I Am Human Too

• Emma Bankier, Grade 9I
• Short Story
• 2018

My name is Mohammed. I am 19. I am gay. I’ve been told by people I believed were my friends that I should die, that I am a burden on this world, that I do not deserve any scrap of happiness. Obviously, I am no longer friends with those people, I am now friends with eleven other guys, including my brother, a transgender and another gay man. We all attend Mystika High, the only school on the planet with no racist or sexist people. That does not mean any homophobic people. We have one major homophobe at our school, her name’s Shea. Shea is a girl that thinks she is pretty on the inside and outside, but isn't. Shea once threatened to kill me and Jay-Len, the other gay man, for being gay. However, Jay-Len's brother Yip stepped in and said that Shea would have to kill him too. Shea is in love with Yip, as are many others, so she backed down, and we were saved.
A few weeks ago, Yip wasn't at school because of sickness.
"Hey, Jay-Len, is Yip coming to school today? It'd be a shame if he wasn't," Shea remarked, she was acting in that suspiciously weird way people do when they're about to do something evil.
"No... He's staying home today, he's sick," Jay-Len replied cautiously.
"Awe, that's a shame, maybe you and that other gay idiot should go home as well, back to whatever hell-hole you crawled out of!" Shea bellowed at the two of us.
Malachi, the adorable transgender boy, told Shea she was being unreasonably rude. Shea stared at him in disbelief, no one besides Yip has ever talked back to her before.
He turned to Guy, his best friend, rubbing his face where Shea's hand had whipped him. Guy hugged Malachi gently and patted his head. Yamato, another one of my friends, notorious for getting mad very fast, stormed over to where Shea was standing and slapped her.
"Hey! You can't slap a girl! That's sexist!" Shea's friend Cleo yelled.
"It's not sexist, idiot, you hit one of my best friends, it's only fair you know how he feels," Yamato retorted.
"YOU ARE AS DUMB AS YOUR GAY FRIENDS!!" Shea screamed, she ran out of the hall, screaming that everyone hates her.
Shea came back in, I asked her to talk in private. She agreed, saying I can’t touch her.
"Shea, I know you don't like gay people, but that does not mean you have to be this rude. I am a human, just like you, I have emotions, just like you. I know you know well that this is not right. I am human, like everyone around you. We all experience hardships that we don't tell others about, we all suppress our negative feelings to try and feel accepted. I just want to be accepted like everyone else. Please accept me," I told her. Shea was laughing.
"You will never be accepted." Shea walked back inside, leaving me in tears.