I couldn't look at it.

It's funny, I guess. Out of all the weird things that happened that day, all the sad things, that was the one thing I just couldn't look at.

Goddamn Bender. John Bender. He's famous at this school. A fucking legend. I said that he could disappear and no one would even notice but I was lying. Of course I was lying. They all knew it, except maybe Bender himself.

It's not that I'm scared of him. Well, maybe I am. A little. I took him down once but there's something there, behind his eyes, that tells me if we ever really got into it, I'd lose. Badly. And now I know why.

It was just a scar. Not such a big deal really--just one little scar.

Looks just about the size of a cigar, do I stutter?

A little round scar, on the inside of his arm. It never even occurred to me to wonder why Bender never wears t-shirts. It's old--I could see how the skin around it had stretched and puckered as it grew.

See, this is what you get at my house when you spill paint in the garage.

I thought he was going to punch me when he strode up to the table, chains clinking, flannel shirt flapping. But he just bent over me, so close I could smell the tobacco on his breath, and thrust his arm, his evidence, under my nose.

You believe this?

He hissed his words into my ear, and I couldn't look at it anymore. I couldn't look at it, at him, at anything.

Just a scar.

What other scars are hidden behind the layers of baggy clothes, the attitude problem, that infuriating grin?

I'll never know.

I don't want to know.