Free Before I Break by Alec John Belle

through my head as I waited, but none of them really had any answers that I could come up with. It was possible that he harmed himself because he was gay and the way people treated him, but I felt like that might not have been a very good reason. Something bigger had hurt him, and he felt the need to relieve it with that, and I needed to see if I could get him help.
    That was when the thought suddenly occurred to me that maybe he already had gotten help. The honest truth was, what did I really know about this guy? The scars certainly weren’t new, so they could have happened a long time ago and he just got help for them. After the event last night, though, it sure would have been good to check and see.
    Dad also told me to stay away, though, and I had to respect that. Even though he didn’t say it, I knew he meant stuff like this, too. Deciding this wasn’t the best of ideas, I grabbed my bag to get up when the secretary came up to the desk.
    “Can I help you?” she asked me, smiling.
    I shook my head and threw my bag over my shoulder. “No, no, it’s not important. I gotta go.” I ran out, leaving the secretary looking pretty confused—probably as confused as I felt with life right now.

    When lunch came around, Jake asked me if I wanted to sit with them, but really I didn’t. I wanted to be alone with Melissa and tell her that I couldn’t go through with her plans, not now, not ever, unless I wanted to be grounded for the rest of my life.
    As I suspected, when I got to the table, Avery was sitting with her and they were laughing about something she had just said. Obviously last night didn’t bother him that much, so hopefully this would make things easier. I touched her shoulder softly and said, “Can we talk?”
    She nodded and stood up, saying, “I’ll be right back, Avery.” We walked outside into the courtyard and felt the blazing sun against our skins. She frowned and said, “Avery told me.”
    “It’s not like that,” I replied. “My dad is basically telling me I can never see him again, which sucks, but that’s what he told me. You understand that, right?”
    Melissa looked sad, just as I knew she would. Grabbing my hand, she spoke softly when she said, “I understand, but that doesn’t mean I like it. You’re going to be eighteen before the school year is over. When are you going to stop letting your parent and church dictate what you believe about life?”
    The truth, I wanted to say, was that I actually did believe what my dad said. For a day or two my opinion might have changed, but in honesty, I really shouldn’t have expected I’d feel anything different after Avery. Last night on that stage, I felt sick to my stomach doing it, and I thought it might have been nerves, but now I knew.
    Of course, I wasn’t going to tell her that.
    “When I turn eighteen and won’t be told what to do anymore.” Pulling her close to me, so close I could almost taste her lips, I whispered, “Can you let him know that I don’t hate him? Because I really, really don’t. He and I just can’t be friends.” And despite my beliefs, a small part of me actually believed that.
    “So…I guess that means no rally for us?” Melissa asked. “You know, Avery was really looking forward to having the two of us at his side.”
    I knew that, but I truly didn’t want to be. As hard as this was, I knew what I was doing was right. I couldn’t be seen with someone gay anymore. “I’m sorry, Melissa, I just can’t do it. Jake is my friend, not Avery.”
    Sliding my hands out of hers, I walked away, leaving behind the guy I couldn’t be friends with and the love of my life to themselves.
     

 
    Sunday came a lot quicker than you could imagine. Most of Saturday, having nothing else to do, I was studying for an AP Bio quiz, doing research for AP Lit and doing over a hundred math problems for Geometry. They were not kidding when they said junior year would be the hardest year of all four years, although most