(TW: suicide ideation and bullying. Reader discretion advised)

FRIDAY, MARCH 23rd 1984

HOME ROOM, 1st PERIOD

Brian Johnson was getting ready for school, carefully packing his bag so that his parents wouldn't suspect anything. He had carefully planned out his last few moments. It had to be perfect.

He could still see the big fat red F flashing in front of him after got his elephant lamp back in shop class. He felt sick. He hid his shame in his locker. There was no way he could bear this: it was the first time he ever got an F in his life.

Mr. Ryan, the shop teacher, assured him that getting an F was not the end of the world. That it wasn't the grade itself that was important, but whether or not the person would chose to do better next time and build character. He encouraged Brian to try again on the next project in shop.

Despite Mr Ryan's assurance and kindness, Brian couldn't handle this. To Brian, it meant everything was ruined: he couldn't get the perfect grade point average that was expected to get into a prestigious Ivy League college like Yale. God! His parents would be furious if they found out that he failed shop.

Thursday night while everyone was asleep, he cried into his pillow. He could still see the F through the darkness of his pillow and his closed eyelids. It wouldn't go away. No matter how hard he tried to make his brain think of other things, the big fat red F remained like an indelible mark. A scarlet letter.

Fucking elephant lamp! He couldn't understand why the light wouldn't go on. He tried to reconfigure the wiring. He asked his science teachers what he could do. He was smart enough to figure out how electricity would work. It was a matter of science: there was physics involved. Hell, if it took Thomas Eddison a thousand tries to get the lightbulb to work, why couldn't he, Brian Johnson, the smartest kid in Shermer High, get that fucking light to go on?

He tried...yet every time he pulled the fucking trunk, his fucking light wouldn't go on! It wouldn't go on!

He couldn't tell his parents that he failed. They expected (well, more like his mother) expected the best from him.

Ever since he was in elementary school, his entire life had been mapped out. It started around 4th or 5th grade when his teachers found out he had a much higher intelligence than other children. When his teacher informed his parents this, almost immediately his mother put him in advanced classes. She insisted that he had to have all As in order to get into a prestigious college. He basically had no life, no fun, hell he couldn't develop any friendships with others. The only kids he ever interacted with were those in advanced classes.

Since then, he had been locked into a title of nerd, unable to escape it. He was mocked for being smart, became a frequent target for bullies. There were some nerds that he hung out with in his clubs, but he saw them as more colleagues than friends. His only real friends were some of the staff and teachers at Shermer High.

He was close to Carl Reed, the janitor, who often found Brian in some kind of trouble. He often had to get him out of a locker he had been stuffed into, getting hung by his underwear in the boys' bathroom, bubblegum in his hair, his clothes soaked from swirlies or liquids in the lunch room. There were a select few embarrassing moments in gym class where Brian got pantsed, pummeled by dodgeballs, tangled in the volleyball net, hell they laughed at how he couldn't hit or throw a fucking ball for shit—despite his mother had insisted that he was not to engage in any physical activity. He did run the track since he didn't have to engage with anyone. The more he ran track, he got faster at running from his tormentors.

He had befriended the school nurse, Barbara Dennis. He frequented her office—whether it was to hide from bullies or to throw up from all the stress. Sometimes he'd come in with a black eye, a bloody nose, his spirit broken. Surviving the harsh jungle of high school was a law of nature: survival of the fittest. The weak got weeded out.

He was a weak specimen.

The library was the only real sanctuary to Brian Johnson. He never felt more safe than anywhere else. Surrounded by the silence and books. Books were one place he could escape from the harsh reality of the world—escape his nagging mother, his emasculated, absent father, his annoying little sister, Laura, the bullies, the cruelty of high school.

But this time, no book could help him escape the harsh reality that he got an F in shop class. That F just flashed in front of him like a neon light. He was Hester Prynne, bearing the scarlet letter of his shame.

F for Failure.

He couldn't let anyone know. Not his parents. His peers. His teachers. The admissions department at Yale. He didn't know what to do. How could he hide his shame? He had hidden the failing grade in his locker. Oh God! What if Mr Ryan, the shop teacher, had called his parents to meet with them? Oh God! He'd be better off dead than them knowing he failed.

Better off dead.

The words echoed through his mind. This seemed like the only option. He'd take the secret to his grave. Nobody would miss him. Nobody took notice of him except to tease or torment him. His parents didn't seem to care about what he wanted.

He desperately wanted to be normal. He wanted to be appreciated. He wanted real friends. Yet nobody seemed to want to be friends with him. He had nobody to talk to about his feelings.

Thursday night after crying and making sure everyone was asleep, he went into the garage to find something that would hopefully do the job. He had read a psychology book about statistics of suicide in the public library. There were different methods one could take their life—one seemed to be the most effective.

It was then he came across an orange flare gun on his father's tool box near his work bench. It would get the job done. It was a firearm. He read the instructions on how to load it. When he'd do it was a matter of timing. He wrapped the flare gun, loaded and ready, carefully in a paper bag and placed it in his backpack.

Friday morning, he carefully placed the wrapped paper bag in his locker—the stupid elephant lamp rested precariously on top of his mountain of textbooks, binders and books from the library.

As Brian sat in home room, his hands wouldn't stop shaking and sweating as the moment would come soon to end all his misery—his thoughts were interrupted as he heard his name paged by Ms Grace Moore, the principal's secretary, to come to Vernon's office. A few mocking oooohs erupted as he hardly got sent to the principal's office followed by hissing whispers. The blond turned red with shame, gathering up his backpack to head to the principal's office.

Once he arrived, he found a very grim looking Mr Ryan standing at Vernon's desk; the vice principal sat there with his hands folded as he stared with his steel gray eyes.

"Sit down, Johnson," Vernon said in a very serious tone.

The mousy boy was trembling like a leaf; he hugged himself as he sat down in the chair in front of Vernon's desk. He had never been so scared in his life. Surrounded by two male authority figures, which he had humbled himself to respect at all times. He could feel himself shrinking in his chair as the two men stared at him.

"Johnson, Mr Ryan told me that there was an explosion in your locker," Vernon said. "Among the debris, he found the remains of a firearm."

Brian turned whiter than a sheet. Oh fuck! He was screwed! He felt sick. He didn't know whether to throw up or faint. God! Why couldn't the ground just swallow him up?

"You want to explain yourself?" Vernon asked.

Brian felt sicker as he was questioned. Adrenaline rush through his thin body. His heart was pounding so loud in his ears. He began to hyperventilate.

"Johnson, do you understand how serious this is?" Vernon said sternly, his voice rising. "Bringing a firearm to school..."

"Rich, it was a flare gun," Mr. Ryan said. "I'm sure Johnson didn't mean any harm..."

"Marty, it's a handgun," Vernon emphasized. "It still constitutes as a firearm. Possession is one-tenths the law. This is punishable with time in prison and expulsion...maybe a mental hospital..."

"Really, Rich. Johnson wouldn't hurt anyone," Mr. Ryan said. "Sure, he's not doing too well in my shop class, but he's a good kid."

"Good kid or not, Marty, this is serious..."

Brian could barely hear Mr. Vernon and Mr. Ryan's words. He heard a few words about how serious his actions were. He felt lightheaded, feeling all the blood rush away from his brain. Added from the lack of oxygen from all the hyperventilating.

"Johnson?" Vernon said puzzled.

"Johnson? Are you ok? You look like you're gonna be sick," Mr Ryan asked concerned.

Brian felt the vomit rise up his throat. Doubled over, he retched and threw up on the floor, coughing. Vernon and Mr Ryan jumped back at the boy vomiting. Vernon wrinkled his nose in disgust. He paged Carl to come clean up the mess.

"Marty, will you take Johnson to the nurse?"

The boy's eyes rolled and he fainted on the hard floor of Vernon's office...everything went black...

****

Brian woke up lying on a cot in Nurse Dennis' office. He felt dizzy from the fainting spell in Vernon's office. It was then the school nurse turned her head when she heard Brian stir from the cot.

"Brian?" Nurse Dennis said gently.

"What happened?" he mumbled confused.

"You threw up and fainted in Mr Vernon's office, honey."

It all came rushing back as he remembered the last few minutes. He felt sick. Humiliated. He was beyond scared over what was going to happen to him after the whole explosion in his locker. God! He couldn't go to jail.

"I...I think I'm..." he groaned sickly.

Brian ran to the toilet nearby, he dry heaved a couple times before vomiting. He screamed as his breakfast came up.

Nurse Dennis looked over her outdated 1950s glasses with a concerned look; she was dressed in her white uniform with a nurse cap on top of her brown graying hair.

Brian sat curled up on the bathroom floor, unable to stop panicking. He felt something snap and burst into tears, sobbing like a baby. Nurse Dennis shushed him, placing a cool paper towel on the boy's face. He continued to blubber noisily; fat tears rolled down his face. It was very rare that Brian cried. He had been told that boys weren't supposed to cry.

"I can't...I can't go to jail or a hospital..." he blubbered. "Please...I can't..."

"Brian, what are you talking about?" Nurse Dennis asked confused.

"I'm in trouble..." he sobbed. "I did something very bad...Mr Vernon said I could go to jail..."

"Brian, honey," Nurse Dennis said. "That's not going to happen. Mr Vernon has decided to give you detention."

"That's even worse!"

"It's just detention. It's no big deal."

"I've never got detention in my life," Brian blubbered. "This is going on my permanent record. I won't get accepted into Yale because of this."

"Brian, I'm sure Yale isn't going to care you had one detention in your life while you were in high school."

"You don't know that."

"Maybe, but think of detention as a lesson learned so you don't make that mistake again. It's one Saturday out of your life and it'll be over before you know it."

Brian wiped his eyes with the paper towel; his baby blue eyes were red from crying. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do in detention.

"What am I supposed to do while I'm there, Nurse Dennis?"

"Nothing," the school nurse answered. "You just sit there in the library, listen to Mr Vernon and it'll be over before you know it."

"What about studying or homework?"

"I'm afraid you can't do that while you're there."

"So I'm just to sit there and do nothing all day? My mom isn't going to like that."

"Maybe detention might be a good thing for you--you can take a break from schoolwork. It'll give you a chance to think about what you did and what you can do to better yourself in the future. Maybe you'll meet some people there and make friends."

"Nobody wants to be friends with someone like me," he mumbled miserably. "I'm a loser."

"Oh honey...that's certainly not true," Nurse Dennis replied, placing a comforting hand on Brian's trembling shoulder. "You're a very smart boy. You're very sweet. You're kind. You worry way too much though...just try to relax while you're in detention. Don't think about studying or homework."

Sniffling, the blond nerd nodded lightly as he wiped his nose and teary eyes with a tissue. He stayed in Nurse Dennis's office until he was well enough to go to history class.

As Brian sat in history class waiting for Mrs Russell, he realized he got his first detention. He was so screwed...his parents weren't going to be happy about this. He was trying to figure out a way to explain himself about what he had done to earn his very first detention.

He feared his mother's wrath more than anything. Brian tried to think of a what to say when he got home after school. On a positive note, he wouldn't end up in jail or a mental hospital. That was one positive thing. Plus it would give him a chance to get away from his nagging mother and his annoying sister.

Yet if he told them why he brought the flare gun and explained his intentions, would his parents be understanding?

No. Probably not.