His face was a little chubbier than I remembered it. Maybe he had been suspended from sports again after the party incident as well and had put on some weight without the regular exercise. I sniffed. Today he was wearing actual aftershave, not just the aroma of beer. As usual he had the school sports jacket on over his broad shoulders. He had a rucksack over one arm. That was odd—I never remembered Bill doing any schoolwork before. Maybe he had changed too?

His lip curled in revulsion.

“What are you doing here?” Bill said. He said it quietly. He wasn’t angry, he just sounded surprised, and a little disgusted.

I groped for the words, which stuck in my throat for a moment. “Er, I go to school here…?”

“’scuse me,” said someone behind me. I was still stood in the doorway to Mr Oswald’s classroom, blocking the exit. I shuffled out of the way and a stream of students began to pour out of the room.

“Do you?” said Bill. “I thought you got transferred.” He emphasised the word as if he had only recently learned it. He always emphasised words longer than seven letters, like it was difficult for his brain to process them. We had never had a conversation this long without him punching me before, not in reality anyway. Was he about to punch me?

“Er…” I mumbled pathetically. “I did. But then they sent me back here. The...the work was too easy at the other place...” Why hadn’t he punched me yet?

“Hi Bill,” said Ali’s voice behind me.

I turned around, dumbfounded. There she was, last one out of class, incandescently beautiful in her jeans and sweater, dark hair pushed back behind one ear. She shut the classroom door behind her, as Mr Oswald would have asked her to do, so we had the white tiles and strip light of the Science corridor mostly to ourselves.

She did a double take when she saw me. “Gonzalo...what are you doing here?” she echoed Bill’s question. Why does everyone keep asking me that? I thought. I go to school here!

So she hadn’t noticed me in Physics. Or she was acting.

“Never mind that,” I said, “what are you doing meeting up with Bill Jackson after class?” I didn’t answer her question but cut straight to my own, talking to her like we were resuming a conversation we had been having earlier, appealing to the friendship we had built up over the last few months, even if she had allegedly ‘ended’ it.

Ali’s lips parted a little and she rocked her head back as if to say “Excuse me?”

“Hey, watch it, weakling,” said Bill, raising his voice slightly, slipping easily back into familiar use of the nickname he had given me. I realised that he had been restraining himself before, but now in the face of my question to Ali his anger seemed to begin to get the better of him.

Some of the students that had just left Physics turned round and started to wander back over in our direction. Their ears must have pricked up at the sound of a possible conflict. At the same time, some students who had been in other classes joined them. Some of these I recognised. There was Rob Packer. And Duke Samson. And other members of the football team. Oh no, I thought, gripping the straps of my rucksack so hard my hands hurt. Oh God. Here we go again...

They all drifted over casually to encircle us, a flock of lazy vultures come to watch a predatory killing in anticipation of a corpse. Their conversations petered out, and they stood around us in silent acknowledgement of the gravity of what was taking place: the reunion of one kid with another kid he had put in the hospital.

I looked at Ali again. She still hadn’t answered my question. I just shook my head at her. How could you betray me like this? I thought, and I hoped that my expression conveyed it.

It might have, because Ali said quietly, “Gonzalo…I tried to tell you before, Bill and I hang out with the same group of friends now... We’re study buddies—I’m helping him with his grades. And we’re actually...we’re actually going out now.”

The explicit confirmation went into my chest like a lance of ice. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d begun to suspect it, but I’d ignored the suspicion.

Ali’s eyebrows tipped back with concern and her mouth twisted up like she was mirroring my misery.

I don’t want your pity, Ali, I thought. That’s all it ever was, wasn’t it? Pity.

A moment passed with the three of us stood there suspended like that in pain and pity and derision.

Then, “Come on, babe,” said Bill, loud enough for all assembled to hear, flicking his head to indicate the direction he wanted her to walk in, “let’s go. This creepy weakling’s not worth your time.”

‘Creepy’? Had she told him about my story and our falling out?

That was the ultimate betrayal.

Ali looked up at me once more and I could see from the way she chewed her lip that she was ashamed. Then she turned and started to walk off with Bill. He wrapped his arm around her. Slowly, the crowd turned to leave with them as well, probably disappointed that they weren’t going to get to witness a fight, a trickle of gossip starting to flow from them.

I watched Ali’s sweater-covered back, draped with her hair and Bill’s muscley arm, as she walked away from me.

How can you be so cruel? I thought. Am I really that pathetic?

Miraculously, Ali stopped.

She said something to Bill, then extracted herself from under his arm and ran back over to me. Bill span, face contorting with perplexed fury. A few other students noticed and looked over their shoulders.

Ali reached me where I still stood like a paralysed moron with my rucksack, my hands hanging limply at my sides, outside the door to Mr Oswald’s physics room.

“Gonzalo,” she said so that only I could hear. She stood about a pace away from me, rubbing one arm with the other, uncharacteristically awkward. Was she nervous? Now that Bill’s aftershave wasn’t in the way I could detect a sweet, rose-tinted scent on her. Was that perfume? I’d never noticed her wearing perfume before.

“I’m sorry,” Ali said. “Last time I saw you I said some unkind things that I didn’t really mean. I was just a bit freaked out by what I read in your story, that’s all. But I see now that you didn’t mean anything creepy by it. And it wasn’t that creepy, really... It was just that you connected one of your made-up characters to me, and I thought it was a bit weird. I know all it was really was that you had a crush on me and, Gonzalo...that’s okay.”

With this she reached across the space between us and briefly brushed my hand with hers.

What did that mean? Ali was either extremely confused herself or a master manipulator playing some kind of twisted, sadistic game.

“Babe!” spoke up Bill at once from his distance about twenty steps away down the corridor, surrounded by his peers. “Come on! There’s a game at the stadium!”

“Just a moment, Bill!” Ali called back into the air. She returned her attention to me and spoke again at her previous volume. “Listen, Gonzalo, your story was actually really good. I really did enjoy reading it. You’re a good writer, like I said. You should keep writing it. Just, you know...don’t pretend that me and the Djinn character are the same person. And I wouldn’t show it to anyone else apart from me, for the time being at least…”

“Come on, Ali,” said Bill, grabbing her arm and yanking her away. I had been so enrapt by what Ali had been saying that I hadn’t noticed him walking back over.

“Ow!” said Ali, and pulled her arm back to herself. “I’m coming, Bill! Just give me a moment!”

“We’re going now,” said Bill, “you don’t have a moment.” He grabbed her arm again and pulled her with him, retaining his grip on her this time.

“Hey!” I said.

I didn’t think about it, for once I just said it.

Bill span round again at once, fixing me with those wild bull’s eyes, tilting his head back a little. “What?” he said. He let go of Ali.

In reality, I’d never spoken back to Bill on that day when he broke his knuckles on my face and put me in the hospital. I just made that up to make it sound cooler and more interesting. I never talked back to him. And I’d never talked back to him or made him pee his pants or beaten him up at Sam’s party either. I made that up too.

But this was real. This was really happening.

I made my choice.

“Don’t manhandle her,” I said. “That’s no way to treat a girl. Or anyone.”

Bill ground his teeth and seemed to double in size. His eyebrows raised high on his temples. “And what are you going to do about it, weakling?”

“Come on,” said Ali, “don’t fight. Don’t do this again. Come on, Bill, he’s not worth it.” Was she just acting to convince him not to beat him me up this time, or did she really think I wasn’t worth it? I didn’t care any more. I decided I was worth it either way, and for once I was going to act like it.

I turned my gaze on her, standing next to him. “Ali, why have you decided to go out with this guy? He’s violent. He’s sexist. He’s racist. Only a few months ago he was calling you racial slurs. He’s only going out with you because you’re so beautiful. What could you possibly see in him?”

I couldn’t believe what I was saying. I could believe what I had made up that I’d said in this corridor before, because it was make-believe, because I had made it up and I had wanted to believe it.

But this was real—and now that it was real I couldn’t believe I was saying it.

Behind Bill’s furious form, beyond the froth starting to appear on his upper lip, I could see the flock of students floating back in our direction. They had scented the reopened possibility of a kill. They gathered back around us, talking in hushed voices. I could almost feel their excitement at what was about to happen...

“Gonzalo, please…” mumbled Ali. “It’s not like we’re serious or anything...it’s just a casual thing…He started being nicer to me after Sam’s party, and I offered to help him with his grades, is all…” She looked around at our peers as she said this. She looked at Rob. She looked at Duke. She looked at her lab partner Peter. She looked at some other kids. She didn’t look at Bill.

Then I realised. Ali just wants to fit in. Like me. She had started the year as the new girl at school, after all. That was why she had started dating Bill. And this group had accepted her now, where they never had me, because of her good looks and her relationship with Bill. This was her way of fitting in.

I looked her right in her brown, silver-tinted eyes. “Is it worth it?” I said to her. “Aren’t you compromising on who you really are? This racist, sexist thug will just use you and then throw you away like a piece of garbage, and then where will that leave you?”

Bill’s knuckles slammed into my mouth and my head snapped backwards. I reeled for a moment where I stood, then fell backwards onto my ass on the tiled corridor.

My ears rang for a moment, but then I heard a noise. “Fight, fight, fight!” the flock had started to chant.

The shock still masked the pain but I knew that I would feel it soon.

I staggered to my feet, wobbling slightly.

This is what really happened. I’m telling it exactly as it happened now: No made up stuff; no superpowers; no deluded escapes from reality.

I had never in my life spoken back to Bill before. But now that I had started, I figured I might as well carry on.

“You can beat me up again, Bill,” I said. “I don’t care. You can beat me up a hundred times. You can beat me up till you kill me. But you will still be a hating, sexist, racist thug. And I will still be smarter, kinder and better than you.

“And it’s still not ok to treat girls like that.”

Bill roared, strode up to me and grabbed my shirt with one hand, pulled me closer to him as he drew back his fist.

“I am going to beat the living shit out of you, weakling!”

I shut my eyes.

“Don’t even think about it!” bellowed a man’s voice.

Bill looked up from me and I followed his gaze. Mr Oswald had appeared in the open doorway to his classroom. He was red in the face and spittle flew from his mouth when he shouted. I had never seen him like this.

“Let go of him at once!” Mr Oswald shouted at Bill.

Bill let go of me. I guess he still valued his place on the football team just enough. This did happen sometimes; that he was caught in the act. But it had never resulted in a full expulsion—yet.

I swayed a little where I stood.

“Get out of here!” Mr Oswald shouted at the crowd of onlookers at the top of his voice “All of you! Show’s over! Go!”

Some ran, not wanting to incur detentions, some swaggered away defiantly, but they all left, except for Mr Oswald, Bill, Ali and me.

“You,” said Mr Oswald, pointing at Bill. “Principal’s office. Now. Come with me. Gonzalo, the Principal will be in touch with you and your mother—I’m sorry that this has happened again. I see now that Jackson is entirely in the wrong here.”

Mr Oswald began to march off, but Bill didn’t go with him. He stood still scowling—at Ali.

Oswald turned back round. “Now, Jackson!” he shouted even louder. He was nearly as angry as Bill had been a moment ago. Only his anger was full-grown, adult, and righteous. Bill had no choice but to skulk off with him.

Bill looked back at us once as he went, a hate-filled frown distorting his features. He didn’t look sorry. He didn’t look scared. He looked like a sullen, arrogant child. His eyes flashed at me as if to say I will get you for this. And then he and Mr Oswald were gone.

I looked at Ali. She was standing very close to me. Tears ran down her lovely face.

She opened her mouth a little. What was she going to say?

Ali kissed me on the lips. She tasted alive, real, impossible to imagine, and of salt. And a little metallic, but that must have been the blood in my mouth.

After a moment she pulled back and looked me in the eyes.

“Thank you, Gonzalo,” she whispered.

And then she ran, down the corridor and out of the same door Mr Oswald and Bill had gone through but, I knew in my heart, not in pursuit of them.

I stood where I was in the Science corridor, right back in the same place I had been when I started this crazy story, and reflected.

My name is Gonzalo Lopez.

I’m fifteen years old and I live in Williamsburg, New York City.

My powers first manifested when I was in high school.

I mean, I was literally in high school.

I don’t mean comic-book style superpowers—though those would be cool—I mean the powers of studying really hard at something and getting good at it, of having the courage to talk to girls for myself, and, finally, of learning to speak up for what is right.

That was what I had just done.

Those are the things that I have done for the first time ever this year.

Those are the powers that really matter.

I’ve started manifesting them, and I intend to go on developing them.

THE END...

...OR IS IT?