Dark Male High School Secrets

They came in packs, shoulders knotted with gym weight, smelling of Axe and iron, boys who scraped knuckles on lockers just to feel something slice. At lunch, they stalked the quad like wolves— every joke a blade, every girl a mirror they wanted to crack or crown. One leaned too long on the freshman in geometry, his eyes doing the talking his mouth was too full of teeth. They had trophy girls, not lovers—prizes they unwrapped with grins in the backseat, then showed off to each other like kills in the forest. Behind it: the need. To be taught something gentle— to understand fractions, how to read a face without splitting it. One, behind the field house, cried when I read his paper aloud. He said don’t tell, and I haven’t. Until now.