Bruce had made it ten steps down the hall when a hand grabbed his arm. It wasn't Dickson. This hand was smaller, but its grip was just as iron-strong.
Ruth.
She had seen the whole thing from her locker, and her face, usually so bright and alive, was a tight, pale mask of pure fury.
"That's it?" she hissed, her voice a low, shaking tremor. She yanked his arm, pulling him into the alcove by the water fountain, out of the main flow of students. "You're just... letting him do that?"
"It's just Dickson, Ruth," Bruce said, his voice flat. He was still rattled, not by the shove, but by that cold, clear thought. "It doesn't matter."
"It does matter!" she exploded, her voice rising before she visibly forced it back down. A few kids looked over. "He can't just... assault you, Bruce! He slammed your head against a locker. Are you okay?"
She reached up, her anger warring with her concern, and her fingers grazed the back of his head. He flinched, not from pain, but from the contact.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not!" she said, her hands balling into fists at her sides. "I don't get it. I just... I don't get you. Why do you let him? Why don't you ever, ever fight back?"
He looked at her, at her fierce, frustrated, beautiful face, her eyes flashing with a righteous anger that was all for him. She was his defender, his champion. She was the only person in the world who looked at him and didn't see a ghost.
And it was why he had to lie to her. Every single day.
"Why, Bruce?" she demanded again, her voice cracking now, the anger giving way to a pained, desperate confusion. "You're not weak. I know you're not. I've seen you split firewood with one swing. I've seen you carry a motor out of your gram's busted-ass truck. You're the strongest person I know. So why... why do you let that idiot treat you like... like nothing?"
He wanted to tell her. God, he wanted to.
How could he explain it?
How could he tell her that for seventeen years, he'd been living inside a house filled with screaming, roaring static? That his entire life had been one long, desperate attempt to keep the hum inside him from exploding and hurting someone?
How could he tell her that "fighting back," for him, wasn't about a black eye or a bloody nose? That he was terrified that if he really fought back, he wouldn't just hit Dickson, he would... unmake him?
How could he explain that today, with the amulet resting cold against his chest, the screaming was gone, but it had been replaced by something even scarier? A cold, quiet, empty place where a thought like 'make him stop' felt less like a thought and more like an order?
He couldn't. She would look at him like everyone else did. Like he was a freak. Or worse, like he was a monster. And that... that he couldn't bear.
So he gave her the only answer he had. The lie that was also, in its own twisted way, the truest thing he knew.
He looked away, his gaze falling on the scuffed linoleum floor.
"It's just... easier, Ruth," he said, his voice quiet, hollow. "It's better to be invisible."
He heard her breath catch, a small, sharp, wounded sound.
She stared at him for a long time. He could feel her eyes on him, willing him to look up, to take it back, to say anything else.
He didn't.
"Easier for who, Bruce?" she whispered, her voice full of a sudden, exhausted sadness. He felt her take a step back. The warmth of her was gone. "I hate it when you do that. When you just... check out. You're a million miles away. You're right here, but you're gone."
"Ruth..." he started, but he had no words to follow it.
"Forget it," she said, her voice flat. She turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd of students.
He watched her go, a dull ache spreading through his chest. The amulet was cool against his skin. His mind was perfectly, beautifully, agonizingly clear. And for the first time in his life, he felt completely, and totally, alone.