Outside

by Paul Dunn

  He smiles.

  krystina: And . . . ?

  jeremy: What?

  krystina: “I don’t want to lose any more friends.” You said, “slam! I wrote that one too!” And then you zoned out.

  jeremy: Oh, yeah, I was just thinking about . . .

  daniel: But we never made it to Valentine’s Day.

  krystina: What?

  jeremy: Nothing, I . . . here, here’s what I wrote (referring to his paper) — I want to start a club for kids who are gay or queer or whatever because I want to get to know kids who are gay or queer or whatever. If they’re anything like Daniel, I wanna get to know them. And even if they’re not, if they’re dorky or weird or different or whatever, I want to have the chance to be their friend. Because who knows, right, what someone could give you as a friend, right?

  krystina stares at him.

  Is that stupid?

  krystina: No. So . . . a place to make new friends?

  Beat.

  jeremy: Gah. Barf. If we write a mission statement like this no one is gonna wanna come to this loser club.

  daniel: One teacher we had, Mr. Johnston — he taught English and drama and he was also our choir teacher. He had a rule, that in his classroom no one was allowed to use derogatory language based on sexual orientation. He said it out loud, and he stuck to it. He smiled; he asked me how I was doing. He treated me like . . . like I wasn’t a problem, I was a . . . good kid, you know? He seemed so cool to me. He was confident in what he liked to do, and he wasn’t afraid to show he was passionate about stuff, and I could relate to that. And if I wallowed in my loneliness a bit too much, if I complained to Krystina a few too many times that there was no one at Salisbury for me to date, if sat in my room, staying up way too late making Youtube videos and feeling sorry for myself, I could look at Mr. Johnston and think that one day I could be like him. Funny, I didn’t even know he was gay, that he had a partner, until after . . .

  krystina: You know that girl Josie?

  jeremy: Yeah?

  krystina: She came up to me the first day back; I was sitting alone out by the bike racks and she starts asking me — how was my summer, how am I holding up? did I still talk to Daniel? (imitating Josie’s dramatics) And that she just can’t . . . get . . . over . . . what . . . happened.

  jeremy: Really?

  krystina: Oh, yeah. I was like, “Could be worse, Josie. He could’ve died, like you all were hoping he would, you know, like when you posted on his wall ‘no one likes you, no one would care if you died’ ”? And she was all, “That wasn’t me! They don’t know for sure who did that,” and I said, “I don’t care if it was you or one of your friends, or one of their boyfriends, or whoever — you’re not allowed to pretend like you care. Get out of my face before I punch you — ”

  jeremy: whoa —

  krystina: I know, I know, but I was not having it from Josie. Josie, who I saw in the crowd that day, trying to get to the front to get a better view as Daniel was being beat on. You know what she did when I said that? When I threatened her? She started to cry. “That’s so mean,” she said, “I can’t believe you’re being so mean . . . ”

  jeremy: Maybe she’ll show up here? What’ll you do then?

  krystina shakes her head.

  You gonna give people a chance, Krystina, or they gotta be perfect already?

  krystina: Sure. If they own up. If they apologize.

  jeremy: Okay. Good luck with that.

  krystina: Exactly.

  jeremy: I’m just saying, maybe they act the way they do because they don’t know another way. And we could maybe get them to think about stuff differently, but you have to give them a chance —

  krystina: Are you really saying that, Jeremy!? Think about that day, okay? Just for a second and then . . . look at me and say that again —

  daniel: It was the weekend before Valentine’s Day. Someone sent out a picture, and by Monday morning it was on everyone’s phone. I was wondering why people kept asking me if I was looking forward to choir practice with Mr. Johnston, and would I be staying after school for some one-on-one —

  A shift/flashback. krystina and daniel.

  Let me see it.

  krystina: It’s stupid, you don’t want to see it.

  daniel: What is it though? Tell me what it is.

  krystina: It’s just a . . . gross picture, it doesn’t even look real.

  daniel: What does it have to do with Mr. Johnston?

  Beat.

  Krystina!

  krystina: It’s . . . it’s fake. Photoshopped. You and him. I erased it right away. It’s disgusting.

  daniel: Who sent it?

  krystina: Brianna, but she didn’t make it —

  daniel: who made it??

  krystina: I don’t know, it’s being passed around.

  daniel’s phone chimes.

  Don’t look at it.

  daniel looks at his phone. He stares and stares and stares.

  I’m sorry.

  jeremy joins them. He looks over his shoulder to see if anyone’s watching, and then he says —

  jeremy: Hey guys. Um . . . just a heads-up, there’s a whole bunch of people waiting for Daniel to come out the doors there —

  krystina: Why?

  jeremy: They wanna, um . . .

  daniel: They wanna see my face.

  krystina: What do you want to do, Daniel?

  daniel: I want to die, what do you think?

  daniel stares out.

  jeremy: Go out the back. Just run.

  daniel: And tomorrow?

  jeremy: Skip school. It’ll blow over.

  daniel: It’ll never blow over.

  They wait.

  krystina: Daniel?

  daniel: Stay here. Don’t follow. See you guys on the other side.

  daniel pushes through the double doors. krystina and jeremy watch him go. daniel is back in his classroom in the present, telling the story to us, as krystina and jeremy remain in the flashback, watching daniel through the double doors.

  I push through the double doors out onto the front yard . . . And the crowd parts. To let me through.

  jeremy: It’s okay. He’s gonna be okay.

  daniel: I manage to hold my head up. Takes everything in me. And I walk through them. In silence. Until someone says, “Nice picture, Danny.” Some whistles and cheers. And . . . I don’t think I’ve given them what they want, and so one of them, this little dude from Jeremy’s team, gets in my face so that I actually can’t move forward without . . . I have a quick moment where I decide: eff this, it’s gonna happen anyway, so I shoulder into him to try and get past, and that’s it, that’s the cue . . . I get pushed down —

  krystina: Oh my god.

  daniel: — and I try to get up and I’m tripped. And so I swing with my backpack, and then I’m punched / once, twice, and then I’m crawling along the concrete, getting scraped up and just trying to get through, but with blood covering my eye . . .

  krystina: Jeremy! Oh my god! Do something! . . . do / something! go get someone! now!

  jeremy: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay!

  krystina pushes him away and goes through the doors —

  krystina: leave him alone!

  daniel: I can hear, somewhere, Krystina screaming, and I look up to see, standing there . . . Mr. Johnston. He picks me up off the ground. And I’m thinking . . . it’s official: God hates me. If I thought anyone, or anything, was looking out for me, I was wrong.

  krystina and jeremy are back in their classroom in the present. krystina moves away to be on her own, looking out the door. jeremy sits.

  I went home and I told my folks I fell off my bike, and I went to my room and I didn’t come out. And the next day I skipped school. I told my parents I was sick. Only the school called my mom at
her work. They told her there’d been some trouble and that a teacher had witnessed me “in a fight.”

  Beat.

  And so my mom comes home from work and sits at the end of my bed and takes my hand and asks me to just tell her what’s going on. She says to just talk, that she won’t interrupt or question and that whatever I say I won’t be in trouble and I can just talk as if she’s not there, and say what’s on my mind. And I’m thinking, wow . . . my mom is awesome, she’s doing absolutely everything right in this situation; it’s too bad really, ’cause those kids have totally screwed us, screwed this . . . no way can I tell my mom that someone photoshopped me having an explicit sexual act with my male teacher. I don’t care, there is no . . . way. I’m sorry. But they win. They win they win they win they win. They win.

  krystina: And then, when he didn’t show up at school, people were being so gross, remember? Guys were high-fiving in the hallway like they were congratulating each other on getting rid of the homo, and their stupid girlfriends would giggle about it. You want me to give them a chance? I hate them all, Jeremy. I can’t stand it.

  jeremy: You don’t hate me, do you?

  krystina: You’re not like them.

  jeremy: Don’t be so sure.

  krystina: What do you mean?

  jeremy: I just don’t know if . . . if I hadn’t been part of your study group, if I hadn’t had a chance to get to know him, on another level, if . . .

  krystina: What?

  jeremy: I can’t say for sure that I wouldn’t have been out there, with them, that day.

  krystina: Don’t be stupid.

  Beat.

  jeremy: There was this one lunch hour, in the caf, and I was showing the guys this funny video on my phone . . .

  krystina: So?

  jeremy: And yeah, and Doug was like, can I see that? And I notice he starts scrolling, looking at other stuff and he says, “You got Daniel’s number?” And I said, “It’s for class. We’re doing a project. So?” and I grab it out of his hand.

  krystina: Doug?

  jeremy: Yeah.

  krystina: The little guy on your team? The one you guys are always laughing at?

  jeremy: “Tiny.” Yeah. So the next day I’m in the locker room after practice and I come back from the shower and the guys are gathered around my school bag, and they’ve got my phone and they’re doing something with it. There was this phase when we all would, like, take pics of our butts with each other’s phones, so that you find it later and it’s, like, a gross surprise —

  krystina: Amazing.

  jeremy: I thought maybe that’s what they were trying to do. I didn’t think about it. Until way, way later, and . . . I should’ve figured it out. They were getting his number. For that texting game. They got it from me. And when I did figure it out, I didn’t call them on it. It wasn’t like it was just any one of them, anyway, right? I mean they shared it out, and shared it out —

  krystina: Shut up, Jeremy. I need a minute.

  They sit there.

  daniel: I go back to school a week later. In a fog. Just flatlined inside. But I didn’t stay. I started skipping regularly, which is so not me; I am not that kid. My parents freaked out. Principal Evans talks to me. She sets me up with a counsellor who works with the school and we talk. I didn’t know if I was skipping school because I was depressed or because I was afraid and raw, you know? It’s the opposite of what they always say, that you learn to deal with these things and it makes you stronger. You toughen up, and then you are better able to live your life, out there in the . . . real world. That hasn’t been my experience. I didn’t toughen up, I . . . just deadened inside, and then swung wildly from panic to dread to feeling nothing. Panic, dread, nothing. I spent a lot of time thinking . . . “who cares.” I had appointments with the counsellor once a week. She gave me assignments, stuff to write about, my feelings. I saw a doctor who put me on antidepressants. I did what everybody said, but I didn’t feel better. They were all trying, and it wasn’t working. And that made me feel stupid and ashamed, like, what’s wrong with me!? So I got really good at faking it. But I still had to go into that school every day. I didn’t want this person’s life, whosever it was. That feeling that the world hates me and I want to die, that feeling was hanging around. I think that that feeling had actually been there for a while, like, since those early days when people started playing that game, the one where they’d ask, are you a . . . That feeling had been waiting for me to just give into it. So I guess I did. I . . . couldn’t help it, I don’t think. I gave in.

  jeremy: I’m sorry. I really am.

  krystina won’t look at him.

  But it’s not simple, okay? We’re not all like you — like, for whatever reason, you’re on top of these things, you think about stuff, and that’s great, but the rest of us screw up. A lot.

  krystina: No kidding.

  jeremy: Doesn’t mean we’re happy with the way things go. Or that we don’t want something different.

  daniel: It’s not like I didn’t have encouragement. I’d become the human trash can for people’s . . . I don’t even know what to call it. What do you call it when a kid writes anonymous posts like, “You should just do us all a favour and kill yourself.” Or, “You should just kill yourself, faggot.” Or, on my locker, “No one will ever love you.” Or, “You make everyone sick. No one would miss you.” Mr. Johnston wouldn’t look at me, stopped talking to me at all. Later, after everything, he apologized to my mom: he was afraid of making things worse for me. He’d seen the picture. That’s what I finally realized. And when I realized that I . . . threw up. No joke. Not only my own life was garbage, it was spreading, to people who reached out to me. If I had been asked to imagine hell . . . it wouldn’t have come close to Salisbury Collegiate. I wrote a note, which said goodbye to everyone, and carried it around in my pocket for a month.

  Long beat.

  And then one day, it was just the day to do it. I . . . I fully fully fully fully fully fully fully acknowledge now that it was not the right thing to do, to try, I . . . when I was in it, it was all I could see. It’s an awful place. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even those guys who . . . And if I could, I would go to all the kids who are there right now, or who are getting there, and just take them and say, “No, no, here, come here, I know you don’t believe me but there’s a way out, please please please don’t do this.” I would go back and do that for myself.

  Beat.

  Is it okay that I’m talking about this? I don’t want to upset anyone. Or maybe I do. We should be upset, I think. We should maybe all be a little more upset about this than we are . . .

  krystina: After we heard that Daniel had tried to . . .

  jeremy: Yeah.

  krystina: And they called that assembly?

  jeremy: Yeah.

  krystina: I realized then that you were the only one at the school I felt connected to at all.

  jeremy: Yeah?

  krystina: I thought, maybe, it was gonna be okay, you know? Daniel hadn’t died and so we caught it in time. The teachers and the principal would talk to us and maybe even the cops would come and scare everyone and people would realize that . . . this is real, the stuff we do is real.

  jeremy: Yeah.

  krystina: But then we’re at the assembly, and they’re talking to us in this really soft manner, and telling us that we can’t blame ourselves, Daniel wasn’t well, and they’d like to take some time to talk to us about suicide prevention and mental-health issues. I was like —

  jeremy: You got so red I thought you were going to explode.

  krystina: I would’ve if you hadn’t held my hand . . .

  jeremy: Yeah. So . . .

  krystina: I had to go from that “prevention assembly” to my friend, in the hospital.

  Shift/flashback. krystina and daniel at the hospital.

  You’
re an idiot.

  daniel: I beg them to let you visit me and that’s the greeting I get?

  krystina: I meant to say something nicer, I swear to god, but . . .

  She hugs him, starts to cry.

  Dammit, I wasn’t going to do that either.

  daniel: Hi, Krystina.

  krystina: Hi, best friend. Thanks for screwing up and not dying. Also . . . I’m so, so sorry that you —

  daniel: It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.

  krystina: Jeremy says hi.

  daniel: Cool.

  Beat.

  krystina: They treating you nice here?

  daniel: Oh yeah, it’s super sweet.

  Beat.

  What am I missing?

  krystina: Nothing much. Same old stupid school.

  daniel: How’s Mr. Johnston?

  Beat.

  krystina: He’s gone. On leave.

  Beat.

  You can’t come back to our school. Okay?

  daniel: I know. They’re working on moving me to a different school. My parents and someone from the board. There’s one downtown that has, like, special support for freaks like me —

  krystina: You’re not a freak.

  daniel: So they tell me.

  krystina: Is it a nice school?

  daniel: Can it be any worse than Salisbury?

  krystina: Um . . . nope.

  They sort of laugh. Beat.

  daniel: I’m sorry.

  They look at each other. krystina can’t speak.

  I scared the crap out of myself.

  Beat.

  krystina: Us too.

  Long beat.

  daniel: And my dad won’t stop crying.

  Back to the separate classrooms.

  Once they had stabilized me, at the hospital, I was sent to psychiatric care and a doctor talked to me, and I told her, finally, everything I’ve told you so far, pretty much. And while I was telling her the, I don’t know, the fact that I was so far away from my school and my home . . . my problems seemed like . . . You know, I once had a weird conversation with Mr. Mercer. He held me back one day after class. “Whatever problems you’re having, Daniel, remember to keep some perspective. High school’s not everything.” And I said, “You mean, it gets better?” And he said, “No, it already is, if you expand your area of thinking. Make your world a little larger than this school and the problems in the school shrink.” Sure.