Alone in the dark, I sat as close to the television as I could. I wanted to see him again. I needed to know why they all hated him so much. He look like a faggot. I knew what that word meant too. A boy who likes boys. It was the word that hounded me every day at school. And now I knew that my mother hated them. It confirmed what I had been slowly realizing: that I needed to hide myself. I was twelve.
