I looked at George's brother and some random boy holding hands and grabbed George's hand, pulling him with me as I felt myself getting furious.

'Is that dumbass here with a boyfriend?'

George shrugged. 'Please, leave. They are together and I don't want you to get mad again. They like each other and you have nothing to say about that. It's just annoying.'

'You were homophobic as well, idiot. What happened to you? Why did you suddenly change?'

'I didn't change at all, I never even said that I'm homophobic. You just made that up yourself, because I didn't tell you I wasn't homophobic.'

'So you accept them?'

George shrugged. 'It's not my life, isn't it? Aren't you just gay yourself? I feel like this is more internalised homophobia than real homophobia.'

'If you insult me one more time, I will just hit you. Don't you dare ever accuse me of that disease.'

'It's not a disease, though.'

'Just stop defending them, I liked you better when you were homophobic as well.'

'But he's my brother, I can't just leave him because of who he likes. He's happy with his boyfriend.'

I stared at my hands and looked up again. 'It's gross and you should know that.'

'It's not gross, you're just sad because different reasons. You're sad because you got bullied in the past, you don't really hate them.'

I looked at my hands again, I didn't know how he knew, but I wasn't admitting it. I was hurt by the bullying, I was depressed because of it.

'Clay?'

'What,' I yelled at him as I had the urge to hit him away.

'Are you happy?'

I wanted to nod and lie about how I felt, but for some reason I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. I looked at my feet and kicked against a small stone which flew away.

'Clay? Are you unhappy? Or maybe even depressed? Is it the bullying?'

I said nothing anymore and started walking away to sit down on a bench under a tree. It was blocking out the sun and I enjoyed sitting in the shadow as George sat down next to me.

'You don't seem happy, Clay. You're my best friend, I want you to be happy.'

'I'm fine,' I whispered. My voice was insecure, clearly noticeable by the voice crack and my high pitched voice.

'Is the bullying hurting you really badly?'

I shrugged. 'It's fine, I'm fine,' I whispered and stood up. George grabbed my hand.

'Don't go, we can talk about it.'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Are you genuinely homophobic? Or are you just very scared to get bullied again? I will stand up for you, Clay. You know that, right?'

I stared at my hands as I remembered all bad memories again. I saw the ten people surrounding me again, I felt one of them hitting me.

The vision changed to me running as hard as I could, being followed by three guys. I could hear myself panting loudly, because I ran this quickly. I remembered them catching up to me, I remembered them pushing me down, I saw two guys pin me down on the ground and another one beat me in my face.

I saw myself cry and scream for help, having a random stranger help me up. I remembered myself struggling to walk home as I felt some blood roll down my face, mixed with my own tears. I saw myself open the door to my house, hiding my face from my dads as I locked myself in my room.

I felt myself getting pushed in a bathroom stall, having two guys beat the shit out of me as another held his hand on my mouth so I couldn't scream anymore. I remembered myself walking out like nothing happened, hiding myself in a garden of a stranger for the rest of the day.

I concentrated on the real world again as I started breathing a bit faster. George immediately noticed this and grabbed my hand as he pulled me closer. 'Keep calm, Clay. Are you having a panic attack?'

I couldn't speak anymore and felt a tear drop down my face. It fell on George's hand and I stared at it as my chest tightened even more.

'I-I-I,' I stared, but I couldn't speak anymore.

'You don't have to speak, Clay.' George wrapped his arm around my shoulders as I sobbed softly. Tears kept streaming down and I saw George's brother and his boyfriend coming closer to me.

George signed for them to go away and pulled me in for a hug. I was feeling so bad that I didn't push him away and wrapped my arms around him. I squeezed his shirt to show him that I was going through a lot of pain and George rubbed my back slowly.

'Calm down, we are going to breathe a little bit slower. Copy me.'

I tried my best and George breathed loudly to let me hear his rhythm. I copied it and George smiled. 'Good job, you're doing great. Oh, look! Do you see those two birds? I think they are happy.'

I smiled softly and noticed my breathing rhythm had gone slower. I looked at George, being confused about his beauty. I was a bit jealous that he was this beautiful and I wasn't.

I sighed and slowly let go of George. 'Thank you,' I whispered.

'Why did you have a panic attack, Clay?' George asked me, but I stood up without saying anything anymore.

Tears started rolling down my face as I ran home. I didn't have a panic attack anymore, but I wanted to be gone here. I was sad, I was so depressed and traumatised about what had happened to me in the past.

I got beaten up, I got screamed at, I got hurt as much as possible and then I found my way to fight against it. My way was being as homophobic as possible. I had to get rid of them since they broke me.