I honestly don't know where I was going with this.
When Jehan Prouvaire was thirteen years old, he spend the summer in a martial arts camp.
This was mostly because his seventh grade year had been full of shoves, punches and kicks, and Jehan was sick of coming home bruised and battered for the way he chose to present himself. He had done ballet, but once he realized he needed a way to defend himself and that ballet wasn't enjoyable anymore, he had quit. Ballet, though, had given him a strong yet lean body, and his punches already landed with force. Jehan lacked the technique. His retaliations usually left his knuckles just as bruised and bloody as whoever he hit, if not more.
So he joined a karate class.
On the first day of eighth grade, Jehan braids his hair and threads it through with flowers and ribbons, and when he gets cornered at lunch and rushed at by three boys on the soccer team, he blocks the first blow and slams his fist into the first boy's face—heel of his palm. More force, minimal damage to him. While the boy curses, Jehan dodges the other boy trying to grab onto him and knees him in the stomach.
Calmly, he stands and looks at the last one. "Do you want a try?" he asks, brushing his hands on his bright yellow jeans.
The boy runs, followed by his two friends. Jehan grabs his backpack and walks away, heart pumping and head spinning from the adrenaline. He still needs somewhere to sit and eat and eventually he spots a girl underneath a tree. Jehan recognizes her as the new girl in his homeroom and walks over to her. "Mind if I sit here?" he asks.
The girl looks up and nods and Jehan sits. "I'm Jean. My friends call me Jehan." If he had friends, they would.
"Cosette." Her voice is quiet, but she smiles and doesn't seem to mind the fact that he's a fourteen-year-old boy with flowers in his hair, and a new friendship is born.
xXx
Rumors about Jehan's fighting ability spreads around the school like wildfire. Meanwhile, Jehan still attends lessons four times a week for hours at a time, getting better with each practice. He's glad he did the dance. It makes him a lot more coordinated than half the other boys being taught with him.
Unfortunately, fighting is now his only reputation around the school and no one knows if it's true yet. The girly boy who can deck one of the athletes, they say. Cosette's still his only friend. His femininity prevails above his ability to throw a punch, so the boys are disgusted by him and the girls only talk to him like he's a specimen in a jar.
Mostly, Jehan keeps to himself.
Until he's challenged by another boy on the soccer team to a fight. Jehan accepts, of course. Why wouldn't he accept? He's still getting shoved around though he's tried not to completely lash out at the bullies. So he may as well show everyone exactly what Jehan Prouvaire is capable of.
So at 3:30 on the seventh of October, he meets Max on the field surrounded by half the eighth grade. And they fight, and they fight dirty. Max gets Jehan into a headlock at one point. Jehan jabs the sharp joint of his elbow into Max's stomach and kicks him when he's winded, punches to the temple and sharp stabs to places Jehan knows it will hurt (not the groin though, that's plain despicable).
It's when they're both coughing and wheezing and Jehan's probably going to limp away and Max is doubled over from a blow to his stomach and his face is bleeding from Jehan's nails that Cosette starts up a chant: "Jean Prouvaire! Jean Prouvaire!"
To Jehan's surprise, the students take it up. The soccer team attempts to chant Max's name but Jehan's rises above their chants and it's clear now that Jehan has won. "Shake hands, boys," one of the students says, and Jehan and Max do, before parting ways.
That's how the Wild Rose Middle School's unofficial competitive fighting tournament is started, and they drift just enough off-campus for it to not be an issue for the teachers, but close enough so that they can all watch after school. Jehan's involved in half of them, because everyone suddenly wants to see him morph from a quiet, gentle fourteen-year-old to a boy who will fight for himself, no holds barred.
Jehan wins a lot. He loses a lot too, when they boo him out of the circle or when he's sprawled on his back, blood on his lips. He has two rules for this: he will never challenge anyone to a fight, and he will never, ever throw the first punch.
In a way, it's like getting back at everyone who has ever shoved him, punched him, or thought it fit to call him "faggot." He's just getting back in a way that no one will notice. Because Jehan will not let anyone lay his hands on him if he can avoid it. And usually, he can.
If teachers interfere, Jehan will claim self defense, a strategy that works well enough until the beginning of April, when Jehan finds himself in the principal's office yet again. He's been in here a ridiculous amount of times this year but this is the first time he's ever been in here alone, and he dreads it, because he knows that he is in trouble. When Mr. Watson opens the door, Jehan walks in and takes a seat, staring at his blunt fingernails.
"How are you?" Mr. Watson says.
"Good. Nervous." He can admit that at least. He should be a little more than nervous.
"As you know," Mr Watson says, "you've been involved in several fights with many of the boys in the grade this year."
Jehan nods. "Eleven wins," he says. "I don't keep track of my losses." His voice is quieter than normal. "How deep in trouble am I?"
"Very deep." The look on Mr. Watson's face is stern and condescending. "Every time you have come in here, you've claimed self defense, which I've believed until the number of students coming in to tell me that you accept these organized fights grew. Did you accept the offers to fight with other students?"
Of course Mr. Watson believed it. Jehan is skinny and feminine and if he must say so himself, prettier than half the girls in the grade. "Yes. But I've never asked first and I've never thrown the first punch."
"Accepting the offer is almost as bad as giving it," Mr. Watson says, and Jehan nods. He stares at the worn toes of his floral-print boots. "You've been involved in the most fights, as I hear it, and under normal circumstances you would be expelled. However, since the school year is almost over and you'll be moving to high school, and the fact your grades are exceptional, the school would be willing to suspend you for two weeks and come in for after-school detention for the rest of the year. Is this fair to you?"
It's more than fair. Jehan knows he deserves expulsion, if not more. But he nods. "It's fair," he says. The fact that he approves wholeheartedly of this punishment doesn't stop him from being angry and disappointed in himself as he storms out of the office to where Cosette is waiting. "What's the verdict?"
Jehan repeats what Mr. Watson has said to his best friend, and then Cosette has to run for a doctor's appointment, which leaves Jehan alone with the weight of his punishment and the disappointment of his father on his shoulders.
He hurries into the library and settles into the only aisle that does not have people in it and grabs a book to distract himself from his racing mind.
It's a poetry book.
Jehan reads it, and he calms down slightly, takes a few seconds to admire the way the words seem to fall onto the page, the way they fit together like a puzzle, flow off his tongue as he mutters them under his breath. "Beautiful."
He takes a pen from his pocket and scribbles on his hand:
you were not born to fly
but you were born to be human
and that is all that matters
to the world.
And it's a sloppy poem, but a poem nevertheless. Maybe Jehan has found an outlet. Higher up on his arm, he writes,
those people you see laughing
are not laughing at you
but at the pretentious shit
that they themselves do
Which makes him laugh, and he texts both of his "poems" to Cosette, receiving a smiley face and thumbs up from her. It encourages him to write another one. And another one. And another one.
xXx
He returns home that day to a disappointed father, as he had expected. "A two week suspension. That's not what I would have expected from you."
"There were bullies for the past two years," Jehan says. "I needed to do something. And I know it wasn't the best way to do it, and I'm sorry for attempting to get back at them in this way. But I'm paying the price now and I know I'm being let off easy for it."
He stands there in their driveway as his father contemplates him. Finally, he says, "I'm proud of you."
Jehan starts. "What?"
"I'm definitely not proud of you for getting suspended. I'm not proud of you for fighting. But I'm proud of you for a lot of things," his father said. "Namely knowing what you did and knowing it was wrong, and owning up to it. I'm proud you never directly perpetrated the fights. I'm proud that you never let anyone push you around once you knew you had the means to stop them. Most of all, though, I'm proud of you for knowing who you are and showing the world that you're not afraid to step out of the box like the rest of society is, and for that, you're a better man than they'll ever be."
Jehan is stunned, and a smile cracks open on his face. "Thanks, Dad," he says, before darting forwards to hug his father and rushing back inside the house.
xXx
When he comes back to school two weeks later, if his arms and heart are laden with words of emotion, he does not show it except to Cosette, and when he does, he writes it down with hands still healing from an invisible fight.