The Santa Hoax

Chapter 3

Chapter 3Three Months Ago

Julian’s father was right. High school was more or less like Lord of the Flies, only with more cell phones.

Within his first week, Julian had never seen so many fights break out over nothing—or so many people fall over themselves trying to get attention from all the wrong people. Even the notion of adult supervision seemed ridiculous inside the high school’s walls. The teachers were only in the classrooms and the offices. They were never inside the hallways or the small corners of the stairwells or around the building by the bleachers at five o’clock. As far as Julian could see, there were two distinct levels to high school life: what teachers didn’t see out of ignorance, and then what teachers deliberately turned their back on. The drugs and the fights were oftentimes what they didn’t see out of ignorance. But stuff like bullying, especially cyberbullying, was what no one saw at all, even if it was right in front of them.

“It is not our problem,” one teacher said to Julian when Aiden was being constantly harassed online. What had started out as a bunch of jerks texting him all night and day had quickly spread into a f*******: smear campaign. Before he saw the web page, Julian had just known that something was wrong with Aiden but couldn’t exactly prove it. There was no logical explanation as to how all these people had gotten Aiden’s phone number or his e-mail. With evidence in his hands, Julian brought the website to the attention of the technology teacher, Mrs. DeVors, and expected a swift end to the entire affair.

Mrs. DeVors had been visibly uncomfortable as her eyes flitted across the epithets written online. They went from calling Aiden “poor Jewboy” to “faggot,” and then, well, even Julian didn’t like to read that far. Up until he had found the site, Julian had been so convinced the teasing had been about him—or both of them. They were used to being teased as a unit in middle school, and while that was still terrible, Julian had forgotten one positive thing about it: if they were teased together, they could fight together. They automatically had someone on their side, no matter what.

But there had been nothing on the f*******: page about Julian. Nothing at all. Now that the bullying was aimed just at Aiden, Julian had no idea how to proceed. Aiden had pulled away from him at the start of high school, probably expecting that the world was against him now. All the evidence pointed to that conclusion, and no matter what Julian did to prove to Aiden that he did care, Aiden was suspicious. The teasing had driven a wedge between them where there only used to be trust. Julian knew finding the actual web page—and getting it shut down—would be the only way to prove to Aiden that he was on his side. Forever.

But Mrs. DeVors wasn’t helping at all.

“As upsetting as this is, Julia, I can’t do anything,” she said again, turning the screen away. “This isn’t happening on school grounds, so we can’t stop it. There’s no way to know that anyone from this school started the group.”

“But that’s who’s making fun of Aiden. That’s who started the page. It’s so obvious.”

“That’s your suspicion. There is no proof. I can’t do anything about that. I can’t bring down the Internet.”

“You’re the technology teacher,” Julian stated desperately. “Surely you can do something.”

But she merely frowned and showed Julian the door.

“The good thing about the online world, if there is one, is that it never lasts too long, Julia. All things will eventually change.”

Julian had been angry, so angry he could feel his blood boil, but he didn’t say a thing. Aiden didn’t want to fight about it either. Even though he kept getting spam and threats via his online account, he was determined to just block or delete people.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he said after school one day.

“Yes, it is. They started calling you names—”

“Everyone gets called names in school, J—”

“But not like this. This is too big. This is too far. It’s like all the novels we read over the summer…The machines are attacking!

“Except it’s not the machines anyway. It’s people.”

“And that’s why we have to try and stop it. We can’t let them get this far, because they need to realize they’re using people. Hurting people. They can’t just spew hate online. That affects people.”

“But then they know they’ve hurt me. Right now if I just block them, it’s like I’m interacting with a robot. They don’t see me get upset. But if I walk into the principal’s office and start to cry, then they’ve won. Not that I’d cry, but you know.” Aiden looked down and away. “Look, it’s not that big of a deal. I can’t fight this. I don’t want to.”

Julian nodded then, understanding. He stopped bringing it up to Aiden so much, but Julian still couldn’t let the whole situation go. When Damien had seen how upset Julian was—partly because of the new and uncomfortable gender dynamics in school and partly because of Aiden—he hadn’t known how to respond either.

“Do you want to talk…kiddo? Or maybe your mom? I think she’s at the lab, but she’ll be back soon. She probably knows what you’re going through more. Right?”

Julian sighed. “Probably not. But it’s nothing, Dad. School’s just…rough. Worse than Lord of the Flies.”

“Oh? You should tell me about it.”

Julian bit his lip. He looked from the bookshelf behind his dad back to his cell phone in his hand, just as it buzzed with another message from Aiden. Since Julian hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about what he was going through with his gender, he told his father everything about Aiden instead. The f*******: page, some of the text messages Aiden had just forwarded to him—everything. And because this was Damien Gibson, town council member, he walked into the school for a meeting with everyone involved.

“As I told Julian,” Mrs. DeVors said. “We can’t do anything because we can’t find the original student who started this. So we don’t know if the school is involved.”

“They are. You see them post on the f*******: wall and their tagged geo-location. You can easily trace their IPs back and find students that go here. These are not hackers—they’re fourteen- and fifteen-year-old kids. Even if they weren’t the starting members, these kids all met one another in the same school. This high school is still the nexus,” Damien argued. “Surely then it’s the school’s problem.”

The principal, Mr. Fisher—a tall man with a goatee and a bit of a belly—shook his head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Gibson. But the school’s code of conduct is very clear on this matter.”

“It doesn’t sound clear. You’ve updated it for dress codes before, so why not update it for online altercations?”

Mr. Fisher faltered. “There is nothing we can do. Unless we can prove that these e-mails are being sent from a school computer, the mere notion that it is this specific group of boys terrorizing Aiden is as good as gossip. And we can’t go on a witch hunt for gossip. We’d be staking out the girls’ bathroom, then, just to hear about prom!”

Both Julian and his father shuddered slightly at the insinuation. Damien gave Julian a sympathetic look, a quiet I’m sorry. I didn’t know how ridiculously sexist the school was, and then glanced back at the principal. Julian wanted to thank his father for acknowledging the ridiculous remark—but at the same time, didn’t want to situate himself inside that sexism at all.

“What if I could show you that these were coming from the same computers in the high school? Would you change your mind?” Damien asked.

“Do you have that information right now?” Mr. Fisher asked.

“No.”

“But,” Julian jumped in. “I know how to get it. It’s really easy.”

Mr. Fisher nodded—as if he had expected them not to deliver right away. He sighed as he ran his fingers through his goatee. Julian felt another shudder move through him as Mr. Fisher went on in a loud and patronizing voice.

“I see. Well, no need to spy on our students. We can merely attempt to block some of those websites kids are using to apparently make these threats on our school computers. But we cannot entirely prove it was these kids.”

“Even when you have their phones?” Damien asked. “Surely you could ask—especially if their phones are in their lockers. That’s school property, giving you justification for searching.”

Mrs. DeVors and Mr. Fisher exchanged looks.

“Even if we could look, we cannot take away their phones. We will have more parents coming in and complaining, since many have their cell phones for safety purposes.”

“Safety? You’re choosing one child over another, then.”

No one, not even Julian or Aiden, looked up at this point. Aiden had been so quiet the past fifteen minutes, Julian would have forgotten he was there if not for the sparks that connected them.

Damien sighed. “So, there is nothing you can do—or rather, nothing you want to do to fix this?”

Julian felt his father’s voice, so rarely angry, rumble through the office walls. At first Julian had been relieved that his dad had come to help. Now, as he caught a glimpse of Aiden in the seat next to him, Julian felt his heart sink. Damien had come to help because Aiden’s parents were often missing or working overtime. He was a skinny kid, a poor kid—like those posts had said—and he was an easy target because of it. His sci-fi novels and his sudden stutter in times of stress made everything so much worse. Even Damien probably aggravated things. He only reminded Aiden about the bullying—and that his own parents didn’t bother to show.

And even here, Julian thought, in the land of the Lord of the Flies, Damien has no power.

“We cannot stop words, Mr. Gibson,” Mr. Fisher stated. “None of the threats were violent. They were just mean. Moreover, this is not your son.”

“He has been our next-door neighbor and a good friend of my daughter’s for years.”

Julian flinched under the words. No one noticed.

“I understand,” Mr. Fisher said.

“So do you tolerate hate speech in the school?” Damien asked. “Because I’m sure that’s just words too, but they are actually punished in our legal system. I would think the same rules would apply.”

An eerie silence fell over the room. A small ping sounded from someone’s phone. If Julian hadn’t felt so sick to his stomach, he probably would have laughed at this dramatic irony. Mrs. DeVors shifted in her seat and made eye contact with Mr. Fisher. Each one of the adults’ gazes met one another before Damien turned to Julian and Aiden.

“Hey,” he said, his voice calmer now and his smile crooked. “I think we’re going to continue this conversation in private. Meet me by my car and I’ll give you both a ride home. Okay?”

“Sure,” Julian said.

He got up from the chair and waited for Aiden to move. Aiden’s eyes stayed focused on the ground, like a magnifying glass to an ant. It took Julian elbowing him in the side before he got up and walked dejectedly out the door.

The hallways of the school were empty. There was a casual shuffle of janitors’ mops down the corridors and teachers inside their staff areas, preparing for the next day. Julian, feeling braver than he had in weeks, turned toward Aiden. When Aiden still didn’t look at him, he reached forward to grab his hand like they had done as kids.

Aiden recoiled instantly. Julian tried to not let the movement hurt him. Aiden was upset, angry, and saddened. High school had been ruined for him within the first three weeks. Everything was now a threat. Julian understood. He knew what it was like for the world to seem against him, even if it was in another way.

“It’s okay, A,” Julian said, his voice soft. “My dad will help. He’s on the town council. He’s the reason this school gets tax breaks and funding. I’m sure they just realized that and are no longer being stupid.”

“Your dad isn’t my dad,” Aiden stated. “But my dad is going to kill me.”

“What? Why? It’s not your fault.”

“It is. All of this is. And you don’t even know.” He turned away from Julian and headed toward the double doors of the school.

“I want to know, A. Tell me. You can trust me.” Julian walked quickly next to him, staying close but not too close.

“No, I can’t. You can never know, Julia.”

The weight of Julian’s birth name on his best friend’s tongue clung to him. The high school suddenly seemed so quiet and so lonely.

“I can try,” Julian said.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be a guy. You pretend and you dress like one, but you’ll never really get it.”

“I want to—”

“No. Just f**k off, okay? I’m sorry, but you’re not a guy, Julia. I just can’t have you around me right now.”

Julian could feel his face grow hot. He tried to remember some lines from books they had read together, the inside jokes they had created—anything to make Aiden understand they were still friends. They still understood one another, in spite of their bodies and perceptions. In spite of bullying and for whatever other reasons. But each time Julian started to say something, Aiden looked back with daggers in his eyes.

“Look, I’m sorry. You’re a good friend. I just…Leave me alone at school, okay?”

“What?” Julian said.

“Leave me alone at school. I just need to disappear for a while. Maybe then it will all stop.”

Julian’s lip quivered, so he bit it until it stopped. “Okay. But what about at home? We used to be neighbors, A—”

“I know. But we’re not now. And I just don’t know. We can’t hang out for a while.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know what goes on in the boys’ locker room. You don’t know what it’s like in that bathroom. They’re brutal, Julia. You think you know because you see what’s there online, but that’s not even half of it. And I can’t do this anymore. I need to find friends. That’s the only way I’m surviving.”

“I’m your friend.” Julian’s voice quaked inside of him. Aiden had been his only connection to his past that was not scary or overwhelming. He was Julian’s only connection to the world of men and masculinity, which he wanted to be a part of.

But more than that, didn’t Aiden understand that girls were just as vicious to Julian? They gossiped and called him a “dyke” or “lesbo” behind his back. Didn’t Aiden even realize how often Julian held how much he had to pee most days so he could avoid using the bathroom? And did he not hear the stupid, sexist s**t that came out of the principal’s mouth? Both of their worlds sucked right now. But Julian had been so sure, like in all the stories he had read about, that if they worked together they could change things. The future would be different if they worked on it together.

“I’m going, okay? Tell your dad thanks,” Aiden said.

“But the ride…”

“I’m walking. I’ll talk to you later.”

Aiden pushed his way through the double doors and soon disappeared around the corner of the school. Julian’s legs ached with how much he wanted to run after him. But instead he stayed still, listening until he could no longer hear anything but the slow swish of the mop inside the high school hallways. Then Julian listened to the silence, knowing what it felt like to be the last man on earth.

“Where’s Aiden?” Damien asked a few minutes later. He put a hand on Julian’s shoulder. It was soft, sturdy—as if he thought Julian would fall over.

“Left. Had a project to do. He said thanks.”

Damien nodded.

“How did it go with Principal Fisher?”

Damien rolled his eyes. “Just be glad you’re not a boy, J. Just be glad about that.”

For a moment, Julian considered arguing two things: one, that being a girl was just as hard; and the other, that he was a boy, if people just gave him a chance.

Instead Julian nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well,” Damien said, “let’s just go home.”