the direction everyone was looking to see Jude and his minions as they all entered the cars their parents had designated to pick them up.

"Honestly, me too, those boys are bastards. They don't deserve to live with humans. This should have happened a long time ago."

But it didn't happen because no one spoke up. After all, y'all allowed it to happen. And what? It took losing a life, it took a poor boy dying in cold blood, for you guys to start speaking up.

"I'm telling you. I just pity The Outcast. He went through so much in their hands and he even had to die at the end. That poor boy deserves so much better."

"And what did you do when he was alive?" I screamed, the intensity of my voice shocking me because I've never spoken up before, never used my voice.

I've always been voiceless.

Slowly, they all turned back to look at me, a look of guilt in their eyes.

"What did you guys do when he was alive? When Jude and his idiots bullied him so much? You stood by, you just watched everything happen without doing a thing."

"You guys are just as worse as Jude and his minions." A loud, clear feminine voice screamed from behind me and that was when I realized that it wasn't my voice that had stopped them, it wasn't my voice that made them turn back, it was hers.

It was the girl behind me.

I slowly turned back to look at her too and the sight of her made my heart bleed.

She looked like heartbreak and pain.

She looked like someone who was being tormented in avicii.

Her eyes looked red and swollen as if she had been crying for ages.

Her stance looked like she was going to cave in and fall anytime soon, as if her legs couldn't hold her up properly.

"You guys are ones to talk," She continued in a loud voice that betrayed how she looked, walking past me to where our classmates were.

"You guys are the ones to talk! Are you guys any different from Jude and his minions? Are you guys any better than them?" she screamed at the crowd, her index finger jabbing at the chests of the ones close to her as she moved around in a circle.

"Do any of you even remember his name? Did you all not just call him The Outcast? Ehn, answer me now. Did you all not laugh whenever Jude made him a subject of mockery? Did any of you even extend a hand of friendship to him? Did you all not just ignore him and completely berate his existence?"

No one answered. No one said anything. What could they possibly say to that? They only hung their heads in shame and a few shed a tear or two but the damage had been done.

The outcast was gone and done forever.

"So please, stop talking about him," The girl continued again, "Stop dropping flowers and postcards on his desk because that's only hypocritical. If only you showed him even the tiniest bit of love when he was alive, if only..." She trailed off and sniffed loudly and I watched as tears filled her eyes.

It broke me.

It broke me more when her eyes met mine and I expected her to say something, anything to me.

But instead, she turned back and walked away.

*********

The girl was Maria.

She was the only person that had extended a hand of friendship to The Outcast.

She was one of the brilliant ones in their class, the one who wore glasses and always had her head buried inside a textbook.

She had never flatly ignored The Outcast like the rest of the class had done. She always smiled at him and made sure to greet him but their friendship never blossomed until one day when she walked up to him in the library.

The outcast had been reading a Harlequin romance novel then and immediately he saw her coming, his first instinct was to hide away from the novel because boys weren't supposed to be reading Harlequin romance.

They were solely meant and reserved for girls.

Boys weren't even supposed to like them at all.

But Maria had caught him just in time when he was about to tuck it away among the huge chemistry textbooks he had brought just in case.

"Hey," She beamed at him as she took her seat beside him, "Nice novel you have there? I'm surprised you read Julia Quin. I've not seen anyone that reads her books in this school."

He tried to make up coherent words but he only ended up stuttering. It was the first time since he joined the school, that he'd have an actual conversation with a student.

It was the first time someone would sit with him and look at him like he mattered.

But what if he talked? What if he opened his mouth and she burst into laughter and how feminine he sounded?

So he remained mute and kept staring at her as she rambled on and on about her life for Harlequin Romance novels.

At how she imagines herself as one of the female leads in the novels and how she's expecting a gentleman to come and sweep her off her feet.

She kept talking and talking all by herself and it wasn't until the bell rang that she left with a smile on her face.

The Outcast thought she wouldn't bother talking to him again after that. But the next day, she came to school with a bag full of Harlequin novels which she lent them to him without his asking.

That marked the beginning of their friendship.

Maria soon moved to sit beside him in class, forced him to make more small talks, forced him to stop eating in the toilet, and together, they'd sit on a bench in the school's garden to have their lunches away from the prying eyes of other students.

And Jude? He couldn't do anything to her. If there was anyone he couldn't dare lay his hands on in school, it was Maria. They were family and he knew the kind of hellhole he'd be plunging himself into should he lay his hands on her.

And Maria, on countless occasions, had stood up to him, told him off, and warned him severally not to mess with The Outcast again.

And Jude succumbed, surprisingly but that was only in her presence.

The jokes and pranks got crueler in private. The jokes, pranks and torturing got more hellish and it involved Jude and his minions dragging him off to locker rooms and toilets, holding his hands down, and forcing him to do things.

And doing things he didn't want to do.

He kept them all away from Maria because she was the only normal thing in his life. After all, if Maria should flare up at Jude again, Jude would end up transferring his aggression to him.

So he kept quiet as his friendship with Maria blossomed. He told her things he had never told anyone. Things about his family, about his single mother who was raising him and his three younger sisters, about how they live in a small one-room apartment, about how she's always working to make ends meet, about how she was happy he won a scholarship to study in a prestigious school like this, about how he couldn't even dare to tell her about the things that were going on in school because he didn't want to worry her.

Because he couldn't afford to worry her.

He also told her about his love for music and on some days, they'd sneak into the music lab so he'd play the violin and sing to her.

With Maria, he could be himself.

And for him, Maria was like sunshine, a ray of light in a dark room. She made him feel like he mattered like he was enough to be loved.

Regardless of how he looked.

Regardless of what his voice sounded like.

To The Outcast, Maria was a godsend.

I walked past the students that were murmuring among themselves and I found myself going towards the direction Maria disappeared to.

I found her.

She was sitting on the staircase, her head buried in her lap and her hands tightly wrapped around a Harlequin novel, as she wept like a baby.

Like someone whose life would never be okay again.

I staggered away from her.

*********

I retraced my steps back to the rooftop, to the spot where they pushed him off the rooftop. And when I got there, I stood at the edge, raised my hands so it was flaring around in the air and I imagined falling.

I imagined letting myself loose and falling to death.

But that couldn't possibly happen. I couldn't possibly die a hundredth time because I died every single time they called me a faggot, every time they stuck their legs out so I'd trip and fall face down, every time they stuck the mopping stick to my a**hole and pretend to f*** me with it. Every single day they grabbed my head and pushed it into the water closet, forcing me to choke on toilet water. Every time the other students looked away and offered no help, every time I reported to the principal and he told me to man up and stop being a pussy...

To stop being such a girl.

And finally, my eyes closed forever that day when Jude grabbed me by my collar at the edge of the rooftop. while I pleaded and begged for him to stop and his friends stood behind him, making videos and laughing at me for being a pussy, for being scared like a girl.

They were having fun and I was dying slowly.

And then, a wind so powerful blew that Jude lost his balance and he had to let go of his collar to balance himself.

And that was it. The end!

The final death after I had died so many times since that day in SS1.

****

Authors: Riri and Temi.❤️

Authors' Notes:

Rihanna_Adedeji Riri: Please say no to Bullying. Bullying, like every other thing in this life, has a butterfly effect. It has reverberating consequences. Look at The Outcast (We're sorry, baby, for calling you that), how his life ended, and think of how it'd ruin his mom and siblings. If he had survived, imagine how he'd have had to live his life in absolute misery because some nonentities decided to make his life into a joke.

Iyanuoluwa-Temi Temi: I'm Crying!!!😭😭😭.