Twelve:

TWELVE:

Jack

Jack was the smallest kid in class. He hated being short, hated being so narrow shouldered. Everyone else was broad and tall. Some boys even had hair on their upper lips.

Though the runt of the pack, he emerged popular but never the ringleader he wanted to be. Time resigned him to their jokes about his size, and on some level, he hated himself for letting them get away with it.

Jack accepted that he wasn’t extraordinary, or noticeable. In class, he raised his hand even if he didn’t know the answer just so his teacher—whom he loved and often dreamed about–would look in his direction. She never did. He had no great aspirations and came from average blue-collar stock. Jack appeared destined to be forgotten, and worst of all, he knew it.

One recess, he slipped into the boy’s restroom. In the farthest stall, he sat on the toilet seat and opened his backpack, dug through notebooks and lunch wrappers to fish out a pen. Nervous, he scribbled words against the back of the door