Chapter Text
Everyone knew about the rumors that came out sophomore year surrounding Elliot Builder.
Elliot Builder had amassed quite the popular status by the end of freshman year. The kind, charismatic boy who everyone couldn’t help but love.
Straight As and always willing to help you study, glowing star in choir, generous volunteerer in all the big school events, the most gorgeous face and pretty curls and defined muscles you’d ever seen. He was the type of guy you could approach with ease, striking up conversations like you’d known him his whole life.
Teachers adored him, all the guys wanted to be his friend, all the girls wanted to date him.
“Oh, Elliot? Yeah he’s super nice! His tutoring is the only way I managed to pass biology.”
“Elliot is so kind and sweet, I wanna be his girlfriend. He’s still single, somehow!”
“One of my best students. Such a kind and genuine soul.”
“Builder is my man! Never met a guy like him before! The dude doesn’t have a bad bone in his body.”
-people would say.
He wasn’t some flashy football star or the child of models, but he was amazing.
Everyone loved him.
Everyone.
Or they used to, at least.
It was a Saturday, the fourth week of sophomore year. A girl was walking through the quieter part of town. One of those girls who was popular only because she was hot and too loud to be ignored. But she was popular nonetheless. Very popular.
Popular enough to have nearly the entire school friended on instagram, a helpful thing when you need to spread information.
So, safe to say, when she stumbled across Elliot making out with some boy in an alley, it wasn’t a secret for very long.
Pictures were taken. Then those pictures were uploaded to every social media platform you could think of within the hour.
The reputation of Elliot Builder was shattered overnight.
People who once surrounded him like moths to a flame had vanished. Girls who once talked about him like a god now gagged at the sound of his name like a slur. Boys who once messaged him constantly, asking to hang out, scooted around the topic of him like he was taboo.
The pictures were taken down quickly, but damage was already done. Rumors spread. Those sour, bitter ones that you’d hear in documentaries about bullying.
“I heard he’s had sex with seniors.”
“I think he cheats on tests. No way a gay gets grades that good without being a scummy cheater.”
“I saw him sniffing coke in an alley with other dudes before. I swear on it.”
They were fake, obviously, but the difference between real and fake didn’t matter all that much when everyone hated you and wanted more reasons to hate you even more.
The boy Elliot was caught making out with wasn’t anyone popular or meaningful. Some skinny theater kid that didn’t speak unless spoken to. He transferred schools shortly after the photos were posted, the bullying too intense for the poor kid to handle.
Elliot wasn’t as fortunate.
By the time junior year started, he had learned how to sit still enough to fade into the background, eyes downcast as he tried not to listen to his desk mates quietly ask the teacher for a seat change because “My current deskmates just don’t really work well with me”, treating the mention like some unspoken plague. That’s what some people thought he was, actually. Like his sexuality was a disease that they would catch if they got too close.
People didn’t really pay attention to the way his healthy figure slowly grew thinner. The way his normally beautifully glossy curls turned flat and greasy from neglect. The paler complexion of his skin and the deep circles beneath his constantly bloodshot eyes. No one saw the way his eyes darted around rooms, nervous of the very people that surrounded him. The red lines on his arms from anxious scratching or the dried blood cemented beneath his nails from biting them just a bit too hard a bit too often.
He stood in the lunchline once, a hoodie pulled over his tangled hair and casting his face in a shadow that made his features look gray, an overwhelming contrast to the bright colors he always wore before.
He planned to get his food and then leave the crowded area as quickly as possible, searching for refuge in the classrooms of unpopular teachers solely because no one else liked to eat there. He had no “Elliot! Wanna grab lunch together?” invitations, not anymore. Even from his friends that didn’t end up hating him. He got very familiar with hearing “Sorry, I’d love to hang out sometime! I just… y’know, being seen with you… I wouldn’t wanna screw up my reputation with people thinking you like me or anything. You get it, right?”. He had trouble deciding if that or blatant insults hurt more.
“Eugh, Elliot Builder?” some girl in line in front of him muttered, spitting on his name like it was grotesque to her. It was, probably. “He’s so weird! I sit next to him in math. He looks awful, like, hello? Has he ever been introduced to a shower? His hair is greasy enough to be flammable.”
Her friends giggled, the topic hilarious to them. “Yeah! And his acne is disguising. It’s like he tried making his face look like the pizza his dad makes,” her friend added, snickering.
“Oh my god, I just realized- yall think he’s ever tried putting on makeup before? Like, trying to be a girl?” another girl asked, jaw dropping in sudden horror.
“Oh, definitely. I bet he’d look so creepy!” the second girl hummed, considering something. “Actually, he might not even be a guy at all. Maybe he’s one of those transgender freaks. I bet he is.”
“He’s thin enough to be a girl! Like, does he even eat? No way he’s man enough to have a dick,” the first girl added.
“He doesn’t have a dick so he tried to make up for it by taking dick from as many other men as he can!”
Their laughter faded quickly as Elliot cut out of the lunchline, hands trembling and vision blurring as he hurried to whatever classroom crossed his mind first, shoes scuffing against the tiled floor as his legs wobbled.
He wouldn’t eat today. He didn’t need to, he had decided, despite the aching hollowness in his stomach.