The first day of middle school in Willowbrook, New Jersey. I stood near the front gate, one sneaker toe grinding into the pavement, waiting. My hoodie hung too long on my arms, and my jeans had faded to that unfortunate bluish-grey that made them look eternally wet. I was hoping to blend in with the walls, but everything here was louder, taller, and more polished.
Then I saw Lena.
New haircut. Shorter, choppier, still wild. New jeans, clean and cuffed at the ankles. She had a confident spark in her step, like she knew something the rest of us didn't. The second she saw me, she waved with that wide, unapologetic smile. For a moment, the knot in my stomach loosened.
"Hey, Ash!" she called out, jogging over. "Did you grow an inch or is that just the backpack trying to escape your body?"
I rolled my eyes, but the smile snuck in anyway. "I tried negotiating with it. It's holding out for better shoulders."
She laughed, the sound warm and familiar. Then, she looked around. It was just a flicker, her eyes scanning the swarm of other kids, faces we didn't recognize yet. It didn't mean anything. Probably. But something about it made me feel like a book someone had just closed.
Before I could say anything else, a blur of motion slammed into me.
"ASH! My man!"
Max Green. In all his clumsy, volume-at-eleven glory. He nearly knocked me off balance, then threw one heavy arm around my shoulders.
"Still wearing your grandma's hoodie, I see. Vintage sad-boy. Respect."
Lena burst out laughing. I forced a grin. "Max. Still yelling everything like a public service announcement?"
He stepped back and gave me finger guns. "Gotta keep the energy up! Seventh grade's the big leagues. Puberty, pimples, existential dread. I came prepared." He pointed at his backpack. "Three sharpened pencils, a packet of ketchup, and one emotionally unavailable father figure. LET'S DO THIS!"
Lena giggled again, shaking her head. "You're such a moron." She sounded fond. Comfortable.
Max took a bow and darted ahead toward the front doors, already calling out to another kid we didn't know. We started walking behind him, like always. But the space between our shoulders felt just a little too wide. Or maybe I was imagining it.
Max might have been prepared for middle school, I wasn't.
It wasn't just the new building, or the lockers slamming like gunshots. It was the way people moved, the way they looked. Even before it hit me, I saw it in others. A sharp laugh at someone tripping, a group suddenly closing ranks, leaving one kid standing alone, looking lost.
One moment, Lena and I were still climbing trees and sticking glitter stars on our treehouse ceiling. The next, everyone had grown sharp. Cruel, in the way only middle schoolers know how to be. It wasn't just voices that changed, eyes did too. They began to scan for weaknesses, turning kindness into a spotlight and difference into a target.
I didn't know I was different until someone told me I was.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
"Nice haircut, Ashtray."
That was the first day. And it didn't stop there.
My hand-me-down hoodie became a running joke. The fact that I still carried a notebook everywhere? Even worse. I looked at it differently now. Before, it was just... me. Now, it felt like a flashing sign that screamed, Target!
"Oh look, he's writing a love poem to himself again.", said Dylan, who took it as a job to make my life hard.
He snatched my sketchbook and read a line out loud from a poem I'd written about the moon. A quiet one. Private.
"'She was the moon, and I was only a streetlamp.' What does that even mean? Is Ashtray in love with a lamp now?" They laughed. I tried to laugh too, thinking it would turn the humiliation into a joke. Easily forgettable.
But Lena didn't laugh.
She stood up in the middle of the cafeteria and dumped an entire carton of strawberry milk on Dylan's head. Her face was stormcloud serious.
"Oops," she said. "My hand slipped."
It was legendary.
She got detention. I got more teasing. People said I was hiding behind a girl.
I didn't care.
But I did wonder what it meant, that she could fight for me and I couldn't do the same.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
At home, I pretended everything was fine.
Grandma always said our home was a place where "the world takes off its boots and sits down to rest." That night, she was kneading dough in the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up, the smell of cinnamon and flour wrapping around us like a blanket.
"School okay?" she asked, eyes still on the dough.
"Yeah," I lied.
She didn't look up, but she hummed; a soft, skeptical note, like she could hear the crack in my voice.
"Funny thing about bread," she said, shaping the dough with steady hands. "It rises best after it's been punched down."
I blinked. "That's... a weird comfort."
She chuckled. "Pain makes room for strength, darling. Just don't let it make you hard."
She passed me a lump of dough to roll. My hands were shaking, but she didn't mention it.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
That weekend, Lena climbed into our treehouse like a general preparing for war. Her hair was frizzier than usual, like it was ready to fight too.
"I hate them," she said, flopping onto the pillow pile. "Dylan and those other hyenas. They're not even clever. Just loud."
I nodded. "It's okay."
"No, it's not," she snapped. "You don't get to pretend this doesn't hurt. They're jerks. You're…" she paused, biting her lip.
"You're the best person I know. And they don't deserve to breathe the same cafeteria air as you."
I looked at her. Really looked.
Her eyes were glowing with a kind of righteous fury I could never summon for myself. And suddenly, I was both embarrassed and deeply grateful; a confusing mix of feelings that tightened my throat.
"Lena?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for the milk attack."
She grinned. "He still smells like strawberries."
Lena probably thought her intervention might make my life easier. The truth, things only went worse after that.