Operation Sal | Sally Face x Travis Phelps

22

Travis should've felt good.

He reminded himself of that fact as he sat on the creaking edge of his old mattress, early on a foggy Tuesday morning, staring down at his teddy bear, repaired with thin, carefully precise stitching.

He reminded himself of it again as he brushed the flat pad of his thumb along the bear's tawny fur, against the light-colored thread nestled deep between it.

He chanted it in his head like a mantra as he stumbled over to the closet with sleepy legs, tucking said bear up onto the high shelf, behind a stack of messily folded clothes, being sure to keep his prized possession hidden from those who may have been searching for it.

He reasserted it as he stared at the drawer where his mother's note was tucked away, in a hidden compartment, folded into the smallest possible square of paper that he could feasibly achieve.

His mother loved him. She didn't want to leave him. She never wanted to leave him. That thought alone was enough to make Travis's insides melt into a pool, enough to make him feel much better than he had felt prior to finding the note.

And so, his discomfort was bizarre, to say the least. He awoke feeling uneasy. The sun on his face peeking through the window blinds seemed almost poisonous, making him sick to his stomach rather than warm and refreshed.

He wasn't sick, not with any physical ailment, at least, but there was a distinct feeling brewing within the deepest depths of his stomach, imbedded in the cooling of his chest, a feeling of swirling uncertainty, of an irrational hesitation, a feeling, undeniably, of dread.

Travis peddled to school early that morning anyway, ignoring the anxiety eating away at his insides.

It was rather humid. The air was thick and clouded with water vapor and Travis's face and neck were becoming somewhat damp just from riding his bike through the endless haze of fog. He hated the feeling of his clothes against dewy skin.

But, after a relatively short period of time, he'd arrived at the school building, and that meant that the hard part was over with.

The kids loitering around in the main hallway seemed even more obnoxious than usual, giggling and behaving in a far too lively manner, considering it was a Tuesday morning, a murky, grey Tuesday morning at that.

Travis hauled his backpack straps over his shoulder and huffed, brushing past and weaving between them like he did every morning, wondering distantly what all the commotion was for anyway.

And then he saw it.

A photocopied piece of paper taped haphazardly to the wall. The first few words, "Sal, I like you,"

He did a double-take. If he had turned his neck any faster, with any more force, he may have broken his neck.

Travis froze in place, his dark eyes scanning the paper, searching desperately for an answer that he was too deeply rooted in denial to see.

He stared into the thick etching of his own handwriting, into the loops and sharp lines that made up his lettering. His heart dropped to his feet and he skimmed over his own words over and over and over again until they were nothing but gibberish markings splattered on lined paper.

"I like you even though you're a boy and I'm supposed to like girls."

"Sometimes I think about what it would be like if you liked me too."

"You make me happy. I'm always happier if you're there."

And, perhaps more frightening than anything else, at the bottom of the page, "-t.p"